Opis
Wojciech Bąkowski carries into art what we barely remember consciously. THAT laundry mangle in the housing block downstairs. THAT doll in the corner of a room. THAT television static before a family movie night. These are images each of us carries somewhere — even without knowing we do. Wojciech Bąkowski knows about them, and his art has an almost magical ability to transport us through time and space.
This album gathers 69 of his drawings, collected for the first time in a single book. Each one works like a condensed solution: a few pen strokes, a brief moment, and suddenly you stand in a room no one has visited in twenty years. The album serves as a key to your own after-images.
A beautifully made book to keep within reach when you need to return to places that no longer exist.
What you will find in „Come Visit Me at Home” by Wojciech Bąkowski
A world of after-images we all share
The eighties, nineties, and early two-thousands in Poland had their own atmosphere, their own sounds and smells. The carefree noise from courtyards where children played. The rumble of trams in which people talked instead of staring at their phones. The scent of freshly baked bread from the bakery downstairs. Through Wojciech Bąkowski’s art you receive an extraordinary window into a time gone by, joined with a mirror in which you can see yourself.
A book you can read for hours, or in three seconds
You can pick up this album and flip through it in five minutes. You can also sit with a single spread for an hour. This is a kind of total art you can lose yourself in. To experience it you do not need a doctorate in art history. An open mind is enough. Wojciech Bąkowski does not explain, does not strain for depth, does not try to convince you of anything. His works are pure seeing, as Olga Tokarczuk once wrote, and the rest happens inside you.
A key to one of the most important Polish contemporary artists
Wojciech Bąkowski has been awarded the Polityka Passport. His works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, and the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art. He is represented by Galeria Stereo in Warsaw and Bureau in New York. If you have ever thought about exploring Polish contemporary art, this album is the best way to begin that remarkable journey.
The sound that is there, yet cannot be heard
Wojciech Bąkowski says that his drawings are images of noise without sound. It is a curious statement, but only until you see it in practice. Then you quickly understand that some works can be loud not through volume, but through presence.
Find yourself in the works of Wojciech Bąkowski
We remember more than we think, and an album of Wojciech Bąkowski’s works acts like a switch you press to open an evening of recollection.
A collector’s view
I will never forget the feeling that came over me the first time I saw a work made by Wojtek. Probably because it was able to capture my full attention, even though my mind tends to skip restlessly between thoughts. I felt as if I had almost been carried through time and space into a memory, or a dream I had had a few times but kept forgetting. Thanks to Wojtek, I will not forget it now. In the same way, memories of my own childhood returned to me. Even those that until then had been somewhat blurred or filled with static.
Wojtek once said that in the eighties he spent a great deal of time surrounded by a large and very close family: „It happened in a house that today looks completely different and belongs to other people. Most of that family is no longer alive or has disappeared from my life. Thinking about it brings on a sadness with a pleasant tinge.” That made me understand that this pleasantly tinted sadness can be passed on to us, the viewers of Wojtek’s art, which is especially valuable in our age full of haste and inattention.
This album is an extraordinary chance to immerse yourself in the world of one of the most exceptional Polish artists of the newest generation. I can hardly wait for the evenings I will spend with it.
Radek Kotarski
What the critics say
„For art that is an original combination of brutality and lyricism, for giving a new and interesting meaning to the concept of the 'multimedia artist’.”
Jury of the Polityka Passports 2010, „Visual Arts” category
„We award the Grand Prize to a work that challenges the relation of language to images, that renews the project of experimental film and post-internet art (…). It is a work of remarkable economy, concision and wit, its richness drawn from its diverse array of images, motifs, text and music, enlivened through their unusual combination.”
Jury of the 61st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2015, international Grand Prize for the film „Sound of My Soul / Głos mojej duszy”
Producer / Responsible Entity in the European Union
Company name: Alt.pl sp. z o.o.
Address: Jana Czeczota 31, 02-607 Warsaw, Poland
Email: sklep@alt.pl
Phone: +48 729 963 321
Country of product origin: Poland
