Monika Sosnowska “Façade”

Monika Sosnowska’s work Façade arrived in Lublin at the beginning of March. Planned on 20 March, the exhibition opening was cancelled due to the pandemic outbreak and the piece remained isolated from visitors for more than two months. It can now be viewed.

Façade is a one and a half ton replica of the curtain facade of a Modernist building from the 1960s (the current seat of the Foksal Gallery Foundation in Warsaw), subjected by the artist to three months of brutal operations: twisting, crushing, stretching. The precisely planned process of “inflicting violence” on the steel structure involved engineers and workers as well as construction machinery that usually serves the needs of building, and not destruction. These persistent destructive actions transformed a rectangular geometric figure of 8 x 10 metres in size with rhythmical divisions into an organic form with a dramatically twisted shape, unusable and deprived of its original function. Suspended from the ceiling, it resembles a giant crown twisted with a single movement by a mighty giant on a sudden whim. The curtain façade was non-structural, it merely functioned as an outer covering and a decorative element. It was therefore “punished” for its superficiality – for imitating a solid structure that inspires trust. Seen from today’s perspective, Façade reveals itself as a metaphor for the crisis whose culmination and ultimate end was accelerated by the pandemic. Monika Sosnowska’s sculpture became an anti-monument of modernity, which can no longer be kept on artificial life support. Looking at the “Façade” from the current perspective, we see it as a metaphor of the crisis, whose culmination and final end was accelerated by the pandemic. The sculpture by Monika Sosnowska has become an anti-monument of modern times that can no longer be artificially maintained.

Façade is the artist’s first exhibition in Lublin and the first presentation of the piece in Poland. The work has so far been shown at the exhibitions: Regional Modernities at the ACCA, Melbourne (2013), Architectonisation at The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (2015), and at the Sharjah Biennial 13, Dubai (2017).

The opening of the exhibition was preceded by performative action by Mikołaj Karczewski, Beata Mysiak and Anna Żak – dancers of the Lublin Dance Theater. The dancers entered into a dialogue with the artist’s monumental sculpture. The performance was streamed on the YouTube channel of Galeria Labirynt on May 29th, 2020 at 6:00 p.m.

Curator: Waldemar Tatarczuk

Courtesy of the artist and The Modern Institute, Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow.