Subiektywny
The expressive busts · 1980–1999
A frontal bust, a still face without individuality — and on that face, each time, something happens: a slab drops over the eyes, the matter tears open on the chest, two bronze hands join in an opening. They are inner states brought to the surface and given form: subjectivity, laceration, recollection.
The series opens in 1980 with the two «Subiektywny» — the Subjective — and crosses almost twenty years. The faces stay impersonal on purpose: on stage there is no portrait but a state, and anyone must be able to recognise themselves in it. The wood is polished until it mirrors the light; the bronze carries its patina.
The busts
Eight busts in the order of the years, all in colour: the patina of the bronzes and the mirror-polished wood are as much part of the work as the form.
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Open the catalogue entry → AW.S.0007 Subiektywny
Subjective1980 · bronze · 10 × 9 × 16 cm with base
private collectionThe small version, in bronze: the Subjective to hold in the hand.
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Open the catalogue entry → AW.S.0009 Z cyklu Subiektywny
From the cycle «Subiektywny»1980 · bronze · 10 × 9 × 16 cm with base
private collection -
Open the catalogue entry → AW.S.0059 Subiektywny I
Subjective I1980 · wood
Centrum Rzeźby Polskiej, OrońskoThe large version, in wood.
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Open the catalogue entry → AW.S.0022 Rozdarty
Torn1981–84 · mahogany · h 50 cm
Muzeum Regionalne, Siedlce -
Open the catalogue entry → AW.S.0060 Rozdarty
Torn1984 · mahogany
Centrum Rzeźby Polskiej, OrońskoSame title, a distinct work: the Torn returns twice in the series.
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Enter the room → AW.S.0021 Skupienie
Recollection1986–87 · black oak, bronze · h 57 cm, two elements
Muzeum Regionalne, SiedlceIn the opening of the chest, two joined bronze hands.
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Open the catalogue entry → AW.S.0013 Zranione Ego
Wounded ego1997 · mahogany · three elements
Muzeum Regionalne, Siedlce -
Open the catalogue entry → AW.S.0002 Nadzieja
Hope1999 · black oak · h 57 cm, three elements
Muzeum Regionalne, SiedlceThe close of the series: the bust opens into two halves, and in the gap sits a bronze sphere. Material twin of Skupienie: same black oak, same height.
The states
1980–1999The two «Subiektywny» are born in 1980: faces closed, barred — and in one of them a single eye, unnaturally enlarged, watching from behind the barrier. It is the inner eye, the critics wrote: each of us looks at the world through the filter of our own experience, and full objectivity does not exist. The following year «Subiektywny» receives a distinction at the Winter Salon at Radom.
The Subjective lives twice. Small, in the two table bronzes that remain in a private collection; and large, in wood, in the versions that entered the collections of the Centrum Rzeźby Polskiej in Orońsko — the ones that climb onto the plinths when the series goes on show. One idea, two scales: one is held in the hand, the other stands before you like a person.
Around these two grows a family of states. The «Rozdarty» — the Torn — returns twice, in two distinct works with the same title: a chest tearing open; a face divided into two offset halves, stitched with brass clamps. «Scalona», the Merged, dates from 1981; then comes «Skupienie», the Recollection, with the bronze hands joined as in prayer inside the opening of the chest; and in 1997 «Zranione Ego», the Wounded Ego — a silhouette cut out of a cascade of flames, the ego larger than the figure. The series closes, in 1999, with «Nadzieja» — Hope: the bust opens into two halves, and in the gap between them sits a bronze sphere.
What holds the series together can be seen before it is read: the impersonal face, still, the same in all; and the surface of the wood brought to a mirror, so that the viewer is reflected in it — and the state on stage becomes, for a moment, their own.
- Subiektywny subjective
- Rozdarty torn
- Scalona merged
- Skupienie recollection
- Zranione Ego the wounded ego
- Nadzieja hope