Jan Tarasin is a classic of contemporary Polish painting. He is considered a disciple of the abstract movement, but in his work he never fully resigned from figurative art. His early paintings from the 1950s are mostly still lives composed from ordinary objects, painted in the spirit of aescetic realism. Realism different from that which was officially in force, clearly existential and symbolic, was widely present in Tarasin’s litographies from that time - the cycle Nowa Huta I Jej Mieszkańcy (Nowa Huta and its Inhabitants, 1954. In the second half of the 1950s, the objects on Tarasin’s paintings gradually lost their similarity to the originals, gaining their own, specific features. The forms on the pictures became more and more objectified and abstract. Arrangements of elements – called simply “objects” by the artist – were placed in an imaginary, allusive space; like in the cycles Uczta (Feast, 1957); Brzeg (Shore, 1962-64); Antykwariat (Antique shop, 1968).
Tarasin was always interested in the world of objects. He began with a realistic record of objects that he simplified and reduced until a system of abstract signs was formed. These are sign-objects, sign-symbols, traces of shapes taken from the surrounding reality that are reminiscent of letters taken from a non-existent alphabet. Complicated action takes place in the space of Tarasin’s paintings. Objects and people – or rather signs of objects and people – simplified and condensed, turned into a colourful spot, diffuse and regroup accordingly to the inner logic of the composition. Tarasin treats the picture as an intellectual model which speaks about the harmony and disharmony of the world through visual signs. He was interested in searching for mechanisms, through which nature projects and complicates phenomena, concentrates and diffuses them, creates and destroys them. He was also interested in the correlation between logic, determination, imperative laws and chance. The main rule of Tarasin’s paintings was to build arrangements out of objects, searching for the rules that govern them and then defying them.
In 1962 Tarasin went on a scholarship to China and Vietnam. Echoes of oriental calligraphy will be present in his later works. In 1966 his painting underwent an evident change. Collages appeared in which the artist places small objects or their pieces immersed in hot lava: leaves, dead insects, tiny dolls. The first of these works, Mały Rocznik Statystyczny (Small Statistical Yearbook) and Przedmioty Policzone (Counted Objects), were created during a symposium for artists and scientists in Puławy in 1966. The artist didn’t paint reliefs for a long time and quickly returned to flat painting. Objects and landscapes on Tarasin’s canvas are reminiscent of nature and reality, although they have their total autonomy. As the artist said:
I am interested in a certain type of objectiveness leading to the abstract.
In Tarasin's paintings from the 1970s, unrecognisable forms were built either trough silhouettes or contours, composed mostly on a white surface in zonal and serial arrangements which can be associated with mysterious hieroglyphs – symbols that cannot be fully understood. This tendency to contrast the signs and the background of the canvas, the almost graphic placement of black shapes on bright surfaces Kolekcja (Collection, 1971) remained characteristic of Tarasin’s work until the 1990s. As the artist said, the objects were “items on shelves” and he called himself “an accountant, who writes down all possible situations”.
Tarasin’s objects are very diverse: they look like organic forms, letters, simple geometrical figures, arches, ovals, squares, crosses, circles, dots and lines, appearing in various combinations. The artist believed that the world is a collection of diffusing, dynamic arrangements, which differ in their nature and the ways of existence. Tarasin’s images are a continuous painting of the same idea: showing the movement of contradictory forces, their continued variability, building arrangements of particles placed in different relations. These particles, signs-objects, appear on his canvas in different orders, usually in horizontal strings, some thicker than others. Sometimes the layers diffuse or overlap.
In the 1980s Tarasin’s objects became bigger, richer, more expanded. Brighter auras appeared around them. In the second half of this decade, Tarasin concentrated on the analysis of signs, that again started to gain features of objects but preserved the ability to be different things at once. They grew even more and their auras became autonomous. In the 1990s both the space, in which the signs were placed and the signs themselves gained a richer, thicker colour and the backgrounds overlapped with the objects, like in the series Wylęgarnia Przedmiotów (Breeding Objects, 1992).
Between 1974 and 1982, Tarasin published eight Notebooks, collections of photographs transformed by screen-printing and drawing. They are diaries, catching the first sketches which served to find the order that organises the universe. In his compositions Tarasin masterfully connects the pictorial and the linear order, depth and flatness. There is no place for perspective, but an inner space is easily reflected. What’s striking is the homogeneousness of his work: painting, graphics and drawing. In all of these disciplines is possible to trace the story of how the sign was created and changed from a realistic object to an abstract symbol.
In 2007 during an individual exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle, Tarasin showed 23 paintings created after the year 2000. Classic canvases could be found between them, forming a continuum of the artist’s formal search, like Bez Końca I (No Ending I, 2002), Bez Końca II (No Ending II, 2003), Struny (Strings, 2004) or Siedem Strun (Seven Strings, 2007). Oval and circular shapes meet many more hieroglyphic signs, placed in horizontal rows as if they were strung on a line of many horizons or as if they were a series of mysterious notes. This formula of writing down an “unfinished register” does not lead to any conclusion, and in its repetition is reminiscent of Obrazy Liczone (Counted Objects) by Roman Opałka.
Tarasin’s other paintings from this exhibition evoked op-art. Kręgi (Circles, 2004), Spirala (Spiral, 2003), Fale (Waves, 2002), Wodospad (Waterfall, 2005) form an illusion of a pulsing canvas space, pulling into their inner vortex, while the never-ending lines flow like a waterfall. Undulant lines are like the record of a heartbeat, graphically visualised on paper as an electrocardiogram.
Tarasin’s work oscillates between asceticism of colour and its unabashed use. The artist uses a few colours, mostly yellows, light blues, and reds, as well as black and white, which reinforces the tale of signs and forms. On his last canvas the colour is saturated by light, which underlines the architecture of shapes .
Tarasin’s connection to objectiveness and nature is like the movement of a pendulum. The artist never abandoned this connection, although many of his paintings and drawings can be considered abstract. Sometimes he was closer, and sometimes further from representing reality, but the works he created were always rooted in it, even when they reached the maximum level of generalisation.
I don’t want (…) what I do to have a direct connection to some ready form of nature. I am interested in “objects” on many levels of their de-objectification.
– he used to say.
His art is difficult to place in a specific artistic movement, because he was never interested in fashion trends – he never ceased creating his own signature style.
Author: Ewa Gorządek, Centre for Contemporary Art at the Ujazdowski Castle, December 2004; translation N. Mętrak-Ruda, October 2015.
Selected individual exhibitions:
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1962 - Galerie Lambert, Paris
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1965 - Konstsalongen Kavaletten, Uppsala
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1968 - Krzysztofory Gallery, Kraków
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1975 - Zapiecek Contemporary Art Gallery, Warsaw
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1977 - Zapiecek Contemporary Art Gallery, Warsaw
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1980
- Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych Gallery, Lublin
- Muzeum Okręgowe, Radom
- Krzysztofory Gallery, Kraków
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1981 - Zapiecek Contemporary Art Gallery, Warsaw
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1983 - 72 Gallery, Chełm
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1984 - Centrum Sztuki Studio Gallery, Warsaw
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1985 - Zero Gallery, Tokyo
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1988 - Centrum Sztuki Studio Gallery, Warsaw
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1991 - Notebooks, Starmach Gallery, Kraków
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1994
- Kraków Group 1932-1994, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
- Contemporary Classics, The National Museum, Warsaw
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1995
- Retrospective exhibition, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
- Retrospective exhibition, The National Museum, Wrocław.
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1997 - Zapiecek Contemporary Art Gallery, Warsaw
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1998 - Jan Tarasin", ABC Gallery, Poznań
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1998 - Jan Tarasin, Pomeranian Dukes Castle Museum, Szczecin
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1999 - Jan Tarasin, Starmach Gallery, Kraków
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2002 - Jan Tarasin. Photographs, Starmach Gallery, Kraków
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2004 - Jan Tarasin, KUL Gallery, Lublin
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2005 - Jan Tarasin, Paintings, Piekary Gallery, Poznań
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2006 - Jan Tarasin - paintings and works on paper 2005-1959, National Art Gallery, Sopot
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2007
- Jan Tarasin. Newest paintings, Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
- Jan Tarasin, Art-New-Media Gallery, Warszawa
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2008
- Jan Tarasin, Stefan Szydłowski Gallery, Warsaw
- Jan Tarasin, Important paintings", Museum of Mazovia, Płock
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2009 - Tarasin. A small retrospective, Museum of Mazovia, Płock
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2010 Jan Tarasin, FOTO-GEN Gallery, Wrocław
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2012 J( In the shade of the avantgarde) , Art Gallery, Legnica.
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2013 W czym rzecz ( What is the point?), Bardzo Biała Gallery, Warsaw
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2017 Metapainting. Unknown spatial work by Jan Tarasin, XX1 Gallery, Warsaw
Selected collective exhibitions:
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1948 - 1. Wystawa Sztuki Nowoczesnej / 1. Modern Art Exhibition, Pałac Sztuki, Kraków
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1955 - National Young Art Exhibition, Arsenal, Warsaw
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1957 - 2. Wystawa Sztuki Nowoczesnej / 2. Modern Art Exhibition, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
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1959
- Pologne - 50 ans de peinture, Musée d'Art et d'Historie, Geneve
- I Biennale de Paris, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris
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1964 - International Art Exhibition, National Museum of Art, Tokyo
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1965
- 20 years of PRL in art, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
- 8. Biennale de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo
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1969 - Exhibition of Contemporary Polish Art, National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
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1970 - Painting in the PRL, The National Museum, Warsaw
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1975 - Critics of art propose, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
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1978 - Winners of the Cyprian Kamil Norwid's Critics Prize, Dom Artysty Plastyka, Warsaw
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1979 - Reality documents, The National Museum, Warsaw
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1980 - "Rysunki i komentarze", Muzeum Okręgowe, Radom
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1984 - Concepts of space in contemporary art, The National Museum, Warsaw
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1987 - International Istanbul Contemporary Art Exhibition, Istanbul
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1990 - Krzywe Koło Gallery, The National Museum, Warsaw
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1991 - Positionen Polen, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
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1996 - The "thaw" and art around 1956, National Museum, Poznań
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1997 - The limits of an image. Polish painting of the 1990s., Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw.
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2006 - "Malarstwo Polskie XXI wieku", Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw