Curated by: Stanisław Ruksza and Gu Zhenqing
In his art practice, Andrzej Wasilewski refers to the relationship of contemporary man with technology, communication, economy, archaeology, research methods and climate changes which have caused the current ethics, interdependence of genres and finally creativity itself to become outdated.
The Absolute Factory is a site-specific audio-visual piece created for the show at Boxes Art Museum. The concept of the massive apocalyptic work combines a scientific approach with a sense of absurdity and black humour. The largest exhibition space of the building features a set of complementary installations, in which the artist uses the language of primitive technological forms, industrial iconography and pop-culture to take up the complex topic of coal and fossil fuels and show it in the context of climate change and new social and political utopias.
At the same time, The Absolute Factory is a play inspired by the spirit of neo-Dada or fluxus practices, stripping away the pathos of inflated values that envelop the language of the world of culture and “disguise” the bloated aesthetics of works in the spirit of art & science, sound-art or minimalism.
The titular motif was taken from the classic Czech dystopian novel The Absolute at Large by Karel Čapek, in which a visionary inventor constructs a carburator—a device extracting inexhaustible energy from coal. In doing so it releases into the world the Absolute, the spiritual essence held within all matter.
If God is omnipresent, is it possible to extract the divine substance from any object? As the matter transforms into the concept of the Absolute, events get out of humanity’s control, causing a series of violent socio-political changes. While the carburator continues to release the Absolute, the process brings chaos, wars, and, last but not least, nearly complete destruction of the human race.
Andrzej Wasilewski (born 1975)—is a sound and visual artist whose practice is rooted in the aesthetic of counterculture. Combining philosophical and social concepts, Wasilewski’s works have been exhibited in Poland and abroad; they are held in a number of art collections across the world. He has regularly participated in art residences.
The exhibition is a collaboration with TRAFO Centre for Contemporary Art in Szczecin (Poland), where it was first featured under the title The Absolute at Large. The current show is its expanded version, prepared specifically for the space of the OTC Boxes Art Museum.
