Self-portrait

The Self-portrait by Tomasz Mróz presents a grotesquely distorted individual resembling other characters from his installations, if only to mention the drunken forester from the work A.A. The humanoid monster, which is supposed to be a self-image of the artist, causes repulsion among most viewers. The position in which it is shown expresses subordination and subservience, while its face, with the protruding tongue and the accessories, suggest the sexual context of the work. The collar on the neck is a typical sadomasochistic instrument, the monster’s sexual features are very explicitly highlighted, and the erect tail reinforces phallic associations. The figure is made more suggestive by the silicon from which the sculpture is made: it looks as if it is covered with a porous skin, a slimy body glistening with sweat. To make the image whole, the author has introduced rats to the composition. Being expansive animals, reproducing in infinite numbers and capable of adapting to any condition, they have never had positive connotations.

Mróz brings out the dark side of the human being, the untamed instincts, the denied biology, and the physical monstrosity. His installation presents human ugliness in categories of medieval typology: what is ugly, is also bad, and a distorted body is tantamount to a distorted soul. When commenting on his own works, the artist has referred to the reality around him as a source of inspiration, “The faces I sometimes see on the streets in Poland do not make my works in any part especially deformed.”

Mróz not only presents a caricature of shortcomings or perversions but also the hypocrisy of the social and moral stance, the absurdity of the coexistence of contradictory attitudes: xenophobia and tolerance, anti-Semitism and religiousness, as well as the inability to reconcile physical drives and their restraining social and religious rules. The co-existence of the antinomy is not based on consensus. When halted by bans and commands, instincts are vented in the underground, while social life is nothing but appearances and efforts to maintain an ornamental decency. The artist looks at the reality from afar. He subjects it to severe criticism but does not place himself above it, presenting himself in a manner which is just as repulsive.

Izabela Kopania