New Viewings #36

The gallery is filled with the first 7 pages of one of a new collage poem entitled „Concordance“. Susan Howe is cutting through books of poetry and fields guides to birds, flora and geology. Concordances are books composed of alphabetical lists of words used in the works of a particular author. It is making scanning easier. The recent edition of this work features also a longer prose poem entitled „Since“. It offers insight into the working process that is at the foundation of „Concordance“. It features fragments devoted to the main instrument – the scissors that enable a recomposition of the preexisting material. However many passages are also touching upon the act of reading of these fragmented passages: „In order to facilitate phonetic interpretation I will make up my mouth as if it’s a telegram”.

The process started with a questionnaire. I was asked to reply to certain words with images. These, I believe, became the basis for the 5 paintings, or at least their titles. The images have a striking ability to present memory residues as objects. Their location is not given as they are set in a generic background that looks like a surface material used in object photography. Indeed the paintings are yet another reply to that everlasting question: „What should painting do once the photography was discovered?” By using background as a trope it gives the right answer to the wrong question. These clumps of matter have no use, yet they appeal. Their generated non-word titles perform a similar work. They look like they are legible yet the sight is simply left on their surface with some associations. They appear nonsensical. However both words and things are executed in a methodical manner that is inhuman even if it is created by a human being. This complex set of givens brings to non-life the word-thing combinations.

Contrary to the other artists works in this cycle, the pieces of Tomasz Kowalski are made of stories. Even if they are simply leftovers and remains of a narrative, they are full of human beings that are active. They appear in the world that is made of optical devices. Eyes, mirrors, glasses, lens, binoculars, viewfinders, water drops, tears. The yellow work with the hole that opens a view to another scene is placing the viewer in a lookout post. There is an etymological connection between speculation and specula, a latin word that denotes this position. There is an obvious relation between seeing and knowing. However the connection to speculation might suggest something else. That the act of looking is also an ever changing operation that might include oneiric effects altering the sight.

The previous parts of this cycle presented different possible configurations of the relations of things and words. There was only a word chapter. Kowalski speculated with only things, while Seal presented the full excess of both. The time is high to present the absence of both. The majestic object that Majewska hangs on the wall is a banderole – a method of introduction of singing and specifically lyrics in old art. The angelic choirs would be nothing without the suggestion of sound. This one is erased leaving the immaterial element of narration as a weighty metal twirl. The wordless voice performs the melody of a classic ear worm – „Words Don’t Come Easy”. How can words slip away from the grip when the sensation of lack thereof is expressed with words? The paradox of the song is that it is sung in a speechless form.