The Blazing World / Świat Blasku
2022
Zamek Sielecki, Sosnowiec, PL
Curator: Małgorzata Malinowska-Klimek
„Utopia / Utøya” reminds us of the trauma of the Norwegian community: in a country that is increasingly open and liberal, a conservative madman carriedout two terrorist attacks, killing 77 innocent people. Two neon inscriptions are almost mirror reflections of one another; they ask the viewer a disturbing question: was it utopian to think that this community is open and thus happy, or was it utopian of the extremist to think that bullets can stop the process of this community’s liberalization? The accompanying sculpture, „Serbia All The Way to Tokyo” invokes the bloody Balkan experiences, which repeat like a mantra. Both in Serbia and in many other regions of the world violence becomes for the inhabitants the only known way of solving conflicts, being in fact a manifestation of helplessness or of pure evil. It is obvious that these convictions and actions do not correspond to reality, since they are ineffective and in this sense constitute a utopia, but isn’t it equally utopian to believe that these communities will ever find another, peaceful way of coexisting with their neighbours? A special meaning was added to works placed in two extreme rooms, referring to the fear of nuclear conflict. Not so long ago I would have written that they portray the process of the artist working through her old trauma. It seemed so distant in time, moved to the background by having remained unfulfilled in the material world. But the war in Ukraine has changed this potentiality into a plausible threat. Bujak tames it for us through „explosions” cast in bronze, aestheticized archival pictures, and a sublime sculpture of the nuclear mushroom cloud, as if hovering over the floor. Pessimists might say that beauty will save nobody’s life; I believe it can make life more intense while it lasts.
Małgorzata Malinowska Klimek.
Text in the book accompanying the exhibition The Blazing world
red. M. Malinowska-Klimek, Sosnowieckie Centrum Sztuki. Zamek Sielecki, Sosnowiec 2022
photos: Ryszard Gęssikowski, courtesy of Sosnowieckie Centrum Sztuki, Zamek Sielecki, Sosnowiec