Thursday,
25 April
Exhibition, presentation of research results and conservation as well as reconstruction of the author’s original technique, monograph and film on the reconstruction of the creative process and spatial technique of Jan Tarasin.
We invite you to the exhibition of many works of Jan Tarasin, including unknown, three-dimensional paintings. He was a creator of many faces: a painter, a graphic artist, a drawer, a photographer, a pedagogue, an author of philosophical essays on art, an artist in a peculiar artistic peregrination to describe the world, from classical studies to experiments. He was born on September 11, 1926 in Kalisz and, although he passed on August 8, 2009, like every great artist, he is constantly present in his works, which certainly provide aesthetic satisfaction to the inhabitants of Kalisz.
Unique and beautiful paintings have recently been restored in their beauty and meaning. They surprise with their form, their uniqueness, in their three-dimensionality, which differs from the reliefs or textured painting. They demand of us to revise the knowledge about the painter and his creative search. The origins of this exhibition were extraordinary. We were introduced to these works thanks to the son of the artist, who took care of the surprising legacy found at home and asked for help in preserving it. A project that lasted more than two years was conducted under my direction, along with a large group of educators and students within the Faculty of Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art. The exhibition was created thanks to the cooperation of the Interdepartmental Atelier „NOVUM” – The Care and Conservation of Modern and Contemporary Art and the Atelier for the Conservation of Paintings on Mobile Ground.
The exhibition of mostly unknown works by Jan Tarasin, the book and the film about the reconstruction of his spatial painting, open a new card of knowledge about the still mysterious creator, educator and rector of the Academy of Fine Arts, essayist and thinker going beyond disciplines, similar to the synthesis of arts in his artistic activities. Several dozen paintings were restored. The exhibition of paintings is accompanied by a show of films that reproduce the artist’s search for the form, the secrets of his creative workshop and the spatial compositions of the painting. This is conducive to the understanding of Tarasin’s multidimensional art, although his diverse works have never been easy to classify.
We present the mostly unknown works of Jan Tarasin, presenting a different formula of the painting in which space, structure, texture, and rhythm are important. The first reactions to these works have been to describe it as “3 D”, but with time we have discovered their deeper meaning, the multi-dimensional three-dimensionality in the physical sense, but also a further four-dimensionality, which the artist suggests in his works, drawing the viewer’s attention to space-time. Meta-painting of the mature creator, in contrast to the rules of mimetic imaging of the environment, presents his own world view enriched with numerous studies, also expressed in the essays of the artist included in the Zeszyty Jana Tarasina [Notebooks of Jan Tarasin], published by the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1974-1983. Lending spirituality and spatial perspectives to works fascinated the artist. He created open systems which give the viewer a free reign of interpretation of reality and guesswork. The monograph accompanying the exhibition is on this very subject: JAN TARASIN – METAMALARSTWO [JAN TARASIN – META-PAINTING]
Iwona Szmelter
Professor Iwona Szmelter
Director of the Interdepartmental Atelier „NOVUM” – The Care and Conservation of Modern and Contemporary Art; Faculty of Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.