Dorota Buczkowska. HEALTH RESORT

The first pieces of HEALTH RESORT series come to life in a foundry nearby Warsaw. It’s there where Dorota Buczkowska starts her work over crystal glass. The hand-modelled material is frequently difficult to mould – and breaks. Buczkowska takes home both well-formed elements and the broken ones. Some are later incorporated into inherited souvenirs – porcelain, domestic glassware, household and artistic glass. Not only is this work creating but also crushing or destroying the existing body.

Buczkowska is a sculptress as well as art restorer by profession. She knows the art of restoring flawed pieces inside out. But this time she takes care of objects badly formed, destroyed due to overuse, put away deep in drawers. Their flawedness is not made-up but, in contrast, it is put on display, in broad daylight, emphasised and accepted. We witness an unhurried flowering of subtle, wounded forms.

Some of Buczkowska’s objects seem to bud, sprawl, or live off each other. Others resemble resin that healingly incrusts damaged parts of plants. Beautifully crippled, spectacularly refracting light, with dangerously sharp edges. All of them lose their functionality and intrigue with the secret of their innermost histories. In the Sculpture Park we put them in a glasshouse – and closely watch their movement enchanted in glassy matter.

Curator: Ewa Kozik

Collaboration: Anna Theiss

Dorota Buczkowska was born in 1971 in Warsaw. She works in different media: drawings, paintings, photography, installation and video. She touches upon topics related to the perception of corporeality, physiology, natural processes of changes related to time and properties of matter, depicting them with metaphorical messages, sometimes influenced by poetic subtlety. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (Conservation and Restoration of Art 1991-1998, Sculpture 1999-2003), University of Warsaw (Gender Studies 1998-1999) and Villa Arson École Nationale Supérieure D’art in Nice (2004). She currently lives and works in Warsaw. 

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The Sculpture Park in Królikarnia

Puławska St. 113a, 02-707 Warsaw

Open Monday to Sunday, from dawn to dusk

FREE ADMISSION