Photo © Tate (Andrew Dunkley)
9 rooms in Performer and Participant
Discover the innovative theatrics of the Polish artist Edward Krasiński
Edward Krasiński used tonal colour, lighting, photography and reflective surfaces to challenge the fixed nature of sculpture.
Krasiński began his career as an illustrator and set designer, going on to make paintings and sculptures, often using found materials such as cables, pipes and string. In the early 1970s he began to create installations which experimented with alternative ways of presenting and experiencing art. Krasiński transformed galleries into maze-like spaces through the use of cleverly positioned plinths, hanging objects and blue adhesive tape.
The installation displayed here consists of 12 suspended mirrors of equal size. A continuous line of blue tape runs along the walls and the surface of each mirror. The tape is applied at a fixed height of 130cm. It integrates the mirrors with their surroundings, erasing the difference
between real and reflected space. The rows of overlapping mirrors generate a sense of movement in which the space seems to recede and advance, depending on the viewpoint of the spectator, who is also reflected in the work.
The mirrors were first installed in 2001 at the Klosterfelde Gallery in Berlin. They were exhibited alongside several of Krasiński’s Untitled sculptures from the 1960s and 1970s, including the four works displayed here. The sculptures were drawn into a relationship with the mirrors and in turn the spectators surrounding them. Krasiński was concerned with how entire environments, not only the works within them, were experienced. He continued to question the traditional conventions of displaying art until the end of his career.
Curated by Helen O'Malley
Edward Krasinski, Untitled 1968
T12560 consists of two cardboard cylinders, painted black and positioned at opposite ends of a rectangle of hardboard, which has also been painted black. The cylinders are positioned on their sides and each is secured in place by a long nail. The left hand cylinder is labelled with a white adhesive letter A on the board in front of it, and it has a length of coarse string wrapped around it twice, so that it resembles a spool. The string extends several centimetres towards the other cylinder. The right hand cylinder is labelled with a white adhesive letter B; a short length of string, fixed to the top of the cylinder as if unwound from it, extends towards spool A. Both of the ends are stuck to the board, and have been painted red.
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Edward Krasinski, Untitled 2001
Untitled 2001 is a room installation consisting of twelve mirrors of equal size suspended from the ceiling, and Krasinski’s signature blue Scotch tape. A continuous strip of tape is stuck horizontally onto the walls of the room at a height of 130cm from the floor. The verso of each mirror, which is black, has also had a strip of blue scotch tape stuck to it, and the mirrors are hung so that the tape on their backs is also at a height of 130cm from the floor. The mirrors, all facing in the same direction, reflect the surrounding architecture, the black backs of the other mirrors with their blue strips, and the continuous blue strip on the wall. This creates the illusion of a space that both recedes and advances depending on the viewpoint of the visitor. Of course, viewers entering the visual field created by the mirrors are also reflected, and so may disrupt the real and reflected continuity of the blue line. T12558 was first installed in 2001 at the Klosterfelde Gallery, Berlin, alongside several untitled sculptural objects, including T12559, T12560, T12567 and T12624, which were exhibited on plinths of varying heights. Krasinski often included works he had produced in the 1960s and 1970s in his later installations, or incorporated photographs of them into his subsequent works (see T12559). The inclusion of older works within a newer installation creates a tension between the past and the present, whilst Krasinski’s use of mirrors, in conjunction with his signature blue tape, is part of his ongoing exploration of notions of infinity and space.
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Edward Krasinski, Intervention 15 1975
T12568 is an axonometric painting, with black acrylic lines depicting a white three-dimensional geometric object on a black background. The term ‘axonometric’ refers to a drawing method used to represent a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional support – vertical lines are drawn to scale, but the diagonals are distorted in order to give the illusion of depth and volume. The painting also features Krasinski’s signature blue Scotch tape, which has been positioned so that it appears to pass from the wall to the left of the painting onto the canvas, following the contours of the three-dimensional object depicted, and continuing onto the wall to the right of the painting. The strip, which is usually positioned at exactly 130cm from the ground, is therefore subjected to the inner logic of the image.
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Edward Krasinski, Untitled 1969, reconstructed 1978
T12567 consists of an upright cylindrical spool of unbleached string, positioned centrally at one end of a rectangular hardwood board. The board has been roughly painted black, and one end of the spool of string had been loosely unwound along the length of the board. The end of the string has been stuck down, and the tip has been painted red.
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Edward Krasinski, Untitled 2001
T12624 is an artwork comprising an ostrich egg. It has been blown, which means that the contents of the egg have been removed through a small pinhole. The egg is a found object, which was included by Krasinski as a sculptural work alongside his mirror installation Untitled 2001(T12558), when it was first installed in 2001 at the Klosterfelde Gallery, Berlin. The egg was exhibited on a plinth, lying on its side, and several other untitled sculptural objects, including T12559, T12560 and T12567, were also exhibited on plinths of varying sizes. The ostrich egg was placed in a spatial relationship with these other sculptural objects, and with the mirror installation around it. In Krasinski’s 2000 exhibition L’Autre Moitié de l’Europe at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, a number of large blown eggs were exhibited on individual plinths of equal size, alongside an installation of photographs. Krasinski’s use of the egg as a sculptural object can therefore be seen as appropriating its visual and sculptural qualities as part of his own vocabulary of sculptural forms.
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Edward Krasinski, Intervention 27 1975
T12569 is an axonometric painting, with black acrylic lines depicting a diagram of a three-dimensional geometric object (a three-dimensional parallelogram or parallelepiped) on a white background. The term ‘axonometric’ refers to a drawing method used to represent a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional support – vertical lines are drawn to scale, but the diagonals are distorted in order to give the illusion of depth and volume. The painting also features Krasinski’s signature blue Scotch tape, which has been positioned so that it appears to pass from the wall to the left of the painting, behind and through the canvas, following the contours of the three-dimensional object, and continuing from the canvas onto the wall to the right of the painting. Although the canvas is shown to be solid – by the logic of the tape – the object is not, as the tape is visible passing around three of the object’s four sides. The strip, which is usually positioned at exactly 130cm from the ground, is therefore subjected to the inner logic of the image.
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Art in this room
Edward Krasinski
Untitled
1968
Edward Krasinski
Untitled
2001
Edward Krasinski
Intervention 15
1975
Edward Krasinski
Untitled
1969, reconstructed 1978
Edward Krasinski
Untitled
2001
Edward Krasinski
Intervention 27
1975