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    29.06.2018 –
    05.11.2018

    Karol Broniatowski - In The Moment

    Karol Broniatowski, Ohne Titel, 2001. (c) Gunter Lepkowski
    Karol Broniatowski, Ohne Titel, 2001. (c) Gunter Lepkowski

    The creative work of the sculptor Karol Broniatowski (b. 1945, Łódź) revolves around figurative sculpture. Starting out from the artistic material, his interest is the procedure, the tactile, and the experience of sculpture. He deliberately leaves the messages open—for him, nothing is completed.

    The exhibition »In the Moment« shows current bronze sculptures and large-format gouaches. Groups of works on such classic topics of sculpture as contraposto and the heraldic shield attendant start with a spontaneous moment, are reworked, and lead into different situations. The sculptural acts of removing, cutting, and separating manifest Broniatowski’s process-based thinking. He successively breaks down the outer form into order to focus the inner statement, which can be experienced increasingly clearly the further the figure is removed from its initial form. The imaginary transition from inside to outside is Broniatowski’s main interest in his creative work.

    The gouaches can also be read as sculptural work in this sense. Executed as monotypes, Broniatowski understands them as moments of sculptures that have been left behind, as sculpture on paper. He uses figures made of clay that quickly and precisely can be applied to paper by direct printing. Here, too, the process is the crucial aspect for the artist.

    Karol Broniatowski studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1964 to 1970. With his graduation project »News-paper Figures«, a group of life-sized striding figures of papier-mâché, he attracted attention and was invited to represent Poland at the 26. Venice Biennale in 1972. Exhibitions and residencies in Poland and abroad made him one of the most important Polish sculptors of his time.

    In 1976, as a DAAD scholarship recipient, Broniatowski moved into a studio in today’s premises of Kunsthaus Dahlem. There he realized the cycle »Big Man«, which was shown at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in the same year. Conceptual, action-based works followed, such as the »Big Man« series and the presentation of numbers one to ninety-three as Morse code alphabet, corresponding to the number of single figures within the given group of sculptures. Broniatowski was also preoccupied with the idea of a sculpture that could be assembled and disassembled, as a way of illustrating the sculptural process in one work. In 1981 this marked the beginning of his work in bronze, including major works like »Group 93« and the large »Walking Men«. Broniatowski has also realized works in public space, for example »Monument to the Deported Jews of Berlin« at the Grunewald S-Bahn station in 1991 and »The Foot of Bendern« for the LGT Bank in Liechtenstein in 1996.

    The exhibition is curated by Anne Schwanz | OFFICE IMPART