In conversation with Alicja Bielawska on her current exhibition titled “Prototypes 06: At the Intersection of Lines” Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź

The exhibition “Prototypes 06: At the Intersection of Lines” featuring the artworks by Alicja Bielawska is open until the 4^th of June 2022. The artist – alongside the architecture group CENTRALA and the curator Aleksandra Kędziorek – represented Poland at the 2021 London Design Biennale. The London exhibition ‘The Clothed Home: Tuning In To The Seasonal Imagination’ is now presented at Kamienica Szołayskich, a branch of the National Museum in Kraków, whereas Łódź hosts Bielawska’s art show that engages in a dialogue with the pieces from the collection of Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź. Curated by Katarzyna Słoboda and Bielawska herself, the show combines her drawings and sculptures with works by other artists, such as Katarzyna Kobro, Henryk Stażewski, Thea Djordjadze, Maria Jarema, Johanna Billing, Keith Sonnier, Franciszka Themerson, Stefan Themerson and Koji Kamoji. According to the artist herself, the artworks originate from her observation of everyday reality, filtered and transformed, straying away from specific shapes, with which we are familiar. At the same time, she draws a lot of inspiration from the theory and practice of Katarzyna Kobro. I had a chance to meet Alicja and discuss her practice and work on this exhibit.

Małgorzata Marszałł: The exhibition presents your works alongside the pieces from the art collection of the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź. Could you please tell us something more about the way in which this exhibition came about?

Alicja Bielawska: It is the sixth edition of the Prototypes series, which is based on the dialogue between contemporary artists and the collection of the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, to showcase its potential, captivating and inspiring nature. Katarzyna Słoboda, a curator, invited me to participate in the show; our interests are very similar, and we are both passionate about choreography and the figure of Katarzyna Kobro. We started with a deep dive into the collection. Surveying the digitalized artworks, I noticed a plethora of drawings that are rarely put on display. Drawing as a medium holds great significance to me personally, so it became one of the main narrative threads of the exhibit.

MM: Did you pinpoint beforehand the things from the museum’s collection, on which you wish to focus?

AB: Neither did I have any pre-established concept of the exhibition, nor a clear idea of the pieces in the collection which I wanted to include in the show. The first look at the digital archive was very important because it provided me with an overview of the collection. It was then followed by a selection of works and viewing them in person. Particularly meaningful was seeing the drawings, which are very delicate and treated with special care by the museum. And since I work with spatial forms, the context of sculpture was something incredibly important to me as well. We wanted to exhibit the plaster nudes by Kobro, denoting a corporeal aspect of the show.

This exhibition emerged as the result of a close examination of the museum’s collection and my own works, and observation of how they coalesce into one another. I did not create any new pieces for the sake of this exhibition. Instead, I was looking back and perusing my recent drawings and sculptures. Therefore, this exhibition represents a reflection on my own practice and the way in which it enters into a dialogue with other artists.  The themes that emerged from working with the museum’s collection include the aforementioned drawings, Katarzyna Kobro’s work, the language of abstraction, choreography, the role of the viewer, and the exhibition as a situation. We develop these themes together with Katarzyna Słoboda in the text written together for the brochure accompanying the exhibition.

As we were preparing this exhibit, we were also exploring how to show connections between the works and their placement within this space. My intention was for the audience to uncover these dialogues as they were moving through the exhibition space. Although there is no one right way to view this exhibit, there are multiple paths toward its discovery. 

Including “I’m Lost Without Your Rhythm,” a film by the Swedish artist Johanna Billing, was crucial to me due to the fact that it sets the exhibition in motion and adds a sonic aspect. The video is an account of the choreography workshops that had the dancers improvise their movements, alluding to the usual, mundane tasks. One could interpret the entire exhibition through the prism of this exact work, expanding it and demonstrating that not only does it pertain to the relationship between the drawings and sculptures, but also the relationship between our everyday lives and ourselves. Sitting places dispersed all around the space were also very important – they bring a viewer to the standstill, allowing them to observe a multiplicity of emerging directions. This exhibition should be viewed mindfully and with special attention to detail. 

MM: You mentioned that you were intrigued by drawings from the museum’s collection. In art history, this technique has been dismissed as “less profound” for a very long time, viewed merely as a stage in the process of creation of a full-fledged work of art, which could be a painting or sculpture. What does drawing mean to you?

AB: First and foremost, my interest in drawing stems from the fact that drawing is an incredibly important component of my creative process and practice. I always emphasize the autonomy of drawing. In and of itself, drawing is a moment of intense concentration. It is completely different from, let’s say, making a sculpture because it entails a different kind of focus. Drawing is based on a relationship with a piece of paper, and I can use this piece of paper to build potential spaces traversing a three-dimensional mode of thinking. Analogously to writing, an act of drawing is an act of following one’s thought, intuition and visual representation, which assumes the form of a line. I tend to draw parallels between drawing and dancing, in which creation transpires through movement and at the specific point in time one decides to follow. Drawing offers a lot of space and freedom of thought when it comes to augmenting the thing one creates.

There is a great variety of drawings presented on the exhibition. A lot of them have been rarely displayed publicly, such as the drawings of Emilia Małgorzata Dłużniewska and Teresa Tyszkiewicz (1906-1992). We also have austere drawings by Franciszka Themerson and Stefan Themerson, her husband, that explore the possibilities of a visual representation of potential mathematical concepts. Other pieces are connected with choreography, including the drawings by Simone Forti, a choreographer, as well as some graphic music scores by Milan Grygar, which tie together sound and the idea of movement and its notation. Additionally, the exhibition features paintings by Henryk Stażewski accompanied by his small sketches, and paintings by Koji Kamoji, in which the line holds great importance. Drawing allows us to take a closer look at the creative process of an artist. It is an approximation of thought, of following one’s hand. It is an intimate interaction with a work of art. A majority of drawings are exhibited as series, thus allowing a viewer to trace the way in which the thought of an artist was evolving from one drawing to another. My own drawings shown on this exhibition refer to the reflection on space and sculpture, as well as movement. Pieces on paper are scattered throughout an entire space and establish a dialogue with sculptures.

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MM: The technique of drawing is largely based on the aforementioned line, which is also included in the title of your exhibition. Could the eponymous intersecting lines be interpreted in a different manner in lieu of the lines appearing in drawings?

AB: The title of an exhibition alludes to one of my drawings displayed right at the forefront of a gallery space. This small piece serves as a subtle introduction to the nature of a relationship not only between drawing and sculpture, but also between line and space. The title contains some formal references, but it can be interpreted figuratively, as intersecting pathways of viewers, walking in lines across and around the space. What I mean by that is the trajectory of an individual who moves and crosses the lines marked with their own steps, as well as the movement of many individuals at once and their relation to the space. Intersecting lines could also be treated as lines of sight that penetrate a space, land on various pieces and join different points. “At the Intersection of Lines” is also a type of meeting, entering the space of an exhibit that differs from our everyday lives. It is the space conjured by Katarzyna Słoboda, a curator, and I as the space where we can slow down our pace, carefully study the details and enter into a mindful relationship with the shapes and materiality of displayed pieces.

MM: Personally, I associated these meetings with a temporal quality. The intersection of various lines, where the present meets the past, where various artists can meet themselves, the viewers and your works.

AB: The exhibition gathers works by multiple artists, who were actively creating approximately in the last one hundred years, but it is not governed by any chronological order. There is no historic aspect to it either. Its subject deals with the coalescence of various artistic practices. As it turns out, these practices have a lot in common, they engage in dialogues with one another. I find that deeply inspiring as an artist.

MM: You mentioned the steps of viewers and their journey through the exhibition. Your works put on display, as well as the pieces by Katarzyna Kobro, are open, meaning one can look through them and see what’s on the other side. I detect some similarities with the open form by Oskar Hansen. Was the association intentional?

AB: For me, the concepts of Katarzyna Kobro are quintessential to the perception of sculpture and our reception of contemporary art, and how we interpret and create it. Art is not confined to the object, an object serves as the pretext for opening up the space. Kobro placed a special emphasis on tying the sculptures to space instead of making closed structures, so one could look through them at the said space. There is no one ideal way of regarding sculpture, there is no ideal perspective. And that is where the viewer comes in. They walk around a sculpture, look at it from different angles, and thus participate in its creation because they open up different perspectives every single time.

Of course, Oskar Hansen viewed architecture in terms of an open spatial relation where a participant played an enormous role. Hansen himself mentioned being inspired by the theories developed by Katarzyna Kobro. This exhibition is also an open form – one enters the space, moves through it and discovers the exhibition for themselves. However, the pieces are positioned in fixed places, we are unable to move them, so we need to move around them. We can also imagine moving them, which could be a great exercise. The thought of Oskar Hansen was very radical when it comes to offering a user space for them to shape it. Nevertheless, what resonates with me particularly strongly is Hansen’s idea of entering into the work, into the space of an exhibit, and feeling a part of it. 

MM: Some of your works, especially those incorporating textiles, encourage us to enter them to see how they look like from the inside – especially taking into account the fact that the fabrics are actually translucent and one can observe their surroundings from the inside. My question is about the types of materials you use in your work. On the one hand, we have very soft and flowy textiles, and on the other hand, we encounter some ceramic and metal components. Could you please tell us something more about that?

AB: Bearing in mind your observation about one’s desire to enter into a piece, I would say that the materiality of my works derives from the materials I am using, such as textiles and ceramics, juxtaposed against metal structures. As a result, the works stimulate interaction. I view them as models for exercises in perception and imagination. The pieces are delicate, so you can’t actually touch them or get inside. All you can do is experience how they affect your senses when you are regarding them or wonder how this experience could be translated into your everyday experience of reality. Owing to their materiality, the pieces can make you more aware of the things around you.

I find textiles so inspiring because of their fantastic properties. They are malleable, allowing you to claim and build space. There is also a great variety of textures and colors. I often use apparel fabrics instead of decorative ones, because I enjoy the wealth of available colors. Our skin is in constant contact with the textiles, so we can have this intimate experience even without touching them. The textile allows you to shape a space, and create sensory associations with everyday reality, which appeals to me personally in terms of a source of inspiration and the space we occupy day in, day out.