Zachęta – National Gallery of Art

artists: Włodzimierz Jan Zakrzewski, Teresa Murak, Krystiana Robb-Narbutt, Robert Maciejuk, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Jan Dobkowski, Józef Gielniak, Janusz Halicki, Maciej Haufa, Zenon Januszewski, Andrzej Kalina, Bartosz Mucha, Janusz Piotrowski, Marian Kruczek, Leszek Rózga, Krzysztof Wieczorek, Jacek Sowicki
curator: Maria Świerżewska-Franczak
project of Tralabum i mubalarT: Włodzimierz Jan Zakrzewski with contribution from Robert Maciejuk
project of Acile in a Not Larger Salon: Kuba Bąkowski

Alice: Wonderland Across the Road (a twin project to Włodzimierz Jan Zakrzewski. Alice at Sakson Garden) is presented at the Zachęta’s ground floor. Here the inspiration came from Carroll’s play with scale, perspective and space. The opening installation, in the Mały Salon gallery, is Kuba Bąkowski’s Alice in a Not Larger Salon. Alluding to an absurd logic of the dream world, the artist divides Alice’s body into numerous elements, each of various scale, position and colour, in order to then reunite them through the lens of a camera obscura or an archaic photographic apparatus. Either device will act as a focusing lens that splits and fragments reality. The object, just like Carroll’s ‘eat me’ cake, introduces the viewer to a scaled-down reality, which is continued in the next room with a miniature Curiosity Cabinet with prints (most of them never shown before) and objects from the Zachęta’s collection, showing fantastic creatures,  landscapes and mysterious objects. Just as Alice does not keep her new size for long, so does the gallery space, which soon returns to its proper dimensions. This change is underscored by two more works from the Zachęta collection, their size sharply contrasting with the scale of the other pieces: Pedro Cabrita Reis’s Untitled and Bartosz Mucha’s Table House (part of the installation 52 Lazy Weeks. Paraarchitecture). The project closes with Jan Zakrzewski’s Tralabum and mubalarT, which repeats the card motif present at Ogród Saski, albeit on a much different scale. Special lighting makes the room’s dimensions unclear, and a key role is played here by music and its connection with a mysterious installation that manifests itself only from up close. Zakrzewski: ‘The installation deals with the relation between sound and movement. The title, Tralabum and mubalarT, refers to the Chapter IV of Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There; the chapter has many musical connotations, including the brothers Tweedledum and Tweedledee who dance with Alice’.