Mieke Bal “Don Quijote: Sad Countenances“

When: March 31, 2025 (Monday), 19:00
Where: Labirynt Gallery, Popiełuszki 5, Lublin
Language: Polish. Translation into English: Konrad Szulga. Translation into PSL: Ewelina Lachowska. No translation into Ukrainian.
Exhibition open until: April 19, 2025 (Tuesday – Sunday, 12.00 – 19.00)
Admission: PLN 8 – full price ticket, PLN 4 – concession ticket (free admission for the opening)

Professor Mieke Bal, one of the most prominent cultural scholars with an extensive academic record, presents her work in Lublin—this time as an artist.

The video installation and photographs which are part of the exhibition do not create a linear narrative, but rather offer dispersed episodes which—similar to those in Cervantes’ novel—are fragmented, incoherent and multi-layered. Time no longer matters, and a linear story is replaced by the characters’ repetitive, and often pointless actions. The visitors are encouraged to construct their own, new stories from the elements of the installation, discovering the deep connections between the past and the present, because—as the artist quotes after Françoise Davoine—“the past is today”.

One of the exhibition’s key themes is the impossibility of talking about trauma. In many episodes, such as Narrative Stuttering and Aimless Altruism, the characters try to tell their stories, but are locked in traumatic experiences. Don Quijote becomes a figure of not only insanity, but also powerlessness in the face of the modern world. He tries to fix the evil around him, but his actions often fail—not because he lacks will, but because the world he lives in is too complicated to understand his noble intentions.

For Mieke Bal, art becomes a research tool, and “thinking with paintings” lets us diagnose today’s problems (mass migration, violence, the destruction of our planet) and forces us to think about them and look for solutions.

The exhibition uses the idea of empathy as a way to influence viewers confronted with trauma and violence. Don Quijote, the classic “mad knight,” is transformed into a “sad knight,” whose actions become an expression of frustration and powerlessness against the suffering of others. Ball emphasises the fact that although it might seem pointless, the act of helping others, empathy remain a key tool in the fight against dehumanisation.

(Mateusz Wszelaki)

curators: Małgorzata Gamrat, Elżbieta Błotnicka-Mazur
collaboration: Mateusz Wszelaki
exhibition design: Waldemar Tatarczuk
coordination: Diana Kołczewska
execution: Rafał Garula, Jarosław Mitura, Adam Oroń
promotion: Alicja Gieleta
graphic design: Florentyna Nastaj
partners: The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, WRO Art Center