Włodzimierz Borowski. Works and reconstructions
Klara Kemp-Welch: Aest-ethics as “East-Ethics”?

This paper examines in detail Borowski’s Est-Etyka.

Autoportrety (Aest-Ethics. Self-Portraits). These began as a performance (Dłusko, 1977), before going on to become an installation and an exhibition catalogue (Galeria Labirynt, Lublin, 1977). What was at stake, for Borowski, in the interplay between these registers? The paper situates Est-Etyka at the strategic intersection between two crucial periods in Borowski’s artistic career, during which he withdrew from artistic life. How does the ethical imperative expressed in the self-portraits relate to the ethic of silence that they interrupt? How do they relate to his protest against “systems within culture that destroy art and the artist”? How do they relate to his understanding of €˜truth’?

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