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The Alchemy of Order.
The Art of Andrzej Bednarczyk
Is Andrzej Bednarczyk a painter, a sculptor, or a graphic artist? The
answer is not easy, his works escape simple classification. Pictures,
picture-objects, sculptures, sculpture-installations, volumes,
volume-sculpture-picture-installations… Ornaments? Symbols? Analogons? Dioramas?
Spatial diagrams? All of this based on graphic geometry and order. On
abstraction. All so contemporary. And I’m writing these words in a time
seemingly symbolized by circuit boards and series of ones and zeroes. “The
Digit”.
The form of many of Bednarczyk’s works falls into this category of associations.
And yet…
The sense of his works is borne out by a deep vein of old traditions.
How stimulating they are in the dim light of a single flame… In twilight.
In the dawn of light.
What stands behind them? What sort of reality do they anticipate? What
does their intention point towards?
In the workshop
In Bednarczyk’s workshop Orthodox song and Gregorian chorales resound: a
column of voices linking Heaven and Earth. Most often, though, Bach is heard
here. Bach above all, The Goldberg Variations, for example: mystical
combinations, a study which glows with the pearly light of perfection.
On the table there are numerous tomes of St. Thomas of Aquille, master of
the theory of passing from potential to action, towards existential totality.
Next to these is the inseparable Bible, broad fragments of which the artist
knows by heart, in excerpt: he readily cites those dedicated to the symbolism of
the stone, the altar stone, the (non-)comprehension of God.
In the background, on the walls of the workshop, the choir of columns of
his “Spheres of Heaven”.
The reproduction of Dűrer’s “Melancholy” is an echo of an experience from years
ago, when the artist viewed the original in Dűrer’s Home, in Nuremberg.
Bednarczyk carries the picture of that graphic in living memory to this day: an
angel, a magic square… Another enlightenment in which Bednarczyk found himself
was Rublov, seen in Moscow: angels, gold, i.e. the true color of the heavens,
spheres of that which truly is…
The artist’s anonymity
Bednarczyk finds himself through self-control and abstention from
self-indulgence. His ideal is, I think, a non-personal or greater-than-personal
work, untainted by fantasy or imagination, whim or will of the artist, yet doing
justice to order… Order of the cosmos – the same that is evinced by even a
common stone? Pre-adjusted order? Ultimate order? The artist’s ideal work
seeking the source within this order on its own? Origins?
Often Bednarczyk incorporates the stone as an element of his work. Not cut.
Natural. Found. See the “Book of Rules”. Over the choir of columns of magical
order, carried by their sound, rises and endures, like all of nature, its
symbol, the stone.
In Bednarczyk’s works there is not a trace of his hand, no trace of gesture.
They are almost technical. And yet not at all machine-like. Their most personal
element is often the author’s poetry. Whether it be the poetry of the title or
that written into the work, like for instance on the columns of “The Field of
Angelic Whispers”. But in this case it’s more the viewer who, entering the
“Field”, wandering in the forest of its columns, and reading encountered words
which are carved on them, assembles them into his own entirety… He walks,
carried by the power of the associations evoked by words, by the assembly
thereof. In their rhythm.
No trace of gesture, no trace of the hand. The duct of the heart has
remained, the duct of the heart of longing?
Melancholy
Dűrer’s “Melancholy” expresses the situation of an artist who has lost the
ability of contemplation and vision – insight into the nature of reality. The
artist suffers from this loss. He moves within a sphere where the only
possibility is action. He finds support in measuring tools. He surrenders to a
new ideal, scientific knowledge: to the ideal of measurability. Does the magical
square, like an atavism, remain a symbol of the supernatural nature of reality,
a trace of mystery and prodigiousness? Of magic?
Is this where Bednarczyk begins, not falling into melancholy, making order? Or
can one say that his work flows out of a belief in order, out of a longing for
the existence thereof? Of order, in other words simultaneously of harmony,
balance, justice, and unity?
The artist doesn’t just see order, just like that. Rather, he discerns it. He
wants to make it visible and seen (with at least the sixth sense, the mind’s
eye?).
The Equilibrium Algorhythm
Bednarczyk makes the magical square the symbol and synonym of the hidden order.
As we know, there are numbers in the spaces of the “chessboard” that makes up
this square, which are chosen in such a way that their sum when added along a
single line – be it vertical, horizontal, or diagonal – is always the same.
Bednarczyk makes such a balanced arrangement the organizing principle of many of
his works. It comes from a magical square of number-squares. Given numbers are
assigned a visible equivalent, be it in the form of “elemental” golden squares
in that number (“Map of the Empyrean Sky”), that of a golden “ring” with a
corresponding diameter (“Squareness of the Circle – Roundness of the Square”),
or in the form of a perpendicular parallelepiped column of the appropriate
height (“The Book of Rules”).
Fascination with the hidden order, the manifestation of which is the visible
form of the world. The form for which it is the basis and source.
Elemental, simple visualizations of this would be the very works of Bednarczyk.
The miracle of transformation plays out before our eyes. Here, an arrangement of
numbers takes on a visible form, the whole, emerging from the interplay of
elements, resounds… shines… With beauty. Is order thus sanctified? Does it
reveal its sacredness?
Bednarczyk counts the title of the work: “9 Hierarchies, 8709120 Intelligences”.
Each of nine elements can be placed at four positions in nine places. The number
of combinations is almost nine million. And since in every case we’re dealing
with a magical square, thanks to this magical quality, the arrangement is
balanced every time …, also when it becomes a picture in your eyes, setting it
in motion. Such is the dynamic equilibrium of elemental particle-squares,
luminous and dim.
Malewicz’s squares, Mondrian’s “pluses and minuses”, the squares of Reinhardt,
Winiarski’s … Bednarczyk’s squares…
And yet, despite your objectivity, dear viewer, you will realize that it’s
nothing without you. That’s not an unfamiliar work you have before you. You
feel, perhaps with surprise, that moment, at which the encountered arrangement
comes to life beneath your gaze, subsequently embracing you with its movement.
The circles in “Squareness…”, for example, set your vision in motion, gyrate
toward you, float away, with the ambiguity of simultaneously coming and going.
Light
A painter’s sensitivity allows the artist to choose such golds and such
black-grays that “Squareness”, “Maps”, and “Hierarchies”… dematerialize. Overly
shiny gold surfaces would draw too much attention to that which glitters,
material, gold. Overly shiny blacks, as well. The black in the mentioned works
is not superficial. It doesn’t enter the field of attention by itself.
“Transparent”, it gives presence, portrays depth, twilight, a background from
which the visible emerges…
Leaden black. The “lead” of alchemic transmutation, “lead” which becomes “gold”?
If the viewer ceases to look at these works, when he looks at some object and
retains the perspective from which we look at the pictures, what is left in his
field of vision is just light itself, the arrangement of light particles itself.
A (re-)presentation. The figure of light – figure of shadow remains.
Radiation of the background.
How well these pictures look in the flicker of a candle’s flame. They feed on
it. Finally, their gentle whisper can be heard. The gold-black edge loses its
univocal and final qualities. The chasm which separates existence from
non-existence disappears.
Figure, silhouette of light – silhouette of shadow.
We enter the light-ray of existence. Invited to wander, the eye is amazed as it
makes ever newer discoveries in the world of a seemingly closed and completed
whole. With a single movement of the eye it comes to life, liberates and
stimulates successive phenomena within itself. A look ties together certain
“elemental” particles. Arranges. Moves along the channels it finds within them.
Goes beyond the boundaries…
A faint flame flickers, the border is blurred, yes and no.
Something is, but at the same time isn’t. Flickering of existence.
Symbols and forms are born and die on the edge of light and twilight, which
falls apart in a wandering look.
You walk onto the slope of (non-)existence: existence and non-existence. You
find yourself, realizing that you are always only here: on the slope of
(non-)existence: existence and non-existence. The phase of transition. Before
your eyes, under your gaze the world becomes and disappears. And becomes... and
disappears… and...
You are a witness to creation in which you take part. At the most basic level.
Are you?
I believe that all true art replicates the creation of the world – a certain
vision of the subject of the creation, origins, and nature of the world… The
situation of Man… It is this kind of conception, or representation, that makes a
true work of art. One that reaches the anticipated pre-image.
The case of Bednarczyk’s works is no different.
He who passed
To meet the divine face to face is not granted to Man. He cannot withstand the
eye of God. Moses, according to the story in the Old Testament, could only lift
his eyes at the moment when God was leaving…
God to Moses: “<<...no man can live after seeing my face >> (…) When my majesty
sweeps by, (…) I will cover you with my hand till I sweep past you; then I will
remove my hand, to let you see my back. My face is never to be seen >>”
(Exodus, 33, 20-23)
This excerpt seems to put even the most fervently religious soul in its proper
place: Man cannot know that which is divine as his counterpart. The definition
of religion as life “in the face of God” is a usurpation. God will never be
opposite me, nor before me, as long as I live.
With this excerpt in mind, along with the belief that some glimmer of divinity,
at least a shadow, is attainable, far from Heaven, by those who live on Earth,
Bednarczyk says: “The Back of God”. And even creates a work about this
title-manifest.
What a different sense has now been acquired by the name: “He Who Passed” – “He
Who is Leaving”!
“The Back of God”. The work that I have before me seems to announce
another cycle.
What we see: three elements, all but derived from the cycle “Maps of the
Empyrian Heavens”, in a Cartesian spatial arrangement they form an angle…
Three squares. Gold surfaces mirror-polished. In the center, the most perfect
form, the sphere. A mirror gold sphere.
Three planes, suspended above you. In a protective gesture, it shields…
Of who’s hands is this gesture?
When you draw near, and all you want is to see plainly and clearly,
instead of increased clarity you are met with… Here is what you are met with:
Images multiply in the play of glints and reflections. The source
pulsates. Pictures within pictures. Within the pictures, ostensible pictures,
echoes. As you follow their path, prior definability, contour, and border are
lost. Lost in its incomprehensible disparity. Sight is lost in the unviewed,
falls into ambiguity.
An iconoclastic chapel?
A tabernacle?
A Mausoleum – repository of a past presence?
The coming of the One Who Passed?
A trap for that which is divine? A trap of thoughts?
A niche of… concentration?
An alcove, a place erected for that which is holy? Where instead of His
likeness a spherical flame burns? Burns, smolders, and shines? Exists, in
eternal peace? Suspended within the endless between. It burns and vibrates.
Three squares. They tower and hover. They point to above and beyond.
Concentrated in the sphere. Its surface encompasses the entire world. You will
find a reflection of yourself there.
Will you find yourself?
God?
The One Who is Passing?
All true art provides a sensual metaphor of the extrasensory, the concept
of extrasensory (non-) presence
within the sensual stands behind it. A true work of art is such a conception. It
reaches the anticipated pre-image.
The case of Bednarczyk’s works is no different. ■
Wieczysta, 12. XI 2000.
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