Men

Oskar Dawicki’s latest work depicts a group of men suf­fering the con­sequen­ces of an unk­nown gravitational crisis. This is usually caused by too abrupt an ascent from the depths or too violent a descent from the heaves into the atmosphere. In pop cul­ture, especially in cinema, such faces of men usually accom­pany some heroic deed […]

Pipes

In a series of objects titled Pipes gold screws drill through bones in a melodious embrace.

Hungry Gap (for My Mother)

In his work, Oskar Dawicki toys with extreme emotions. The artist directs an encoun­ter between wild animals and the tool of their poten­tial annihilation.

71 Sour­ces of Light

71 lamps and spo­tlights illuminate the empty corner of the exhibition space.

Balance Practice

In a series of self-​portrait drawings the artist depic­ted him­self in his signature blue jacket, pul­ling on one end of a rope. The other end of the rope is in fact real and attached to each drawing’s frame, with dif­ferent objects such as empty vodka bot­tles, ziploc bags with money or candy dan­gling from it and thus set­ting its balance.

Armatura polonica utilitate graviditatis

The knight’s armor alludes to the myth of the armed nation and its cur­rent pro-​family policy.

The Performer

“Performer” is the first exhibition of art presen­ted in the form of a full-​length film. The com­bination of artistic per­for­mance and cinematic action, paired with documen­tary footage and a fic­tional nar­rative, come together to create an astonishing pic­ture of the world of con­tem­porary art cen­tered around the figure of Oskar Dawicki.

Gloria Amore Victis

The clas­sical form of the stone plaque embel­lished with a bronze cast of the back side of a woman’s bust is dedicated to everyone who suf­fers and who has suf­fered in the name of love.

Twenty Three Years of Losing Shine

The blue span­gled jacket was given to Dawicki as a gift in April 1995 and has since become his trademark of sorts.

Speech is Silver

A silver cast of the artist’s gullet.

Untitled

In the autumn of 2012 a 58-year-old man acted out against a pain­ting of the Bles­sed Virgin Mary of Czestochowa by throwing light­bulbs filled with black paint at it. In con­sideration of the rhetorical and artistic valors of the use of paint as a weapon, Dawicki decided to apply that idea to the white cube of the gal­lery space.

Desecrator’s Gymnastics

Dawicki car­ries out a spec­tacular display of appropriating and degrading of one of the most significant figures of con­tem­porary Polish art – the vic­tims of Andrzej Wróblewski’s Executions.

Hangman

Under six minutes long, the video depicts the artist in a precarious state of equilibrium.

Portrait of the Man Who Sold His Father’s Kidney Stone

A self-​portrait of the artist wearing a ring set with his father’s actual kidney stone.

Untitled (Lifebouy)

Lifebuoys made of rein­for­ced cement.

Portrait of Cicely Saunders

A por­trait of the pioneer of modern pal­liative medicine.

Exit

A rope made of the artist’s bed sheets and clothes was hung through the window of the gal­lery located on the top floor of the building.

Tree of Knowledge

The work inspired by the biblical story of the Tree of Know­ledge was first created for the Manifesta 7 exhibition in Roverto (2008) as a night-​time camera per­for­mance during which the artist took a bite out of all the fruit of an apple tree.

Fruit of anxiety, vegetable of calm

An intimate study of vegetation made possible thanks to a phar­macological support.

Caprice

The artist placed a vase filled with his own used tooth­brushes on the piano that stood in the exhibition space of the Polish Cul­tural Institute in Paris.

Snowman of Quotations

(Polski) Ulepiony ze śniegu i umiesz­czony w zamrażarce bałwan ma sześć mosiężnych guzików z wygrawerowanymi po grecku dwoma sen­ten­cjami z Rozmyślań Marka Aureliusza.

Promissory-Note-Room

To see this instal­lation by Dawicki its visitors had to sign a con­tract in which they swore to keep what they were about to see a com­plete secret or risk a lawsuit.

Place in the Heart

A cage of gar­gan­tuan dimen­sions built of bird cages, all of which are empty except for one, con­taining a dead sparrow.

Ten Thousand

The entire budget dedicated for the produc­tion of the artwork—10,000 Polish złoty—was arran­ged in hundred-złoty notes on a glass serving plate in a display window in the very center of Warsaw.

Complication (2)

The piece cen­ters around a photograph set upon a table, depic­ting a selec­tion of drawings and sket­ches by Dawicki, along with his pain­ting tools.

Bottle-Opener Paintings

Two oil pain­tings with a bottle opener welded to the bottom of each frame.

Panorama

A pain­ting with only a single dimension—length; a strap of canvas framed by a golden molded frame.

Invocation

In Homage to Bruce Lee

First attempt at realizing the piece ended in failure – smashing a hole in the wall of gal­lery Rotor in Graz proved impossible.

Amareggdon

A series of photographs depic­ting obituaries of people with names almost iden­tical to those of celebrities from the world of politics, enter­tain­ment and the arts.

Advertising project

Working for over two years as a graphic artist in one of Cracow’s adver­tising agen­cies, Dawicki had placed his microscopic self-​portrait on posters, leaflets and fol­ders com­mis­sioned by producers of heating equip­ment, medical and health products or heavy industry raw materials suppliers.