(text published in the catalogue of the exhibition “Bereś”, Cricoteka, Kraków 2024)

Jerzy Bereś, “Fire of Art”, BWA Gallery in Koszalin, 8 I 1976.

The perspective adopted in surveys of Bereś’s body of work has changed and will continue to do so. More than ten years have passed since he died and more than fifty since he staged his first graphic  manifestations. Increasingly assuming the form of an organic whole, his creative output has began to display its constitutive features. I wish to direct attention to some of them. First of all, the holistic nature of his work has risen to the surface. Bereś took an all inclusive approach to the world. This is why there are so many interwoven threads in his oeuvre; they could be seen as a bundle of string, the material he was so eager to use in his later manifestations. They relate to existential, ethical, historiosophical, social, ecological and art philosophical problems, troubles caused by civilisation as well as political issues in general and in reference to current occurrences. It is possible to pull out particular threads and trace their development but, as I have stated above, it would be unnatural to do so. The holistic nature of Bereś’s oeuvre also finds expression in his consistent use of the synergy of spirit and body, in thinking of them as one. This is discernible not only in his actions, but in his sculptures too as they employ body-related categories to formulate a message pertaining to very different areas.

Jerzy Bereś, “Altar I (Alarm Clock)” (1972), photo by Jacek Szmuc.

Individualism appears to be another prominent feature of Bereś’s work. A message addressed to a single individual always stimulates reflection. Bereś – after Kierkegaard – outlines two attitudes: that of a tragic hero and that of a knight of faith. A tragic hero takes up the fight in the name of a collectivity, which sometimes requires him to make sacrifice; as a result, his personality dissolves in generality. The tragic hero constitutes a tribal category, still of great relevance today even though it no longer applies to ethnic groups but to political or cultural ones, and entails no dramatic sacrifices. Members of political tribes dissolve their personalities in the generality of a party and receive support and the meaning of life in exchange. Contrarily, a knight of faith is a solitary and self-reliant individual, full of doubts and contradictions, who ponders the meaning of life. This, however, allows him to retain autonomy and personality. Needless to say, this was the attitude Bereś opted for. Political objectification is only a special instance of how objectifying mechanisms, of which there are plenty in contemporary civilisation, operate. Indeed, we are being attacked on every side by mighty forces that aim to transform us into compliant and docile citizens, consumers, viewers and voters. Bereś repeatedly explored these questions in his work.

The next feature of his work that I wish to discuss is its dignified character as regards the message it conveys and the way he treats spectators. It is only natural that every artist ‘incorporates’ the audience into his or her work more or less consciously. Bereś put his trust in viewers or, better, witnesses to his art and saw them as equal partners, which was especially true about manifestations. The artist faced them uncovered and unprotected, thus creating the impression that he let them in on his most intimate secrets, that he thought them reliable. He showed time and time again that their purpose in life was greater than passive surrender to external mechanisms. Paul Ricœur wrote: what we assimilate from an artwork is a proposition about the world. It is not a hidden intention behind the piece, it is placed in front of it, it is what the piece sends forth, exposes and reveals. The witnesses to Bereś’s art had no choice but to confront his universe, they found themselves provoked into considering their own attitude towards the world emanated by his work and, as a result, the surrounding reality.

Jerzy Bereś, “Didactic Rattle” (1970).

Bereś’s use of the category ‘face’ provides a good example. Face is personality. A faceless person is a person with no personality. To save face is to act with dignity. This sphere of life is always important, irrespective of what historical period or political system we live in. Sculptures like Lever from 1970 or Altar I (Alarm Clock) from 1972 feature the act of ‘raising’ face and, implicitly, straightening up. Two years later, Zbigniew Herbert’s Mr. Cogito said go upright among those who are on their knees.¹Translated from the Polish by Bogdana Carpenter and John Carpenter. The many dangers threatening our ‘faces’ are indicated in his other works. In Altar of Face, 1974, a face is symbolically burnt, the site of fire is covered with a clean tablecloth with a loaf of bread on top of it. The user of Didactic Rattle, produced in 1970, sets a fist in motion so that it can punch a face. A face can be replaced with a star made of phalli, like in the 1970 piece Star. In 1975, during the manifestations Reflective Mass at the Szadkowski Metal Works in Kraków and Lap of Honour in Market Square in Zamość, Bereś used his Symbolic Wheel-Barrow to set up a stand where he produced leaflets with the image of a ‘face’ and distributed them among people who were also free to print them by themselves. ‘Face’ demanded to be remembered. In 1982, six months to the day after the imposition of martial law in Poland, a work titled Face was created which depicted the dual nature of reality: a face screaming in silence was roughly hewed in a piece of wood and covered with a cheerful green inscription: “Face.”

Jerzy Bereś “Face” (1982), photo by Marek Gardulski.

It is a marvellous thing Bereś achieved over a career spanning decades. He opened a universe of art that we can today regard as an amazing edifice testifying to the bold vision, superb craftsmanship and fearlessness of builders long gone. He succeeded in carving out a place for his public nakedness that extended far beyond the narrow conventionalised space of a contemporary art gallery. It was even acknowledged by popular culture, not at all as scandalous or demoralising as is usually the case. The nakedness was backed (or, perhaps, anteceded) by the import of his art and the message that he conveyed to the public.

translated by Monika Ujma

• 1
  Translated from the Polish by Bogdana Carpenter and John Carpenter.