Jerzy Kosalka (b. 1955), Plan of the Battle of Klobuck; 1886-2022

Ready-made; 32 x 23 cm
Signed p. d: J.Kosalka/ 1886-2022
Signature on back: PRWorks NEED TO PROTECT/ BEFORE THE RADIATION OF THE SUN/ BLEKNIE.!/ J.Kosałka

Jerzy Kosalka (1955) received his diploma in painting from the Wroclaw State Higher School of Fine Arts in 1981. He was active in the LUXUS collective for many years, participating in most of the group's artistic endeavors. Since 1995, he has exhibited individually and participated in numerous collective projects. He is the winner of, among others, four awards of the 39th Biennale of Painting "Bielska Jesień 2009" and the Krystiana Robb-Narbutt Award. Kosalka uses a variety of techniques in his art - he creates videos, mock-ups, objects, installations and site-specific realizations. He currently lives and works in Wroclaw.

"Plan of the Battle of Klobuck" is another version of the artist's best-known work, distributed, among others, by one of the middle school Polish language textbooks. The first version of the Battle was created as the author's page of the sixth issue of "Luxus" magazine titled Luxus invites to war, made on an original sheet of gray paper popular in the communist period with a "decorative" print for gift wrapping. The artist used its abstract pattern, adding only a tacked-on, handmade legend and dividing the colorful motifs into two groups: "us" and "them." The pacifist overtones of the original work were reinforced in subsequent productions by a mock monumentalization of scale, alluding to the momentum of history and battle painting. In the 1886-2022 version of the Battle, we are dealing with a peaceful variant, in a gold frame.