Włodzimierz Borowski. Works and reconstructions
Paweł Polit: The Unravelling of the Spatial Code
“Self-Portrait 6,” one of the modules of Aest-Ethicsthe theoretical autobiography of Włodzimierz Borowski introduces him as a cataloguer of his own work who resists further “cluttering the world” and who constructs out of his own works “instruments for research on people’s behaviours.”
This image corresponds to the “environment” phase in Borowski’s artistic development, oriented toward creating spatial situations which would undermine the received conventions of the presentation and reception of art and which would bear markers of social interaction. One should mention here, among others, the retrospective exhibitions organized by Borowski, which provided an overview of his work to date, such as the 1st and 5th Syncretic Show and “Playing Field”. The aim of this presentation is to examine the status of the viewer of exhibitions organized by Borowski. The structure of these exhibitions is defined by the logic of the mirror reflection; objects are placed within them in a symmetrical manner, bringing to mind sacral spaces. Paradoxically, this is not a space of a homogenous vision enforced by the artist on the viewers, but a type of optical apparatus, serving the withdrawal of authorial intentions and inscribing the perception of the viewer into the complex network of dislocations “between” individual works. The confrontational character of these arrangements disrupts the viewers’ schematic routines of interpretation and leads them to recognize the limits of the institutional discourse of art.
