An irrepressible characteristic of Oskar Dawicki’s method is the play on extreme emotions. The very title of the exhibition conjures up an air of disappointment, as it suggests that the show may indeed prove lacking. The artist 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. An exhibition of large-format photographs is accompanied by an enigmatic sculpture installation, along with the film Płaczki (Weepers) – each a subsequent simulation of the wretched fate of the artist. The film is a fragment of the casting video for the role of a gallery employee in the film Performer (directed by Łukasz Ronduda and Maciej Sobieszczański, currently in production), which stars Dawicki himself. A dramatic scene in which the character discovers the artist’s dead body is played out by one actress after the next, taking on a tragi-comedic aspect typical of Dawicki’s art. Emotional sincerity undergoes a critical trial as the artist delves into the provisional nature of art and, concurrently, the power of its conventions. Both death and mourning are presented in the convention of illusionist tricks, a series of acrobatic movements, creating a Photoshop performance of sorts, to draw upon the titles of one of Dawicki’s earliest works. The Performer, in contrast to the Actor, only plays himself. However, the traps of art are laid out before him.
One Piece Too Little is a treatise on the essential nature of creativity. Dawicki raises the question of where the limits of spectacle are set with regard to art and to life – of the difference between a show and one’s destiny, between representation and recreation, between a work of art and its profanation.