photo Bartosz Stawiarski "In the near future" fot. Karol Kaczorowski
Boy and an Eagle is one of the key sculptures from the tumultuous turn of the 1980s and 1990s, when new forms of representation emerged in Polish art as a response to the challenges of that time of political transition (just before the eruption of so-called “critical art”). This sculpture alludes to the myth of Zeus in the form of an eagle, tempting the young Ganymede. In the catalogue for the Sculptures in the Garden exhibition in 1988 (when Boy and an Eagle was first shown), the artist included two texts which altered and extended the interpretations of the work: an extract from prose by William S. Burroughs, and a patriotic poem from 1900, A Polish Child’s Confession of Faith (beginning with the words: „Who are you? A little Pole…"). Bałka thus introduced Polish art discourse to the theme of tension between the private and the public, the intimate and the political.
Year: 1988 Medium: stone, zinc metal plate, water pump, plastic
Format: a boy - 160 x 37 x 45 cm, an eagle - 78 x 28 x 55, a pool - 256,3 x 91,5 x 13 cm
Acquisition: deposit Ownership form: deposit Source: Fundacja EGIT Index: MSN: 413-1/2008 Acquisition date: Nov 4, 2008
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