Some would like to consider that everything depends on talent – that almost magical power given by the right arrangement of genes or an external force. And that it is from this secret source code that genius is born, before which it is worth falling on one’s knees, exhibiting it on stages, building temples and museums to it. Simple diagnoses sell easily. They also allow one to move away from the – perhaps dangerous – core of reality. In the „Omnia” exhibition, spread over a series of monumental gouaches and objects, Katarzyna Wyszkowska invites the genius to a sanctuary where he plays a one-man show. The artist has previously engaged in reworking contemporary myths and stereotypes on more than one occasion. This time, both in relation to the figure of Tadeusz Kantor and in relation to the attempts sweeping through the public discourse to rework the (often violent) attitudes of the great masters of theater and art, she takes to task the archetype of the infallible creator. „Omnia” wittily balances aesthetics from the religious and theatrical orders on the one hand, and from the school academy’s clumsy academies on the other. In doing so, it disassembles the overpowering figure of the creator-messiah. It exposes his contemporary paperiness and one-dimensionality.

text: Kamil Kuitkowski