{"id":18304,"date":"2026-11-01T11:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T11:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/?p=18304"},"modified":"2026-11-01T16:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T16:45:10","slug":"heterologies-of-melancholia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wystawy\/heterologies-of-melancholia\/","title":{"rendered":"Heterologies of Melancholia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is clear that the world is purely parodic, in other words, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or the same thing in a deceptive form\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Georges Bataille, The Solar Anus<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the 2026 edition of Artissima, drafted around the theme of Fancy: A Flexible, Acrobatic Body, UFO Gallery, Krakow is delighted to introduce a dialogue \u2014 or rather a confluence \u2014 of two diverse, yet uncannily synchronous and complementary artistic positions, represented by Krakow-based artists Bogumi\u0142 Ksi\u0105\u017cek (b. 1974) and Mateusz Oko\u0144ski (b. 1985).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Ksi\u0105\u017cek, painting is a phantom phenomenon, while for Oko\u0144ski, sculpture is an almost alchemical practice. The palimpsest serves as a platform where both artists diverge and negotiate the gravity of their artistic stances, informed by a profound interest in anthroposophy, archaeology, and esoteric science. Ksi\u0105\u017cek and Oko\u0144ski consider the body, both human and non-human, as a transversal universe, a habitat for phantasms and fetishes, where sensations collide in a state of heightened alert within an abject dimension. Here, the body\u2019s flexibility lies in its viscosity, its surface tensions, and its ability to confront the authority of the body-mind divide.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Ksi\u0105\u017cek\u2019s paintings (seemingly) depict mystic landscapes on foggy days, epiphanean moments of a life newly born. This is a (painterly) phantasmagoria in a quasi-nostalgic search for a grand r\u00e9cit of post-human times: a process of defacement and erasure at work, a deepening of the pictorial field, a \u201ctearing of the surface\u201d toward \u201cre-enchantment.\u201d Painting here becomes a (ritualistic) performance of unmasking that reveals societal norms and structures, acknowledging the mysterious nature of the secret itself. Oko\u0144ski\u2019s work is a vivisection of a (sculptural) hysteria, caught in a struggle between surface tension and the intricacies of depth \u2014 unknown yet thoroughly explored through research and intuition, the inborn qualities of a mind lost in a delusional moment of alleged progress. Sculpture becomes a nocturnal examination of the profane, a beyond-seductive interplay of the pagan and the sacred, a permission to sin.<\/p>\n\n\n

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In the heterologies of melancholia \u2014 the melancholia of the post-Anthropocene \u2014 the afterlife of painting conjures with the formlessness of a sculptural gesture. Statues are ruins in reverse; paintings are explorations of transience. Both investigate the ecologies of the visible, performing a certain glitch of a tormented body in a spatial and temporal demise: a body in excess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are (larger-than-life) narratives of transformation \u2014 horror-like liminal stories and haunted architectures balancing conscious and subconscious imagery. Ksi\u0105\u017cek and Oko\u0144ski conceive dystopian worlds and half-awake realities, conveying both the pathos and the humility of dawning. The artists oscillate between the animate and the inanimate, inhabiting the territories of the hybrid and polluted alongside the innocent and holy, following Marx\u2019s prophetic prediction: in history as in nature, decay is the laboratory of life. Going beyond a legendary psychasthenia and its associated mimicry and spatial dispossession, the artists move toward an excess of visceral sensation. They explore the archaeologies of melancholia, its self-ironic spice, and the sarcasm of its camp-like reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Bogumi\u0142 Ksi\u0105\u017cek\u2019s new painting series Fur and Moss (2026) carries an autobiographical tone rooted in the sacred groves, medieval church, cemetery, and overgrown archaeological sites of his childhood surroundings in Krakow. Returning to this site, the artist considers the physical acrobatics of nature \u2014 how moss bends around surfaces, surviving extreme cold and environmental collapse to coat every surface with quiet resilience: \u201cI grew up on a hill overgrown with a pagan sacred grove, and long before that, a prehistoric hunter hunting mammoths had taken up residence here. All that remains is a patch of greenery overgrown by the city, and on it, the Ko\u015bciuszko Mound, a medieval church, a cemetery, and an overgrown archaeological site. After years away, I\u2019ve returned to this area. I have a studio here, and as I look out the window toward the mound, I wonder what exactly connects me to this place. Are they roots, or perhaps rhizoids; or bulbs? Do I draw sustenance from this place like a tree, or do I merely cling to its shape, taking on a concealed form like moss, or am I myself dead like fur, and only what creates me is alive?\u201d Painterly surfaces of Fur and Moss are landscapes of memory, and of the memory\u2019s loss, the capsules of time (lost or frozen). The artist explores the contradictory nature of the moss and the fur, at the same time underling their protective qualities and resilience: \u201cmoss is older than the forest. It will survive the bitterest cold, the driest conditions, and the disappearance of the world that surrounds it (\u2026) it coats every surface, pointing us towards eternity and oblivion\u201d while fur \u201cresembles moss\u201d, it is a distant, animal counterpart to moss; covering the skin, it insulates and protects the animal from the cold and rain, but also indirectly from dehydration. \u201cMy paintings arise at the intersection of these two surfaces: the plant and the flesh, the present and the long-extinct. The remembered and the forgotten\u201d, concludes the artist. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Trapped in repetitive loops of past cultural elements with a canceled future, Mateusz Oko\u0144ski\u2019s neoromantic sculptural objects are studies in hauntology; here, the heterological science of the \u201ccompletely other\u201d marries a melancholic feeling of decay and a disorder of the soul. Georges Bataille used heterology to study the taboo, excluded, and messy parts of human existence (the sacred, eroticism, violence, and objects of disgust) that cannot be integrated into rational, productive, and homogeneous societal systems. In Lars von Trier\u2019s view, melancholia (\u201cthe black bile\u201d) \u2014 a planetary malaise of all times, often associated with a certain sense of isolation and apocalyptic nihilism \u2014 becomes a vehicle for survival and a way of coping with catastrophe: \u201cit will change everything,\u201d as the film\u2019s tagline suggests. Oko\u0144ski\u2019s sculpture Untitled (2026), a porous habitat composed of large copper bars resembling the ancient bones of an unknown species, recalls the symbolic “magic cave” of twigs from the concluding scenes of von Trier\u2019s Melancholia, the sole refuge when existence itself breaks down. Oko\u0144ski\u2019s universe is a cabinet of curiosities, a menagerie of relics and quasi-occult objects of superpower across histories and identities, evoking a sense of longing and anticipation. His series Gloves (2026), carved from granite and mountain crystal, serve as accessories for a spiritual s\u00e9ance, symbolising an intimate control and authority, or a heightened sense of allure and kink. Oko\u0144ski\u2019s work applies the vocabulary of ritual: worshipping sacred and pagan deities, praising prophets, spiritual leaders, heroes, and antiheroes of culture and religion. His statues, speaking the language of both the antique and the modern, are satirical expressions of neodecadence, articulating simultaneously a contempt for the world and a love for it. Utilising eclectic materials \u2014 copper, marble, granite, horse hair, fake pearls \u2014 the artist transforms his sculptural works into a symphony of tactile experience, a breathing extension of touch that amplifies its sensual nature. Here, the \u201cacrobatic exercise of the imagination,\u201d to which this edition of Artissima is devoted, receives its most vibrant expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam Budak<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is clear that the world is purely parodic, in other words, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or the same thing in a deceptive form\u201d \u2014 Georges Bataille, The Solar Anus For the 2026 edition of Artissima, drafted around the theme of Fancy: A Flexible, Acrobatic Body, UFO Gallery, Krakow is delighted to introduce a dialogue \u2014 or […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":18317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[378,203],"tags":[254,218],"ppma_author":[275,370],"acf":{"photo_gallery":{"galeria":[[{"id":18305,"title":"_DSC4682","caption":"","full_image_url":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/DSC4682-scaled.jpg","thumbnail_image_url":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/DSC4682-150x150.jpg","large_srcset":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/DSC4682-1024x684.jpg 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Ksi\u0105\u017cek","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Bogumiol-Ksiazek-scaled.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Bogumiol-Ksiazek-scaled.jpg"},"user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","description":"Born in 1974. He studied philosophy at the Jagiellonian University and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. He defended his diploma in 2000 in S\u0142awomir Karpowicz's studio. After graduation, he went to Tuscany for seven years. There he met Silvio Loffredo and Mario Luzi. He lived and worked in Florence and Tizzano until 2009. He is a lecturer at the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where he has been running an interdisciplinary studio since 2019."},{"term_id":370,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"mateusz-okonski","display_name":"Mateusz Oko\u0144ski","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","description":"Mateusz Oko\u0144ski (b. 1985) is a graduate of the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. He is the founder and first artistic director of Zbiornik Kultury (Culture Tank) at the Malopolska Institute of Culture. In 2010, together with Jakub Skoczek and Jakub Woynarowski, he established the artistic group Quadratum Nigrum, which explores conspiracy motifs and gaps in history, combining classical avant-garde works with historical inspirations into new, surprising forms.\r\n\r\nHe is a recipient of the Ministry of Culture scholarship and the awards \"Kulturalne Odloty\" and \"Marka Radia Krak\u00f3w.\" He has collaborated with institutions in Poland and abroad, including: Manggha Museum, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery, Toy Museum, CSW Wiewi\u00f3rka, National Museum (Krak\u00f3w), Lentos Kunstmuseum (Linz), Temporary Gallery (Cologne), and Kunstverein Stuttgart."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18304"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18352,"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18304\/revisions\/18352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18304"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ufoart.gallery\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=18304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}