Wlodzimierz PAWLAK (b. 1957 Korytow), Murti-Bing pills, 1991

Own technique, oil, canvas; 129 x 121 cm;
signed, dated and author-described on the reverse: WŁODZIMIERZ PALWAK / MURTI-BING PIGULES / 130 x 120 / 1991

Provenance:
private collection, Czestochowa

Bibliography:
Oj dobrze już, No. 9, Program Art Gallery, Warsaw 2002.

Are the Murti-Bing pills overdue?
Murti-Bing was a Mongolian philosopher who succeeded in producing a means of transmitting a worldview by organic means...., A man swallowing pills ceased to be sensitive to any metaphysical elements, such symptoms as wild excesses of art, experiencing "insatiability of form", he already treated as follies of the past, the arrival of the Mongolian-Chinese army no longer considered the tragedy of his civilization, among his fellow citizens he lived like a sane individual, surrounded by lunatics....
Czeslaw Milosz, "The Captive Mind", Literary Institute Paris 1956 p.10

We understand in detail the characteristics of people whose identity is being devoured by amnesia. It is necessary to shake off comfort, to look outside. Freedom is never clearly given, it wants to be conquered and surrenders only to the strong and brave, risking all of themselves.
W. Pawlak

The quoted excerpt comes from a magazine created by Gruppa members called "Oj dobrze już." Pawlak was one of the co-editors, and in the quoted 2002 issue (accompanying the exhibition), we also find a poem by the painter written eight years earlier, which can be seen as a continuation of reflections on art and freedom. In it he writes, among other things: "Who is anyone. Systems deal with everything. / It remains not to get caught up in the campaign against devices / making our lives easier, etc., etc. / The material is hidden in conventions, structures, styles. / I can't afford any arrangement. / I can't afford restraints that exclude freedom."

This impressive composition, unique among the works of Włodzimierz Pawlak offered on the art market, thanks to the author's title referring to the novel "Insatiability" by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, prompts the artist to seek inspiration in philosophical systems creating utopian, total visions of the ideal world. The composition of the painting and its date of creation also seem to refer to one of the artist's best-known and longest series of paintings - "Diaries" (begun in 1989), and created on the basis of rather homogeneous, repetitive shapes engraved in fresh paint. Another characteristic element is white, which was the main motif of Pawlak's series of paintings in the early 1990s and continued in later years (for example, the "Industrial Icons" and "Painted Paintings" series). Interesting in this context are the artist's references to the works of Strzeminski or Malevich.