Virtual
walk
Anna Bujak “I only want roses”, Curator: Patrycja Sikora
“What I create must be surprising, I experiment, reduce form, observing how far I can go to reach the very core of the idea. I am interested in contradictions, I move between order and destruction, I want the created object to gain the power of attraction and at the same time it must contain an element of something repulsive. The objects I construct reflect my private experiences, but also historical traumas, global events that affect us all.” – Anna Bujak.
I Only Want Roses, the title, which derived from the suffragettes’ slogan, became the starting point for building a multi-threaded exhibition, touching on areas such as feminism, the sphere of intuition, the search for the metaphysical dimension of existence, the clash of aesthetic form with the abject.
The works presented at the exhibition refer to the elusive internal imperative of searching for a higher level of being and transcendence – a desire that we often cannot precisely define, and around which we build our identity. Each of the exhibited objects is like a totem constructed for a specific purpose – to organize the relationship with the world of nature surrounding us and the internal relationship with ourselves/themselves. This procedure resembles archaic, naive rituals rooted in our subconscious, intended to ensure success or save us from disaster. In the final scene of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, in the face of a cosmic cataclysm, the characters hide in a hut of branches, knowing that the approaching end is inevitable. We build symbolic shelters in fear, knowing that this procedure is only a conjuring of reality.
Anna Bujak, an artist combining classical sculpture with ready-mades and found objects, presents seven works created between 2021 and 2025, including premiere site-specific projects. They were inspired by various cultural texts – the poetry of Wisława Szymborska, Melancholia by Lars von Trier, a speech by suffragette Helen Todd, a book by activist Rebecca Solnit, the writings of anthropologist Meyer Fortes, the Sistine Chapel fresco, as well as symbolism and iconography and biological and metamorphic processes occurring in nature, considered in the spirit of Epicurean philosophy. These areas, filtered through the author’s own sensitivity, materialize in the form of surprising, surreal works. The axis of the exhibition is a two-element installation created especially for the space of the Jan Tarasin Art Gallery in Kalisz, balancing between a form derived from the world of nature and geometry, combining classic plastic materials such as bronze and aluminum with organic and ready-made elements.
Exhibition opening: Thursday, Jun 26, 2025, 7 P.M.
Exhibition duration: Jun 26 – Aug 20, 2025
Organizer:
The Jan Tarasin Art. Gallery in Kalisz
Culture Institution of Kalisz
Gallery partners:
Grupa Mo, AR NEON, Schimmel Pianos, Polifarb Kalisz S.A., M&P alkohole wina cygara
Media patronage:
Pismo Artystyczne FORMAT, Magazyn SZUM, Notes na 6 Tygodni, Ziemia Kaliska, Radio Centrum, Calisia.pl, Fakty Kaliskie