The work of the prominent Polish sculptor Marcin Berdyszak draws on socially critical subject matter. His commitment, with which he endows his figural compositions, installations, paintings and deliberate site-specific projects, has the ambition to point to the development of Central European, but primarily of Polish society. It visually interprets politics, national themes, religion or liberal attitudes through signs and symbols, the meaning of which is understandable and unmistakable for most visitors. In the interpretation of reality, he offers a wider context of perception of the world – it is primarily criticism, but also fear and hope. He observes what appears to be democracy, but it is actually pseudo-democracy and populism. In the context of the social development of the last three decades, which he actively experiences as an artist and a parent, he includes the totalitarian system in the mass pop-culture of which we are a part. We experience it every day, many – especially the youngest – define themselves in different ways. Older people have partially resigned, but we cannot deny that we all use and need it daily and continue to shape it. So we are improving its mechanisms.

Just as the history of art can constantly convey the model, archetypal behaviour of a person who often likes to adhere to risky behaviour and destructive situations, the world, in turn, can provide the individual and society with its permanent development (and nature cycles) a chance for new beginnings. Man as a thinking and acting being is always at the centre of Marcin Berdyszak’s interest. With flaws, masks, pretence and vulnerability. In his work, we identify references to Dada, Surrealism and Pop Art. The visitors to the exhibition thus often find themselves in the shadow of time: historical, metaphorical and real.

Polish art historian Elźbieta Kościelak once wrote about the artist: “Marcin Berdyszak’s art is a premonition of evolution in artistic practices that connect the current state of art in the Western World with art understood as part of human nature. His installations and objects are current texts of culture. The structure of the text is open to interaction. Berdyszak is the heir of the Avant-Garde. In his artistic discourse, he does not comment on the achievements of the 20th century Avant-Garde, but reveals their powerlessness against today’s world.”

Roman Popelár