Nocna muzyka na pianolę dla Pana Antonisza 2020

Curator: Lech Jankowski's "Nocna muzyka na pianolę dla Pana Antonisza," created in 2020, immediately strikes me with its unusual form. Editor: My first impression is of quietude. The subdued colors and repetitive shapes create a contemplative, almost mournful mood. There’s something both primitive and architectural in those forms. Curator: Indeed. The work, which can be classified as a matter-painting made with oil paint, resists easy categorization. Its abstraction calls to mind modernism, though its themes also resist immediate interpretation. It invites consideration of non-objective art's societal function. Editor: Let's focus on materiality, the textured surface. There’s a clear emphasis on process. One can see where the oil paint has been layered and manipulated, even scraped away in places. The labor is evident; the artist's hand is very much present in the finished work. Curator: It’s interesting you highlight the physical creation, because the 'labor,' as you say, carries layers of meaning. The repetitive forms evoke, for me, the cyclical nature of musical movements, each shape a note in the composition for ‘Pan Antonisza.' Do we see them, perhaps, as representations of the human? If we do, how do they signal and uphold historical depictions, say, of masculinist form? Editor: I don't know about that. However, the rough texture of the oil paint seems crucial here. It’s less about elegant strokes and more about a kind of tactile engagement. This resonates with themes of industrial labor; think of manual workers molding raw materials. Curator: So perhaps a critique of the commodification of artistic production within late capitalism? Are we talking about art as object versus art as resistance? Perhaps Lech Jankowski asks, in abstract expression, questions regarding the social hierarchies imposed through class or gender lines? Editor: Possibly. To return to materials and how they inform our understanding: The oil paint seems almost sculptural, giving weight and presence to shapes which hover, isolated, in a murky green ground. The materials suggest mass, which, in turn, affects how we view the forms, in terms of function or purpose. Curator: I leave with further contemplation about the piece as a visual statement on auditory and performance culture and who or what these actions empower and perhaps disempower in modern Poland. Editor: For me, I think about what gets lost as artworks such as these begin to enter the commercial cycle, removed from context and creator, made spectral once again.