Zadanie artysty [The Artist’s Task]

The Artist’s Task is an intervention into the matter of Kamień i cierpienie – Polish edition (1987) of the book Kámen a bolest [Stone and Pain] (1942) by the Czech writer Karel Schulz, which focuses on the life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, one of the greatest artists of the Italian late Renaissance. Jadwiga Sawicka conducts a dialogue with the narration pertaining to the sculptor’s life and artistic heritage by means of collages affixed on the book’s pages. She composes them of, among others, reproductions of Buonarroti’s famous, indeed iconic works; the pages are adorned with a section of the relief Battle of the Centaurs (c. 1492, Casa Buonarroti, Florence), a section of the statue Moses (1515, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome) the figures of Dusk and Dawn (1524–31, the Medici Chapels, Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence) and others.

The title given by Sawicka to her work, as well as the framework of the book which constitutes the base for her action, hint at concepts that may serve its interpretation. The phrase “the artist’s task” immediately brings to mind the question of creator’s obligations which, viewed through the Romantic heritage still alive in Polish mentality, are of a tragic and patriotic nature. This vision is inseparably linked with the figure of a genius, which from the Antiquity and Renaissance until late Modernity was associated with the image of an artist. Patriotic motifs are absent from Sawicka’s work, but it is decidedly suffused with the spirit of an outstanding figure, a vast talent, which presides over reflection regarding creation and all aspects thereof.

Michelangelo constitutes a perfect context and reason for such reflection. He is one of those creators whose achievements are often described, not only in popular texts on fine arts, in the form of a “psychological biography”: struggles with mood swings, profound self-reflection, existential doubts, exertions caused by creation process. Sawicka’s reflections pertain to an artist in the universal dimension, of whom Buonarroti is only an emblem. Intervention into a tale about Michelangelo’s oeuvre provokes questions as to the meaning of creation, the personal and social aspects of art, the inflation of artistic production, its consumption, assimilation or exclusion from circulation and, perhaps most crucially, as to a work as such.

Izabela Kopania

translated from Polish by Klaudyna Michałowicz