"Several Emotional Self-Portraits" – Beata Stankiewicz-Szczerbik – 08.10.2014 – 31.10.2014

Several Emotional Self-Portraits – Beata Stankiewicz-Szczerbik
Curator: Barbara Banaś
The exhibition accompanies the 3rd European Glass Festival Play with Glass

The exhibition specially staged for the National Museum in Wrocław will comprise multimedia installations ‘playing with glass’ and unique glass objects cast using the ‘lost mould’ technique by Beata Stankiewicz-Szczerbik, widely regarded as one of the most talented artists and fascinating personalities in Polish art glass circles, creatively exploring the medium’s expressive potential. Invited to present her work in the Museum’s glass-covered Atrium, the artist has developed an entirely new, original project making glass sculptures speak the language of modern multimedia art. The exhibition’s curator Barbara Banaś explains:

‘What I consider particularly interesting is not only the artist’s brilliant integration of two entirely different worlds, but also the incredibly expressive visual effect combined with sheer poetry she has achieved. What seems most important to the artist is to invite the viewer into the intimate realm of fleeting impressions and personal emotions.’

The first installation entitled To Say Nothing, To See Nothing, To Hear Nothing or To Go Mad references the Oriental motif of the three monkeys instructed to ‘speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil’ which inspired the artist. In the bodies of the three glass figures performing the iconic gestures, she installs small monitors showing video recordings, while the fourth figure – the artist herself – will only appear on a giant screen performing the next episode of the filmed performance.

The second installation, The Pulse, may be interpreted as the continuation of the first. According to the exhibition’s curator: ‘A glass figure with an irregularly pulsating heart is entrapped inside an enclosed cubicle. The pulsating rhythm is synchronised with a video projection. Beata Stankiewicz-Szczerbik is fascinated by the connection between the somatic and psychic, between the physical reactions of the human (female) body and emotional states. Simultaneously weak and resilient, the body is subjected to the oppressive reactions of the senses and the mind.’

Alongside the multimedia glass installations, the exhibition also showcases sculptures made using the unique ‘lost mould’ technique.

Beata Stankiewicz-Sczerbik

Graduated from the Ceramics and Glass Department at the State School of Visual Arts (currently the E. Geppert Academy of Art and Design) in Wrocław, 1996.

She has participated in 11 solo and nearly 20 group exhibitions, such as the New Glass Review 20 at the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, USA, 1999, the International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa 2007, Kanazawa, Japan; UFO Unique.Form.Object, Play with Glass – European Glass Festival in Wroclaw, 2013.

Her works are in the collections of the National Museum in Wrocław and Poznań, the Karkonoskie Muzeum in Jelenia Góra, the Museum in Sosnowiec and the Museum of the E. Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław.

Glass installations in Wrocław’s urban spaces: 12 stained glass windows and The Way of the Cross to the text of Angelus Silesius in the Gothic Church of St. Matthew; glass wall, VIP waiting lounge at the Copernicus Airport terminal.