Dream - Spontaneous Combustion – Olaf Brzeski | #visual arts

Brzeski's Spontaneous Combustion was inspired by a physicist's lecture on fires, which he ended with the statement: “but, ladies and gentlemen, in reality a fire is nothing else than matter changing its form.”

We don't remember those stories word by word, but we know their pattern. They had become almost archetypical, repeated by teenagers during evening house parties, and found by some adults in the “out of this wold” style magazines. A woman turned into ashes in her sleep. A daughter found her father looking like a “log of wood eaten by fire.” An elderly lady ignited while she was drinking her cognac.

A spontaneous combustion is a process in which body self heats from the inside. Even though only a pile of ash remains after a body, the victim's clothing or the place in which it is found are untouched. “How to protect oneself from such an incident?”, the authors of suspense-packed articles about “the mysteries of live torches” ask. According to the unconfirmed (!) data spreading online, approximately ten people fall victim of spontaneous combustion per year.

Fresh Faces in Polish Culture 2013

It is therefore not surprising that this phenomenon particularly caught the eye of the 18^th- and 19^th- century horror authors. Even Charles Dickens was convinced that spontaneous combustion was a scientific fact. This is also how Krook, a protagonist of his Bleak House, dies.

[T]he burning smell is there – and the soot is there, and the oil is there – and he is not there!” – another protagonist reported, after finding Kook's remnants. “There is a very little fire left in the grate, but there is a smouldering, suffocating vapour in the room and a dark, greasy coating on the walls and ceiling. The chairs and table, and the bottle so rarely absent from the table, all stand as usual. On one chair-back hang the old man's hairy cap and coat.

The appearance of a bottle is no coincidence – Krook was an alcoholic, and the presence of alcohol in one's body was often associated with the cases of spontaneous combustion. All that was left of Krook was “a charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes.” There is no room for compassion here:

it is the same death eternally—inborn, inbred, engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that only—spontaneous combustion, and none other of all the deaths that can be died.

Most probably it is stories like this that have ignited Olaf Brzeski's imagination. As is suggested in the work's title, Dream – Spontaneous Combustion, such kind of paranormal event was supposedly the source of the smoke on display. The artist presents a moment in which clouds of black smoke float, while the surrounding walls are covered in black soot. The immobile smoke casts a shadow. Like in a photograph, Brzeski's sculpture immortalizes a moment lasting a split second, allowing for an infinitely long observation of this event. It is usually photographs that allow us to perceive phenomena that escape human eye sight. Technology allows us, for instance, to see how a bullet strikes through a matter.

Embedded Work

Self-Seeker – Olaf Brzeski

But no matter how long we look at Brzeski's piece, we will not find out anything. At best, we will get dirty, in the case of breaking the gallery's “do not touch” rule. What actually happened? Is there a man in there? Should we call the ambulance or an exorcist?

Even if there isn't a specific story behind Brzeski's project, those who come across it can sense that something strange has happened, something paranormal. Even if it belongs to the imaginary or metaphorical realm.

While working on the sculpture, the artist gave an interview in which he described it as a “smoke or dark dream.” Clouds of black soot, unexpected catastrophe (emerged from the interior of a human) were supposed to play the role of the essence of human fear. The fear that lives within us, or the fear of that which lives within us. After all, Dickens writes that Krook's combustion was a result of the “corrupted humours.”

Dream – Spontaneous Combustion forms part of a larger series by Brzeski, centred around destruction. During the 2009 Views competition show, he pushed a massive, historic cabinet down the staircase of Zachęta Gallery. Before that, he defaced ceramic busts. In Dream, he is interested in the human potential to annihilate oneself. Even if it's just a pipe-dream. The work was inspired by a physicist's lecture on fires, which he ended with the statement: “but, ladies and gentlemen, in reality a fire is nothing else than a matter changing its form.” “So fire has the power to create”- the artist added.

In 2011, Dream – Spontaneous Combustion was shown at the exhibition The Power of Fantasy at BOZAR in Brussels. Brzeski's piece represented the event, and was reproduced on the invitations, leaflets, and on the cover of the catalogue. It was as if the curators wished to highlight the dark side of the “power of fantasy.” Or the therapeutic power of art. In an interview given on the occasion of the show, the artist said:

Dream – Spontaneous Combustion reflects my thoughts about my childhood in Wrocław. For years, the city was tainted by the fear of war. I remember that nursery rhyme we had: “A bomb fell into the basement…” And I want to finally free myself from those demons.

Olaf Brzeski
Dream – Spontaneous Combustion
2008
polyurethane resin, soot, ash

Author: Karol Sienkiewicz, January 2012, transl. AM, December 2015

olaf brzeski

czarna gallery

dream - spontaneous combustion

spontaneous combustion