OLAF BRZESKI – WISH

“So that you come to the gallery, see the exhibition and no one gets the impression that I don't care about them. So that no one leaves disappointed (...)”.

The latest exhibition of sculptures and objects by Olaf Brzeski, an artist who has recently focused on ceramic works that express the artist's emotional states and existential considerations.

Agata Smalcerz, curator of the exhibition:
The exhibitions of Olaf Brzeski and Sławomir Rumiak at Galeria Bielska BWA feature another encounter after those of Jerzy Nowosielski and Stanisław Niemczyk. This time it will be two separate presentations in both gallery rooms, of artists whose mutual influence on each other's work has existed for a long time. The subject matter of their latest works can be related to the broad spectrum that stretches across the space ‘between home and the cosmos’.
The exhibition of Olaf Brzeski, entitled “Wish” contains, in its ideological layer, thoughts that, to some extent, concern each of us: the desire for good things to happen at home, in the family, in our private plans, as well as in the world as a whole, both the one shaped by people and the one over which man has no influence. And although some of the artist’s wishes seem like pipe dreams – the fulfilment of which would be tantamount to the creation of a perfect world – they do set some kind of goal to strive for. A goal both for the individual man and for humanity as a whole.  

 
Olaf Brzeski – “Wish”
I wish
that you come to the gallery, see the exhibition and no one gets the impression that I don’t care about them,
that no one leaves disappointed,
that this show of sculptures and objects evokes an awareness of a greater mystery,
because perhaps there is a perceptible order and purpose behind this mystery.
I wish for people to suffer less, especially my loved ones.
I wish for children to live without fear.
I wish for financial stability for me and my family,
that is, that all the sculptures from this exhibition sell and end up in good hands.
Because they are pretty and good.
I wish for the war to end and for all the dictators to go out into the world proclaiming love.
And that the inhabitants of apartment number three stop spitting and throwing cigarette butts in front of our gate.

Olaf Brzeski was born in Wrocław in 1975. He studied at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Technology in Wrocław (1994-1994); also studied at the Faculty of Sculpture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (1995-2000): Nearly 20 solo exhibitions, the latest include: “Przygoda”, Galeria Raster, Warsaw (2020); “Once Upon A Time In Iran”, KAAF Institute, Tehran, Iran (2019); “Przedsionek”, Polnisches Institut, Berlin, Germany (2015); “Megalomania”, Galeria Raster, Warsaw (2015); “Tender Look”, Galeria Labirynt, Lublin (2015); “Samolub”, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2013).
He has participated in numerous group exhibitions and projects at home and abroad. Olaf Brzeski’s most recent realisation from 2022 is the monumental sculpture “Wanderer”, over three and a half metres high and formed from steel pipes, located in the Sculpture Garden at the back of the Raster Gallery building at ulica Wspólna 63 in Warsaw. “Wanderer” is also the protagonist of Olaf Brzeski’s original film “Point of Confluence”.

In 2009 he was nominated for the Spojrzenia - Deutsche Bank Foundation Award; in 2013 he was nominated for the Polityka Passports. He has created numerous sculptures, installations and films. He lives and works in Wrocław, and is closely associated with the gallery Raster.
“Olaf Brzeski reinterprets the tradition and possibilities of sculpture with extraordinary imagination. He is interested in its material dimension - weight, mass, facture - as well as its pure potentiality; the possibility or impossibility of describing phenomena or history by means of concrete matter. A number of the artist's works also refer directly to the human figure, describing, however, not so much its physical as its emotional dimension. Brzeski’s sculptural bodies teem with the uncanny, the unusual, the unnatural and the overscaled. The source of these fantastic and surprising forms is unfailingly, thought, and then drawing - as the simplest metaphor of the act of creation.” (info: Raster Gallery)

Pictured: Olaf Brzeski, photo by Łukasz Rusznica

Galeria Bielska BWA
10 March – 16 April 2023 (ground floor)
Olaf Brzeski – “Wish”
Curator – Agata Smalcerz
Opening and curated tour: Friday, 10 March 2023, 6.30 pm

Sławomir Rumiak – THE MEANING OF LIFE.
AN OVERVIEW OF PARANORMAL SOCIAL AND NATURAL PHENOMENA FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS. >>
10 March – 16 April 2023 (ground floor)