The main ‘character’ of the depiction, the eponymous red armchair, was painted without being placed in particular architecture, as if suspended in a vacuum. The painter conveys the three-dimensionality of the space using blurred lights and hazy colours. The shadows cast by the objects render the laws of physics real and signify that the armchair and the blue model of the sphere placed in front of it are really standing on the floor. A carelessly tossed tie and handkerchief evoke the figure of an absent man, perhaps the artist himself, so that the entire depiction may be interpreted as his crypto-self-portrait. The model of a globe in the foreground and the repetition of the spherical blue shape in the deeper section of the painting serve here as a ‘relational figure’ — the authentication of the self in relation with another person. Other works by Kaczmarski that lack human figures — such as Interior with Open Door (1978) in the Zachęta collection — also have an existential significance.

Michał Jachuła

translated by Paulina Bożek