Rubrieken
3
Krystyna Ziach
Irrational Space I
Lambda-print, 168 x 125 cm, edition 5
Melancholy 1989-1990

/.../ Painted expressionist elements return in Melancholy, but now in a more stylized form. Human figures seem confined by geometric and crystalline structures. The mirror turns up several times, referring to the tradition of the trompe-l’oeil, the illusion of space in art. Ziach’s inspiration for Melancholy came from the geniuses of art history, Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci and Kasimir Malevich. Like Ziach herself, these artists were captivated by the ambivalent longing for the unity between mathematical order and absolute emotion. Malevich’s black cross for instance, is composed of five squares which are to symbolize pure emotion. Ziach’s Black Cross of Malevich is a lyrical adaptation of this painting. With the – expressively painted – cross as a frame, she photographed a naked woman in a variant of Da Vinci’s ‘homo universalis’/../
Krystyna Ziach /A Chamber of Mirrors 1984-1994, text by Iris Dik, 1994