Documentation of 'Beksiński. Sculptures' exhibition in Royal Gardens at Wawel Castle (2023) by Katarzyna MierzwińskaEast of Art Foundation
We could discover the unknown face of Zdzisław Beksiński - the sculptor - for the first time in the Royal Gardens at Wawel Castle.
All thanks to a delightful and unobvious outdoor exhibition entitled "Beksiński. Sculptures."
Documentation of 'Beksiński. Sculptures' exhibition in Royal Gardens at Wawel Castle (2023) by Katarzyna MierzwińskaEast of Art Foundation
At the Wawel exhibition we could see bronze casts of 14 intriguing works by the artist:
9 head-skulls, 3 bas-reliefs and monumental sculptures of Macbeth and Hamlet.
Documentation of 'Beksiński. Sculptures' exhibition in Royal Gardens at Wawel Castle (2023) by Katarzyna MierzwińskaEast of Art Foundation
The works on the basis of which the contemporary casts were created come from the collections of the Historical Museum in Sanok and the BWA in Rzeszów.
Heads, skulls are perfect forms
- the artist made them in plaster, but he aimed to make the final effect as artistically, visually, formally as possible. Therefore, he "patinated" plaster so that it "pretended" to be a nobler material.
The beautiful and smooth surfaces
of these sculptures are refined like everything in Beksiński's work, an ideal of formal perfection. He defines the shapes with sensitivity and precision.
The dissonance
arises when we consider the meaning of the sculptures. The representations are dark, sometimes turpid, materializing a fear-filled vision of transience, pessimistic and destructive, the artist's emotional states familiar to us from his drawings and paintings.
About the exhibition "Beksiński. Sculptures" in the Royal Gardens of the Wawel Castle tells the co-curator of the exhibition, Małgorzata Gołębiewska.
Reproductions of the sculptures (Heads) featured in the exhibition "Beksiński. Sculptures".
Reproductions of the sculptures (Heads and Reliefs) featured in the exhibition "Beksiński. Sculptures."
The monumental sculptures (Hamlet and Macbeth) featured in the exhibition "Beksiński. Sculptures."
Documentation of 'Beksiński. Sculptures' exhibition in Royal Gardens at Wawel Castle (2023) by Katarzyna MierzwińskaEast of Art Foundation
When we hear "Zdzisław Beksiński", characteristic paintings filled with mystery and darkness immediately come to mind, but thanks to this exhibition, the unknown face of Beksiński, the artist-sculptor could be known to the public, art connoisseurs and collectors.
East of Art Foundation