exhibition

In his oeuvre, Xawery Wolski reveals the capacity of matter to withstand getting turned inside out and evanescence, and reflects on the ways in which time affects us, exploring material poetics and time coincidences. He makes sculptures using natural materials such as soil, terracotta, stone, natural fibres and seeds, woven wire, etc

Through his artworks the artist creates traces of such resistance, leaving imprints of what has managed to survive. He gives them the status of relics through which he faces disappearance, vivisection and evanescence. And this confrontation is the main aim of material poetics which he develops in his art.

Xawery Wolski’s exhibition at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko is across-sectional review of his work. Out of his vast oeuvre, we have selected works whose starting point is the body and matter. The relationship between these two elements produces various figures. It may be the artist’s body and the physical effort of shaping clay while making sculptures with the prints of hand and fingers. It could be objects in the form of the human body, its fragment or even particular organs. It may be a tunic – a sort of negative, memory of a body which has passed away. Finally, it might be heavy matter, formed into huge objects – sculptural bodies whose physical presence seems immoveable. The diversity of figures is connected with the diversity of materials, textures and colours: smooth and shiny terracotta, polished bronze, rough steel, soft and warm paper or plant seeds.

The exhibition encompassing several dozen works will be presented at the Museum of Contemporary Sculpture, Orangery Gallery and in the park. It unfolds the tale of a poetic transformation of matter in its resistance against the passage of time.

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Xawery Wolski

In his oeuvre, Xawery Wolski reveals the capacity of matter to withstand getting turned inside out and evanescence, and reflects on the ways in which time affects us, exploring material poetics and time coincidences. He makes sculptures using natural materials such as soil, terracotta, stone, natural fibres and seeds, woven wire, etc. His first independent work was created in 1983 in Carrara, Italy.

He participated in several residency programmes, spending a long time in Asia and India. His particular interest in terracotta and its diverse anthropological meanings in 1994 led the artist to Peru, and the following year to Mexico, where he obtained the stipend of the French Ministry of Culture to continue studies on ancient materials and forms of expression in order to create contemporary art. Finally, he set up his studio in Mexico City and created several in situ sculptures. He returned to Poland in 2021 and settled down in his family home in Dańków, where he develops his artistic work.

He has had over seventy exhibitions all over the world, inter alia at the Liu Haisu Art Museum, Shanghai, China; Jim Thompson Arts Centre, Bangkok, Thailand; Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia; National Gallery of Art Zachęta, Warsaw, Poland, as well as in Mexico City at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Museo Tamayo, Museo de Arte Moderno, Museo Nacional de Arte.

He was born in Warsaw (Poland) in 1960. Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris and at the Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture in New York.