DEFORMATION OF REFLECTION – REFLECTIONS
OF DEFORMATION
July 18th – October 31th 2020
The DEFORMATION OF REFLECTION – REFLECTIONS OF DEFORMATION exhibition is a presentation
of Oskar Zięta’s latest realizations in the unexpected context of the Baroque and Classicist spaces of the Royal Palace in Wrocław. Zięta introduces his sculptures and smaller objects into the context of historical rooms and museum exhibits. He enters with them into a dialogue and discovers new ways of looking at both his own works and artworks from the collection of the City Museum of Wrocław.
The exhibition summarizes ten years of Oskar Zięta’s artistic activity in Wrocław. It consists of the latest large-format realizations, such us Urban Crystals or AORTA, as well as a hall of mirrors on the third floor of the Royal Palace – with smaller, mirror-like objects. As part of the “1000 years of Wrocław” exhibition, which covers three floors of the museum, Oskar Zięta has hidden tiny objects among the museum’s exhibits, which refer to the collection create a link between epochs.
While exploring the exhibition, take a selfie and show off your own „deformation of reflection” on Instagram – tag it with the #iFIDUyou hashtag.
photo Maciej Lulko
Artistic interventions reflecting history
The exhibition combines the form of a traditional art display with an artistic intervention into the narrative of the museum’s collection, referring to the trend of integrating art with architectural designs.
Objects such as RONDO, SONAR, TAFLA and AORTA have been introduced into the opulent historical rooms with decorative furniture and heavy curtains, as well as to monumental palace staircases. Their polished surface deconstructs the space, creating an intriguing link between the past and the present.
Surprisingly, the shiny steel lightweight installations combine perfectly well with ornamental wallpapers, blue Delft tiles and heavy cast-iron balustrades. SONAR mimics ancient bedroom screens, while AORTA, with its organic, sinuous shape, doubles the dynamic construction of the baroque staircase.
photo Maciej Lulko
Modern hall of mirrors
The deformations mentioned in the title of the exhibition are a permanent element in the oeuvre of Oskar Zięta, who for over a decade has been transforming light fragments of steel into unique objects on the border of art and design. Some of them resemble shiny water droplets; others are similar to mirrored panes and architectural obelisks.
RONDO, MERCURY, NUCLEUS and various TAFLAS are on display on the third floor of the Royal Palace. They have been arranged as a hall of mirrors that alludes to a form of decoration popular in the eighteenth-century representative interiors. They deceive the viewer’s eye, create distortions and generate truly baroque visual effects.
Urban Crystals
The most important object at the exhibition is an installation presented outside the Royal Palace. Urban Crystals is a project designed for the urban space of Times Square in New York, intended to reflect the lights of yellow taxis and neon advertisements. Its presentation in Wrocław is the pre-premiere before its expected American debut. The sculpture consists of three monoliths – majestic forms evoking skyscrapers or religious totems. They are like mirrors reflecting the public space: buildings that surround them, sky and trees… It was conceived as an element of the New York urban landscape. After the pre-premiere in Wrocław it will be displayed on Times Square, surrounded by flashing neon lights, LED screens and slender forms of glass buildings.
The architectural sculpture complements the ancient body of the building together with its picturesque garden. Composed of mirror-like, multi-dimensional sculptural forms, it reflects both city and garden views and multiplies images surrounding it.
photo Grzegorz Stępniewski
photo Grzegorz Stępniewski
Easily navigate through the exhibition
As the Royal Palace of the City Museum of Wrocław is quite a complicated machinery, we’ve prepared for you a map for easier navigation through the exhibition. You can print it at home on an A4 format and use it while walking through the floors and chambers of the museum.
Apart from indicating the location of selected objects on the display, we encourage you to find them by yourself and mark them on the map. Also, for the younger visitors, there’re some crosswords to solve – in order to find all the words, please read the descriptions present on the exhibit carefully! We hope with our map the visit to the show will be even more playful!
