WŁODZIMIERZ PAWLAK, THE IDOL, 1986 (1-7/7)
During the opening day of his own exhibition PAIR OF COMPASSES AND THE LINE OF ARTISTIC MEASURE at the Workshop Dziekanka on 18 February 1986, Włodzimierz Pawlak has carried out a performance entitled „Idol”, during which he broke a piece-figure of Idol, prepared by him.
„Waiting for death (a poem)
Leave around six in the morning on a bicycle in May, upon the remains of snow in light frost. Leave the bicycle under the fill. Come up the fill. Lay on the rails. Wait near Żyrardów for a train from Skierniewice to Warsaw, around six in the morning in May, upon the remains of snow in light frost. Understand everything with one’s uneducated, not too wise, usual kindness.
Everything is connected with great effort in fear of pain.
A shadow of a hostile riddle, virulent, vehement, impossible to resist or stand with. This wild fear of a dark place, love to this place is a sickness. I remember a dream under kind sun, where I almost lost my mind, and a sound came, which frightened me until a wild apple tree at the crossroads, where impassable border was. I remember that I was there at a place, which I am afraid even to think about, I remember how I fell in this conviction, with heart in my throat, the taste of blood.
I remember wild rituals in wild places for wild gods, remember boys who killed with knives or axes (cleverness and reason always dominated force).
I remember paths in dumps and poplars, shaking precipices, paths to certain death. It is sad to be disappointed,
It is like not knowing anymore what the road is for. I remember a certain road, it is a beautiful road.
I remember huge forests and impassable woods, I remember wolves dying of oldness. I remember losses in fields, big grass and old trees.
I remember being touched by my own spring of the century and summer of the century, and autumn of the century, and winter of the century, and I prayed to the Holy Mother and Father and Son and Holy Spirit
And I wanted everything to be good. I walked along the rivers and ponds.
Rivers and ponds encouraged to future travels.
I remember deserted islands, left boats and floats,
Bloated of worms and water of bodies of the brave. I remember how I sank, how I reached the bottom three times, remember how I longed to see the sky.
This was also good. I walked on meadows and fields,
I remember taken waters, fallen trees, cracked rocks.
Meadows and fields encouraged for ballades about the valorous knight Ivanhoe.”
[Włodzimierz Pawlak, 1986. [in:] Pracownia Dziekanka 1976 – 1987, ASP w Warszawie,1990]
