Koziołek Matołek - Matołek the Billy-Goat
In Mali, Althamer walked around dressed like a cartoon character from a 1933 book by Kornel Makuszyński.
"This fairy tale creature that lives on the pages of a children's book is used by Paweł as a metaphorical representation of a local artist working in the global context who draws from his nearest entourage, from the place with which he is physically and spiritually linked" – Sebastian Cichocki told Culture.pl.
The Billy Goat returns in Althamer's sculptures and performances. Just like the original character who is searching for the village of Pacanów, Althamer, in a plaster cast head and red shorts, travelled around Poland and all the way to Brazil.
"The Billy Goat "seeks all over the world what is close at hand" the story goes. That's also Althamer's strategy based on trips in space as well as in his head. The Warsaw housing development of Bródno is Althamer's Pacanów, it's where he lives, works, integrates with the community and experiences spirituality" – the Museum of Modern Art website reads.
March of Jews
"British theoretician and curator Claire Bishop counts Althamer among artists working via other people […] which Bishop calls "a delegated performance" – Karol Sienkiewicz writes for Culture.pl. In 2010, on the anniversary of free Poland, a group of people invited by Paweł Althamer impersonated prisoners from Auschwitz. Clad in inmates clothing they joined a blockade set up by left-wing youth which was meant to keep fascist movements from entering the main streets of Warsaw.
The Shaman: Tree House
New worlds and the search for them can also take place through ascetic isolation. During his studies, Althamer created the scultpure Łódź i skafander astronauty (The Boat and the Spacesuit) (1991) which serves as a meditative tool. Ten years later, in the centre of Warsaw (near the Foksal Gallery) he built Domek na drzewie (Tree House), an oasis for isolation and wildness in the middle of an urban agglomeration. It functioned for a few months. In 1996, Althamer transformed the cramped space of the Foksal Gallery into a kind of waiting room, covering the floor with white linoleum, mounting white bus seats and adding an extra glass door. A hole knocked out of the wall led to a small garden. The installation was compared to a diving chamber or a meditation room.
Creator of Self-Portraits
While acting as a people's director, Althamer never abandoned sculpture, the field he studied. He created one of his first self-portraits (1993) during his studies, as part as of his graduation thesis. The artwork was made of natural materials: grass, straw, animal skin and intestines.
"The hyper-realistic nature of the sculpture Autoportret (Self-Portrait) could have been a result of the requirements set by the Academy of Fine Arts and the demand set on the artist to create mimetic projections of reality or a literal substitute for the artist. For the figure was meant to replace him at the oral exam – Althamer went out of the room leaving the professors with his self-portrait and a video showing him leaving the university, driving to the forest, taking his clothes off and "connecting with nature"" Karol Sienkiewicz wrote.
Althamer also constructs miniature models of reality resembling doll houses, among others Autoportret w walizce (Self-portrait in a Suitcase) or a representation of the Foksal Gallery with all its staff. For a couple of years, he assembled hand-made dolls later sold in toy stores and souvenir shops.
His 21-metre long inflated self-portrait Balloon (2007), which hung over Milan's Sempione Park (as part of the one of many exhibitions at the Palazzina Appiani), was a statement against classical sculpture. Corriere della Sera wrote that on the first day the residents demanded the removal of the blown-up naked man. Around the clock police surveillance was set up in order to protect the artwork. When it was shown at the Warsaw Gallery Weekend (2012), it floated around in an enclosed space to avoid being subjected to the perils of the urban environment.
Almech
When creating social sculpture, Althamer draws inspiration from his surroundings. In 2012, he turned the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum in Berlin into a branch of his father's plant – Almech. Together with the plant's employees, he produced collective portraits of the exhibition's visitors. He made plaster face casts, installed them onto metal constructions and wrapped them with gauzes of polyethylene (used for the manufacturing of plastic bottles). The method was also employed by the artist at the 55th Venice Art Biennale (2013).