Cane and Black Cube

After the percussive instrument designed by composer Galina Ustvolskaya for her Composition No 2. “Dies Irae” (for eight double basses, piano and chipboard cube, 1972–1973)

The minimalist installation Cane and Black Cube by Joanna Malinowska is an erudite statement composed of references to the history of the European culture. What the artist finds as the supreme means of expression, are things which she perceives in anthropological categories. Her creations are direct references to the objects which played an important role in the artistic and symbolic acts of culture in the second half of the 20th c.

The black box was created on the inspiration of a percussion instrument constructed by the Russian composer, Galina Ustvolskaya (1919–2006) for her Composition no. 2. “Dies Irae” (1972–1973). Malinowska recreated the instrument in wood, remembering to keep to the original parameters and structure. In case of the unique instrument by Ustvolskaya, which the critics compared to a coffin, sounds were produced with the use of a wooden hammer. In Malinowska’s version, the function is performed by an engine-driven cane wrapped in a felt blanket. This object, in turn, was borrowed from the famous performance by Joseph Beuys, I Like America and America Likes Me (New York, 1974). The performer spent three days in one room with a coyote, performing symbolic gestures towards the animal and, in the end, taming it. In Beuys’ works many myths developed over felt. They are related to the war experiences of the artist, and his interpretation of his own biography.

The extra-material dimension of the installation, which is united by a regular monotonous sound, is made up of a hermetic overlapping of meanings. Each of the objects made by the artist brings into the work a biography of the item to which it refers. On the other hand, the objects constituting Cane and Black Cube become autonomous – by carrying a symbolic potential they radiate their own being. Malinowska is fond of a spiritual view of things, which goes beyond the traditional anthropocentric nature of the humanities. To her, things are autonomous beings whose existence is independent of the human being, and who have the magical power of changing reality.

Izabela Kopania