Oskar Hansen. To See the World

The theories of Oskar Hansen, long based at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, have had a tremendous impact on generations of students. Hansen’s teaching method relied on developing perception and seeking individual answers to deceptively simple questions and problems that he himself posed. The tasks he gave in class left students with a wide range of choices, and his strategy of gradually increasing the level of difficulty was a stimulus for the imagination.

“To See the World”, an exhibition at Zacheta National Gallery of Art, accompanied by a publication bearing the same title, presents the artist’s last project completed before his death on 11 May 2005. Fragments of paintings will be arranged in the front of the main entrance to the gallery displaying time-space relationships. Above them, a “roadblock spikes” structure will appear to frame the sky and integrate the exterior with the interior, attracting viewers inside. The structure is a reference to the artist’s first solo exhibition in Salon “Po Prostu” at the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw (1957). Several rooms will feature some of Hansen’s paintings that have not been on public display since the time of the first exhibition, and another will feature a space-organizing structure – a rounded shape primarily intended as a background for man and (in keeping with as the artist’s original wish) for Hansen’s students, who will present their works here during the exhibition. The exhibiti on will also feature some of the “apparatuses” constructed by the artists, i.e. devices formerly used in his classes.

With its space-integrating structures and densely displayed paintings, the exhibition leads up to a large, empty space with a single armchair in the middle and two clocks ticking out of sync on two opposite walls. When making drafts for the exhibition the artist was already aware of his fast-approaching death, and the last room was intended to provoke reflection on the passage of time.

The exhibition and the book have been prepared in cooperation with the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw that houses Oskar Hansen’s collection.

Oskar Hansen
To See the World
Kuratoren: Jola Gola, Anna Muszynska