Rzeźba Przestrzenna 1925

Katarzyna Kobro made this sculpture out of painted metal sometime in the early to mid twentieth century. I can imagine her in the studio puzzling over the material, trying to find the right balance of forms. The stark, all-white surface gives the work a kind of ghostly presence, as if it were a spectral diagram of pure form. It’s like she’s saying, ‘Here are the basic shapes that make up the world; now go build something!’ The metal ribbons curve and jut, making a language of angles, and a sense of floating. It reminds me of the Constructivist project of artists like Tatlin and Rodchenko, who also aimed to bridge the gap between art and life through simple forms. Kobro’s sculpture feels like a distillation of those ideas, but with a softer touch, like a diagram for how to build a playground. Artists are always talking to each other across time and space, reinventing and rethinking ideas. It's an open-ended conversation that we’re all invited to join, and it’s this messy, uncertain dialogue that makes art so exciting.