Paradoksy reprezentacji
The Paradoxes of Representation

Summary/Abstract: In 2004, several institutions organised the 7th National Days of Christian-Jewish Dialog in Poznan. At the swimming pool building, which, before WWII, was a synagogue, Janusz Marciniak showed an installation entitled “The Atlantis”. It was a big star of David, floating on the surface of water. The star was built with six hundred blue-light lanterns. Visitors were given smaller blue lanterns, which they could carry around the pool. There were several exhibitions which accompanied the Days of the Dialog. The Arsenal Gallery showed a series of computer-generated pictures. There was an exhibition of photographs from Auschwitz and from the Jewish cemetery in Trzciel. They showed e series of pictures entitled “Edyta Stein: Mystical Pattern. Illustrations to an Un-written Biography” (2003) and several versions of Janusz Korczak’s monument project. Marciniak showed a series of acrylic pictures entitled “Only a Lilac Bush is left” (2003). It was an artistic reflection on the Holocaust. It was inspired by the fact, that, after WWII, the artist, as a teenager, used to un-earth the human bones at the courtyard of the building project, which was built on the ground of the pre-war Jewish cemetery. His “Atlantis” was a simple and beautiful project. Marciniak used “pure forms”, because, as he explained, he “didn’t want to only be an artist, when referring to the enormous suffering”. His installation resembled “Plack Pictures” by Marek Rothko, and abstract sculpture bys such artists as Richard Serra, Elssworth Kelly, and Sol le Witt, exhibited at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

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