Paweł Wocial, The Hummingbird, 2013, photo courtesy of the artist
Works by Paweł Wocial, Wisława Szymborska and Adam Zagajewski will be presented at one of the important festivals of contemporary art in Belgium.
The festival, which combines visual art and poetry, has been held for the past five years in a small village situated on the border of Belgium and France. Every year the Kunstenfestival attracts nearly 10,000 people to Watou - some of whom remember the festival from the 1980s, then under a different name and created by a different team.
The idea of the festival is to free art from the white, closed spaces of the gallery. Presentations take place throughout the town – on the streets, in a monastery, a church, the town hall, even barns and basements. This year, the motto of Kunstenfestival Watou is taken from the poetry of the Belgian writer Bart Moeyaert: “It’s love we don’t understand.” The organizers invited 45 artists to participate, all of whom use their respective media to explore the theme of love from different perspectives and often in a controversial and dramatic fashion. The program includes the work of Louise Bourgeois, Marina Abramović and her former partner Ulay, Tracey Emin, Banksy, Anette Messager and Leonard Cohen. Poland is represented by poets Wisława Szymborska and Adam Zagajewski and sculptor Paweł Wocial.
Paweł Wocial, Look at Me, 2011, photo courtesy of the artist
Paweł Wocial will present two works. The Hummingbird, a new piece, was realized during a several-week stay in Watou. Hummingbirds are the smallest birds in the world and have the fastest metabolisms in nature. Wocial’s hummingbird, however, is 4.5 meters tall and suffers from morbid obesity. As the artist explains,
The body of an exotic animal turned into a monster becomes a metaphor for the process of constructing internal self-image and the categorical lack for which, in the modern world, the answer is always excess.
Wocial’s second work, Look at Me (2011) is a modern version of the Capitoline she-wolf, originally a symbol of the capital of the ancient Roman Empire. According to legend, the animal cared for and nourished the twin brothers who became the founders of Rome. Wocial’s wolf has undergone a metamorphosis; she has been stripped of her natural instincts and symbolic dimension. Look at Me is a critical statement on oppressive canons of beauty dictated by the media and popular culture. The work became the inspiration for a collection by Polish fashion and interior designer Maciej Zień, who included sculpture in the scenery of his fashion shows and reproduced images of the wolf on dresses and shirts.
Paweł Wocial (born 1977 in Mińsk Mazowiecki) is a graduate of the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań. He creates objects, installations, and drawings. He has created many interventions in public space. He is interested in themes of man caught in a confrontation with expansive culture in its various aspects. Wocial’s distinctive strategy is to use the body, single and tangible - often a hybrid of human and animal - as a metaphor for society and its problems. He has staged exhibitions at the Zamek Cultural Centre in Poznań, ZKM Karlsruhe, Bunker Sztuki in Kraków, BWA Zielona Góra and CSW Inner Spaces Multimedia. He lives and works in Warsaw.
Kunstenfestival Watou
It’s Love We Don’t Understand
6th of July – 1st of September
Organizer: vzw P’ART
Curator: Jan Moeyaert
Sources: Kunstenfestival Watou, artists’ materials, author’s materials
Author: Agnieszka Sural, 5.07.2013
Translation: Alena Aniskiewicz 08.07.2013