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DOI Artikel:Moskalewicz, Magdalena: Plastikowe Artony Włodzimierza Borowskiego
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29067#0213
PLASTIKOWE ARTONY WŁODZIMIERZA BOROWSKIEGO
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cheap and disposable materiał the status of art, while their form has been disre-
garded as irrelevant for their significance. Since Borowski has been also approached
as an ironist using the strategy of the “total denouncement” of art, the Artons were
mostly believed to anticipate his later conceptual works. Rejecting such a reductive
point of view, the author argues for their rich interpretive potential.
The standard interpretations of the plastic Artons from 1961-1963 have been
derived from those of two earlier works by Borowski, bearing the same title. The
Artons A and B from 1958 have been described as a critiąue of the picturalist para-
digm of Polish art of the times of the Thaw. Claiming that this is a far-reaching sim-
plification, the author compares the two groups of the Artons and stresses crucial
differences between them, which should prevent any attempts at reduction of either
of the groups to the other.
The longest part of the text includes a visual analysis of Arton IV, Arton XII
with a butterfly, Arton XXIII, Arton XXVI, Arton with a doli, from the Museum of
Art in Wrocław, and Artons I and XI from the Łódź Art Museum. Artons I, IV, XII,
and XXIII, madę of colorful plastic, resemble organie forms which may be associated
with flowers, stalks, grass or corals, or else with the fragments of flesh tissue or bod-
ily organs. The most important features of these works are the mimetic potential of
the ready-mades and their processual aspect. This effect has been achieved thanks to
the use of plastic about which Roland Barthes wrote in the 1950s that it is an
“alchemical substance” allowing for an infinite number of metamorphoses, turning
into an “idea of its own endless transformation.” Besides, the author points to the
associations which plastic, as a modern materiał, must have provoked in the early
1960s in Poland. Conseąuently, the fact that Borowski decided to use it should be
placed in the context of fascination with technology rather than, as it has been ar-
gued by some critics, in that of the artistic elevation of “waste.”
The following section brings an analysis of Arton XXVI and the Arton with the
doli, referred to in criticism as “structural” in contrast to Borowski’s “organie” works.
The form of the “structural” Artons is ąuite far from the tactile and colorful charm of
the earlier ones, which might have been the reason why critics have generally be-
lieved in the “anti-aesthetic” ąuality of all the Artons. The author proposes a mimetic
reading of that group as well, suggesting an association with the imagery of science-
fiction (space stations, flying saucers), so popular in the 1960s. In this way, the
dominant has been changed from “organicism” to “technologism.”
The closing part of the paper opposes the conclusions drawn from visual analy-
sis to the mainstream of the artistic discourse in the late 1950s. Its postulates to
create objects of art that would exist “next to” the forms of naturę, formulated in
reference to the so-called “structural art,” can also be referred to the later plastic
Artons, considered in the context of the discoveries of science and technological inno-
vations. Hence, the Artons can be approached as works related to the artistic prob-
lematic of the political Thaw.
Moreover, the author makes an attempt to reach beyond the historical frame of
reference, comparing the Artons with the informel (understood after Yves-Alain Bois
not as the art of formlessness, but as that of acąuiring form, of “in-forming”), the
211
cheap and disposable materiał the status of art, while their form has been disre-
garded as irrelevant for their significance. Since Borowski has been also approached
as an ironist using the strategy of the “total denouncement” of art, the Artons were
mostly believed to anticipate his later conceptual works. Rejecting such a reductive
point of view, the author argues for their rich interpretive potential.
The standard interpretations of the plastic Artons from 1961-1963 have been
derived from those of two earlier works by Borowski, bearing the same title. The
Artons A and B from 1958 have been described as a critiąue of the picturalist para-
digm of Polish art of the times of the Thaw. Claiming that this is a far-reaching sim-
plification, the author compares the two groups of the Artons and stresses crucial
differences between them, which should prevent any attempts at reduction of either
of the groups to the other.
The longest part of the text includes a visual analysis of Arton IV, Arton XII
with a butterfly, Arton XXIII, Arton XXVI, Arton with a doli, from the Museum of
Art in Wrocław, and Artons I and XI from the Łódź Art Museum. Artons I, IV, XII,
and XXIII, madę of colorful plastic, resemble organie forms which may be associated
with flowers, stalks, grass or corals, or else with the fragments of flesh tissue or bod-
ily organs. The most important features of these works are the mimetic potential of
the ready-mades and their processual aspect. This effect has been achieved thanks to
the use of plastic about which Roland Barthes wrote in the 1950s that it is an
“alchemical substance” allowing for an infinite number of metamorphoses, turning
into an “idea of its own endless transformation.” Besides, the author points to the
associations which plastic, as a modern materiał, must have provoked in the early
1960s in Poland. Conseąuently, the fact that Borowski decided to use it should be
placed in the context of fascination with technology rather than, as it has been ar-
gued by some critics, in that of the artistic elevation of “waste.”
The following section brings an analysis of Arton XXVI and the Arton with the
doli, referred to in criticism as “structural” in contrast to Borowski’s “organie” works.
The form of the “structural” Artons is ąuite far from the tactile and colorful charm of
the earlier ones, which might have been the reason why critics have generally be-
lieved in the “anti-aesthetic” ąuality of all the Artons. The author proposes a mimetic
reading of that group as well, suggesting an association with the imagery of science-
fiction (space stations, flying saucers), so popular in the 1960s. In this way, the
dominant has been changed from “organicism” to “technologism.”
The closing part of the paper opposes the conclusions drawn from visual analy-
sis to the mainstream of the artistic discourse in the late 1950s. Its postulates to
create objects of art that would exist “next to” the forms of naturę, formulated in
reference to the so-called “structural art,” can also be referred to the later plastic
Artons, considered in the context of the discoveries of science and technological inno-
vations. Hence, the Artons can be approached as works related to the artistic prob-
lematic of the political Thaw.
Moreover, the author makes an attempt to reach beyond the historical frame of
reference, comparing the Artons with the informel (understood after Yves-Alain Bois
not as the art of formlessness, but as that of acąuiring form, of “in-forming”), the