2 x (261 x 10 x 17)

Mirosław Bałka’s interdisciplinary artistic practice, which encompasses different mediums such as sculpture, installation and video, features intricate structures and enigmatic architectural forms deeply rooted in the history of Poland, the Holocaust, and places of confinement, as well as their imprints on both collective and individual memory. His works emphasise dualities, such as space and matter, light and shadow, revelation and concealment, inertia and movement, while employing a diverse range of materials, including steel, wood, concrete, rubber, leather, cardboard, foam, ash, soap and plaster. Since the early 1990s, the artist has concentrated on objects, ranging from those intended for shelter, such as beds and coffins, to others designed to support the human body, like chairs and tables. Bałka has also incorporated architectural elements that surround the human body, such as doors, windows, walls, roofs, corridors, and floors.

"2 x (261 x 10 x 17)" belongs to a series of works in which the artist reinterprets and reimagines the forms of different sports equipment. In this particular work, Bałka directs his attention specifically to the rings used by gymnasts in routines such as kip swings and balance. The artist takes the highest point he can reach when standing on his toes (261 cm) as a reference point, attaches the rings at the exact same height, and fixes them all the way closer to the wall and the floor, thus eliminating the space required for their use. Bałka entitles his works, which often make reference to the measurements of his own body, using anthropometric allusions that define the maximum distances a body can move while bending, turning and reaching, with the aim of emphasising the limits of physical experience. In "2 x (261 x 10 x 17)", Balka uses straps made out of intestinal membrane and aluminium and he questions the role of physical education in disciplining the body, as well as fostering the idea of citizenship and domination. Through assigning new meanings to objects within contexts where the laws of motion deviate from the expected and by altering their dimensions and functions, Bałka transforms the traces of the body into an abstract and spatial narrative which expands the realm of possibility.