Michał Budny’s artistic prac­tice is an original com­bination of idealism and minimalism. Budny is con­tinually interested in creating visual equivalents for fun­damen­tal con­cepts and relations con­ditioning our func­tioning in social and physical space. The objects and instal­lations he authors offer a materialization of emotions but are also charac­terized by their frank­ness and striking conciseness.

The show Neither is Budny’s latest radical statement, this time with a vector aiming upwards, “into space, far from ear­thly con­cerns and triviality, from the quotidian and everything that weighs us down and detracts us from what is impor­tant.” These words from the artist apply specifically to a work from the series Ver­tical. A slen­der column, ten feet fall, sup­por­ting nothing but only indicating direc­tion, is full of the sculp­tural essence of the credo: form without ideas is dead. The title of the show, inspired by a line from Samuel Bec­kett, stres­ses the humanistic dimen­sion of these works. They are a ceaseless negotiation of the space between individual beings—sculptural and human.

The artist’s method of wor­king with material may be associated with the method known from minimal art. Objects are created through mechanical proces­sing accor­ding to simple drawings made by the artist. The material itself has a fun­damen­tal significance here, mal­leably but also metaphorically. Paper, rubber, wood, canvas, metal—materials of organic origin—describe such qualities and ten­sions as heat, hard­ness, den­sity, weight, flexibility, sen­sitivity, and tem­porality. They may all be treated as formal proper­ties, but also as refer­ring to human charac­teristics and relations. The pur­pose of these spatial divigations is to create a kind of glos­sary of material gestures, allowing us to think in a new and inspiring way about order and har­mony, in a philosophical and an entirely mun­dane, literal sense.

Since Michał Budny’s last show at Raster in 2015, Crown, the artist has taken part in exhibitions such as La memoria final­mente. Arte in Polonia 1989-2015 in Modena, Just So Stories in Vienna, and Late Polish­ness at Ujaz­dow­ski Castle Centre for Con­tem­porary Art. He also had individual shows in Zurich, Stoc­kholm and Prague. A joint show by Budny with Vit­torio San­toro, Sculpture/Sculpture, is plan­ned for 2020 at the Museum of Art Lucerne.

Samuel Beckett

NEITHER

to and fro in shadow from inner to outer shadow

from impenetrable self to impenetrable unself
by way of neither

as between two lit refuges whose doors once
neared gently close, once away turned from
gently part again

bec­koned back and forth and turned away

heedless of the way, intent on the one gleam
or the other

unheard foot­falls only sound

till at last halt for good, absent for good
from self and other

then no sound

then gently light unfading on that unheeded
neither

unspeakable home