The situation must have seemed like somehow transferred from some unusual museum, but it was by no means an art museum, and certainly not contemporary art museum. Hard to identify creatures were resting in massive but impressive, wooden cabinets. Carefully laid, slightly hiding or perhaps posed – in the way that stuffed animals are posed. It could have also been terrariums, where motionless, mysterious creatures would lie in copious lightning, guaranteeing to keep their bodies‘ temperature just right. If these were terrariums, then the specimens inside, judging by the poor state that they were in and the advanced molting, had been abandoned much earlier. The negligence has even caused an accident: one of the cabinets slipped of the stairs and crushed, while the monster inside came out of it. It wasn’t a release though, since its state didn’t allow for taking the slightest attempt to escape.

That is how a situation staged by Olaf Brzeski at the Glances 2009 (Spojrzenia 2009) in Zachęta National Gallery of Art looked like. In fact, the inspiration were cabinets from the Natural History Museum in London, where stuffed reptiles were kept. Brzeski substituted them with forms drawn from minimalist objects. In his staging, it looks as if the minimalist objects, as a result of negligence or abandonment, have undergone a far-reaching deformation or degradation, they have crooked and their outer layers started to peel off or to rust. The stranded creatures found themselves in a miserable state.

At the exhibition in Actual Art Zone, Olaf Brzeski prepares the continuation of the history of the objects from the Orphans – the last such specimens (org. Sierotki – ostatnie takie okazy) cycle. The situations staged by him in the previous projects concerned violence, rape, catastrophy, but also an amazing ability to recover, change and recreate – the art of experiencing, in all the meanings of this word. Surely then, also now Brzeski will expose the Orphants and the audience to even more amazing experiences.

curator: Kamil Kuskowski

Actual Art Zona / Zona Sztuki Aktualnej
Tymienieckiego 3, Łódź
www.zona-art.pl