Xawery Wolski Material Poetics and Sculptural Bodies

Xawery Wolski is an artist working in sculpture. Exploring the ability of matter to resist the passage of time is one of the main themes of his work. The artist’s exhibition ‘Material Poetics’ opened at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko on 25 June and will run until 4 September. The exhibition is a cross-sectional presentation of his work. In conversation with the artist, we discover the sources of his inspiration, his plans and also delve into the significance of the works featured in the exhibition. 

Zuzanna Auguścik: Firstly, I want to ask about the sources of your inspiration. You were raised and studied in Poland – which, at that time, was a communist country – and later continued your education in France, moved to South America to find a second home in Mexico in which you spent many years. You still return regularly. In what way having traveled so many corners of the world has influenced your artistic practice/skills? 

Xawery Wolski: Being in touch with places so remote without a doubt influences my work. It causes it to be multithreaded; broader. It has to rise above localism and reach essential issues. South America can serve as an example, where I was inspired by pre-Columbian culture, or Asia, where the axis of my interests was Buddhism. It also has an impact on my skills. The found materials and discovered techniques influence my relationship with matter. 

Z.A: Yet after three decades you decided to return and created an incredible space filled with art in Dańków. Could you tell a little about the history of this place, what we can find in it? What new possibilities has it allowed and what plans do you still have for it? 

X.W.: Dańków is a property which has belonged to my father’s – professor Tadeusz Wolski’s –  family for the past few generations. His ancestors studied the genetics of grains. After the war, under the agricultural reform the land was passed on to the state.  My father still continued the work commenced by his ancestors, despite the manor not belonging to him anymore. At a certain point, however, historical procedures allowed my family to buy the property from the State Treasury! After my father’s death I decided to set up a space dedicated to art in Dańków. I intend to make the collections available for a broader audience. I would also like for Dańków to become a place of meetings and creation. For it to accommodate an encounter between varying views and visions. 

Z.A.: Now let’s talk about the exhibition which opened in the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko on the 25^th June. It presents a cross-cutting overview of your impressive oeuvre. How were works from different periods selected so that together they would fit into the exhibition’s title, Material Poetics? Could we elaborate on what hides behind the title and the “materiality” of the word and sculpture? 

X.X: I owe the exhibition to the organisers, but primarily to the analytical vision of the exhibition’s curator, Jarosław Lubiak, who executed the selection of works focusing on the main current present in almost all my works – the theme of the passage of time. Diverse materials themselves are the force and encompass this message. 

Z.A.: At the exhibition, can we find themes derived from the international travels you have talked about in the beginning? I am asking because it seems that you are interested not only in the role of the aforementioned passage of time but also in the issue of memory and transience. 

X.W: At the exhibition are my early sculptures made from terracotta, inspired by my experience from the war period. Chains and crosses from dark terracotta carry a charge of accumulated emotions – fear, sorrow, lack of hope, but also power. There are also later sculptures from white terracotta which were created during my stay in South America. Their subject is corporeality: internal organs, mutilated figures or their fragments: the spine, bones. There are also mandalas sculpted in Asia from handmade clay beads referring to meditation techniques. 

Z.A: You create small objects as well as monumental outdoor sculptures. What are your works about? In what way do particular works – on the one hand differing from each other in scale, while expressing the same tenderness on the other – enter a dialogue on the exhibition which encompasses  the space of the Museum of Contemporary Sculpture, the Hothouse Gallery and the park surrounding it?

X.W: Scale is essential for sculpture. Small works require a bigger focus from the audience. The tension is limited to a minimum. There is something and there is not, simultaneously. I mean the series of almost invisible drawings, “Tatoos” – white on white. Also the series of photographs “Sea lines”, concluding the drawing of waves appearing on sand only to disappear shortly, washed away by another wave. These kinds of works prompt us towards reflection quite differently from a monumental sculpture in which everything is somewhat obvious. But they have power. 

Z.A: A monumental scale of pieces immediately raises the question of the relationship with the audience, about the role of the body in the encounter with the sculpture. What is your view of this issue? 

X.W: The body is the link of the sculpture. I try for the audience to somewhat become a part of the sculpture, to physically or mentally penetrate it. 

Z.A: On the 4^th August, also as a part of the exhibition in Orońsko, there will be (or was, from the perspective of the interview publication date) an unveiling of your sculpture in the park of the Królikarnia Museum. Can you tell us more about this project? In what way is this project related to the exhibition in Orońsko? 

X.W: The sculpture is entitled Flor Diente and it is an organic as well as an archaic and a modern form. It is an open metaphor which can assume all desired interpretations. I was born a few blocks away from the Musuem in Królikarnia. As a child I would often go the park surrounding it. These were also my first encounters with sculpture. 

Z.A: To conclude, I want to ask about your nearest plans, what are you currently working on, what would you like to focus on in the upcoming future? 

X.W: This year I have begun a completely new series of works, entitled Pulsations. It is an experiment with light, the source of our vision. It is a continuation of extracting the poetic potential from a material which is completely new to me.

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