Oskar Dawicki: One Piece Too Little

An irrepres­sible charac­teristic of Oskar Dawicki’s method is the play on extreme emotions. The very title of the exhibition con­jures up an air of disap­point­ment, as it sug­gests that the show may indeed prove lac­king. The artist car­ries out a spec­tacular display of appropriating and degrading of one of the most significant figures of con­tem­porary Polish art – the vic­tims of Andrzej Wróblewski’s Executions. An exhibition of large-​format photographs is accom­panied by an enig­matic sculp­ture instal­lation, along with the film Płaczki (Weepers) – each a sub­sequent simulation of the wret­ched fate of the artist. The film is a frag­ment of the casting video for the role of a gal­lery employee in the film Performer (direc­ted by Łukasz Ron­duda and Maciej Sobieszczański, cur­ren­tly in produc­tion), which stars Dawicki him­self. A dramatic scene in which the charac­ter discovers the artist’s dead body is played out by one actress after the next, taking on a tragi-​comedic aspect typical of Dawicki’s art. Emotional sin­cerity under­goes a critical trial as the artist delves into the provisional nature of art and, con­cur­ren­tly, the power of its conven­tions. Both death and mour­ning are presen­ted in the conven­tion of illusionist tricks, a series of acrobatic movements, creating a Photoshop per­for­mance of sorts, to draw upon the titles of one of Dawicki’s ear­liest works. The Per­for­mer, in con­trast to the Actor, only plays him­self. However, the traps of art are laid out before him.

 One Piece Too Little is a treatise on the essen­tial nature of creativity. Dawicki raises the question of where the limits of spec­tacle are set with regard to art and to life – of the dif­ference between a show and one’s destiny, between represen­tation and recreation, between a work of art and its profanation.