Active remembering | Wojciech Kujawski

Active remembering | Wojciech Kujawski
Curator: Marcin Filary
Support: Szymon Zwoliński, Anna Maria Brandys
Gallery Duża Scena UAP, 24 Wodna Str.
Opening: 16.11.2023, 18:00
16.11 – 3.12.2023

Wojciech Kujawski

Active Remembering

Every death is unexpected. Such an event marks the memory of all those who remain for a long time, and also makes us aware of the presence of a clear boundary between the present and the past. In addition to the memories of the lost person, there are always various items, often small and personal. They are, as cultural anthropologist Aleida Assmann notes: symbolic supports that preserve memories for the future, while imposing the obligation of shared collective memory on subsequent generations. However, before such a coherent and unified memory arises, fragmentary and unformed memories exist in the sphere of individual memory.

For the sculptor Wojciech Kujawski, a member of the Poznan group “Koło Klipsa” and a long-time head of the sculpture studio at the university in Poznan, both memory and time were very important. In his work, he kept returning to old works, breaking them down and reassembling them, modifying and abandoning their fragments, so that one day, when the time came, they would be found again in the substance of a new work. He treated his entire activity as a constant remembering and re-remembering of what was past – perceiving all repetitions and changes very personally.

It is extremely difficult today to reconstruct this complex tangle of paths of the artist’s individual memory, and it is equally difficult to guess which fragments of his work he wanted to allocate to the collective memory that was to remain behind him, intended for future generations. However, reaching back to the “symbolic signs” he left us, we can now, just like the artist himself did years ago, decide which of them, through the gesture of our active and conscious memory, we want to include in a new set – our collective memory.

The presented selection of Wojciech Kujawski’s works contains fragments of works spanning many years of his work. It is an invitation not only to get to know the artist’s oeuvre, but also an intimate tour of his former studio. The culmination of the exhibition is the reconstruction of the last pre-death composition of the creator himself, as in the case of all other exhibits, carefully recreated from many scattered fragments.

Wojciech Kujawski
(1959-2014)

Sculptor, professor of fine arts, teacher.
In the years 1978-1983 he studied at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Poznan (diploma in the sculpture studio of Prof. Maciej Szańkowski). From 1983 to 1986 he belonged to the “Koło Klipsa” group. For many years he ran a sculpture studio at the Poznan University. In 1999-2002 he was the head of the Department of Sculpture, and then in 2002-2005 he was the dean of the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan. He presented his works at many individual exhibitions, including Gallery Wielka 19 in Poznan, Gallery RR in Warsaw and ACP Gallery in Salzburg, and also took part in numerous group exhibitions, including CSW Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw, BWA in Szczecin, the “Bunkier Sztuki” Contemporary Art Gallery in Kraków and the Arsenał Municipal Gallery in Poznan.

Exhibition curator: Marcin Filary