Filmoteka Muzeum

nieużyty materiał PKF nr 22749

Włodzimierz Borowski
II Syncretic Show, Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, 1966

Film footage of II Syncretic Show by Włodzimierz Borowski, which exemplifies an artistic presentation format devised by the artist. In the period that preceded the event Borowski's practice embraced structural painting that highlighted the objecthood of the painterly work (second half of the 1950s) as well as experiments pursued at the turn of the 1960s in the field of sculpture and artistic object, which bore the fruit of a series of Artons (1958–1963). Built of ordinary objects, those works were “brought to life” by electricity by means of installed light bulbs and lights.

Similar experiences close to kinetic art interested the artist also in the mid-1960s, when Borowski introduced mirrors as a tool in his work. Documented here, the exhibition-installation II Syncretic Show at the Foksal Gallery PSP in Warsaw is an example of the use of mirrors and one of the major events in the artist's practice, which served him to engage with the fields of environment art, happening and Conceptualism.

The gallery space was divided into a section for the viewers and a zone filled with hanging mirrors that revolved around their own axes. In the latter section Borowski also situated rhythmically pulsating lights and panels with the word “silence,” as well as objects bristled with spikes. During the opening, the artist remained inside the environment of his own making, which blinded the viewers with lights and revealed their fragmented mirror reflections.

That fragmentation of the experience of the homogeneous “self,” induced by Borowski's work, is highlighted by Luiza Nader, who interprets the artist's use of mirrors in the context of the critique of representation. (Konceptualizm w PRL, Warsaw 2009, pp. 120–122.) In turn, Anka Ptaszkowska underscores the subversive character of Syncretic Show with regard to the conventional format of artistic presentations – introducing the traditional division into the audience and the artist's space, Borowski at the same time created a “show” that frightened the viewers with spikes and attacked them with light. (Wierzę w wolność, ale nie nazywam się Beethoven, Gdańsk 2010, pp. 142–143.)

nieużyty materiał PKF nr 22749

Zdjęcia: Leonard Zajączkowski
Osoba: Włodzimierz Borowski (artysta malarz, twórca environment, happeningów i instalacji, konceptualista)
Obiekt: Galeria Foksal
Zdarzenie: II Pokaz Synkretyczny
Czas akcji: 1966-07-06
Miejsce akcji: Warszawa
Produkcja: Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych (Warszawa)
Prawa: WFDiF
 

Year: 1966
Duration: 0'30"
Language: no language
Source:

© WFDiF See more: The National Film Archive's Digital Repository