Love

Wojciech Bąkowski’s Love is as much an autonomous and direct artwork which does not require any instructions, as it is a gloomy story in which we can try to look for reflexes of the artist’s inner experience. The classical animation was made on the basis of Bąkowski’s ballpoint pen drawings on paper. They are aesthetically nonchalant, though tamed by a dual composition: the top is a vibrating moving picture while the bottom is occupied by a corresponding text. There are no causal effects taking place in between the subsequent texts: neither the texts nor the images make up a logical sequence.

The narrative developed by the artist, which is illustrated by dynamic, though overwhelming and monotonous music, is actually a stream of loose thoughts verbalized in a psychedelic-like trance. The gloomy, though poetic notes reflect the crowding of ideas, the grappling with emotions, the obsessions and fears, as well as the attempt to connect the random associations taken out of different contexts. The carelessly handwritten notes made out in equal time intervals are only seemingly chaotic in the message they carry. In reality, they are the result of diligent introspection and analytical observations of the world around. The colloquial statements are filled with linguistic imperfections, verging on gabble. Their content seems to flow out of a distorted perception of reality. The linguistic experiments, used to seek the proper method of describing the world, bring Bąkowski’s explorations close to those of Miron Białoszewski, whom the artist himself calls his master.

The consistent artistic stance of Bąkowski stems from being emerged in “a reality of a lesser importance”. The artist likes to quote this saying, once used by Tadeusz Kantor, seeing it as most aptly describing both his actions as well as the actions of his colleagues from the Penerstwo collective, of which he is a member. Bąkowski applies cohesive aesthetics originating from the congruency of contradictions: primitivism and sophistication, arrogance and sensitivity, a deep experience of the world and wallowing in the gutter.

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