Category Archives: art books

“VARIA” project (2018)

The idea to create a series of artbooks came to us when I was brainstorming with Kathryn Zazenski in the main library of the Faculty of Physics one snowy morning. We asked ourselves how we could introduce an art project into that specific space, something tailored to the space, to not disturb its purpose but to add something new. We decided to create books for specific sections of the library. Artworks in the form of books would blend into the library shelves and would be almost indiscernible from the others, however when found they would serve a different purpose than the more traditional collection (if we can speak of any kind of purpose in artistic creation – but that’s a vast topic, for a long and deep debate which I won’t attempt here but rather leave as an open question for you, the reader).

We walked through all parts of the library, even visiting the restricted section with old, rare and valuable volumes. One section in particular drew our attention – it was called Varia. We decided to place the two main books describing our project in there and name the project after this specific section. Becasue after all, this is what we both do. Art is usually something thought of as “weird” and outside of the more normalized vocations. Artworks themselves are difficult to place or arrange in specific classes or sets. To add to it, our area of focus is weird even for art standards, since we both work with physicists and draw our inspirations from pure, strict, scientific research, and the way it’s carried out.

We both take very different approach to the same area of art and science connections though. It determined our choice for book covers. Both books made by Kathryn are white while mine are black. Zazenski is more interested in human experience and how science can be used as an intuitive language for art. Her work also touches on the subject of the everyday experience. As she is more focused on the internal or emotional aspect of a human being and the human experience, we decided that her works would represent the “sacrum” half of this project. My works fall under the “profanum,” since my area of focus is outside of human experience. What interests me most is matter itself. My works are impressions of how the world appears from a purely physical standpoint, where human feelings or experiences are irrelevant.

The project Varia is an example of the interdisciplinary nature of science and art. Since it touches both art and some aspects of science and does so from two very different angles, it is something that classifies it for varia library section. The field of science is very important for all the works created for this project. We both dive deep into our subjects, beyond the popular science level, yet what we do still cannot be called science. At the same time, however, it goes beyond simply inspiration. What we do could easily find a home in the varia sections of science, art, and literature collections.

The two primary Varia books are placed in the varia section of the library. The others are carefully placed among the books in other sections that are dedicated to the topics that were our inspirations for each book. They can be found using the bookmarks we designed for the project and that have been left in various places throughout the library. We also created a website that is an online archive of the project.

Preface of “Varia, Book I” artbook

 

Archive of the project can be found here.

My three books from “Varia” series can be found here.

 

 

 

 

This project was made for the Library of the Faculty of Astronomy, Physics, and Applied Computer Science at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, with partnership from the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.

Varia series contains total of five books, which can be found in different places of the Library, specified on the bookmarks left at the counter and on the tables with short description of the project.

Kraków, 2018

“Singularity” anamorphosis (2013)

 

The book is in the collection of Arteteka (library of art books) in Krakow. It was made using cylindrical anamorphosis. I wrote some impressions I had after reading about black holes, general relativity and quantum theory and then transformed them (distorted in a way – which itelf had a great siginificance to me, that texts about distortions of the space-time are distorted in similar way themselves). It is possible to read those senteces properly only by looking at their reflection on the surface of the cylindrical mirror that is added as one of the objects of the book.

The book was exhibited during the Ha!wangarda: Liberature, Book Art, and E-literature exhibition (Polish Impact: Ha!wangarda 2016 festival) in Central Booking on Manhattan in New York.

 

 

“Return Of The Book 2” project (2013)

 

 

return of the book 2

 

The artbook I made for the project Return Of The Book 2 (ART BOOK) organized by Arteteka and Library of Museum Of Contemporary Art MOCAK in Krakow was the smallest book I ever made (3/3 mm). It was shown on the exhibion in Arteteka. The idea was to use old, unwanted books and make works of art of them. As it happens I didn’t need even one whole page of the book I chose to make art book of it. Interesting fact is worth mentioning, that not only big artworks create many problem in the process of making them and later transporting and installing on the art shows. The smallest works are very hard to make and maintain as well. For example I had to cut each page for the book (and make them all the same size), I also made the book usable – it was possible to open it and got through pages. Not loosing it in the process of transport for the exhibition also was challenging.

 

 

“Towards Africa” project (2013)

Project was co-organized by the art group Banda which I was leading at the time. Curator of all the events was Dominik Kuryłek of National Museum in Krakow. One of the events of the project was an exhibition African Dessert where I presented art books that I made for the show. I used old books somehow connected with Africa and changed them while still having Africa in mind. The point of this exhibition (and the whole project) was to gather money to found scholarships for the most talented high school students in Mathare slums in Nairobi. Artworks presented on the exhibion (that was the last event of the whole project which took place for three months) were afterwards put on an auction and whole money raised on the auction was given for the Pamoja Foundation (who was organizing the project).

 

 

“Pulsar” art book (2013)

 

The book contained the series of drawings inspired by physical properties of pulsars. The drawings were scanned from my sketchbook and worked on digitally. The whole series is a digitally printed artbook. Working on this drawing and painting series (also called Pulsar) gave me a start to think about my mastres diploma (which was about pulsars as well).

 

 

 

“C as the Cosmos” magazine (2013)

 

k-jak-kosmos

 

“C as the Cosmos” (original title in Polish is K jak Kosmos) was a magazine released by the art group Gili-Gili. My works were shown in that issue on two pages (below). One of them was an art book/animation which is shown on a gif below. It was presented on the exhibition (that took place when the magazine was released) as the artbook, which could be used to create analog-animation by quickly browsing the pages. The effect was similar to the one that the gif has. For me the cosmos is not only the place where insteresting huge objects can be found (such as stars, planets, nebulas). The particles that are the matter of these objects are equally interesting for me. The works I made for the magazine were my impression on both the weirdest particles and celestial objects that we can find analyzing various research done on the sky.

 

c for cosmos

 

c for cosmos

 

“Quantum diary” drawings (2012)

While making drawings in this artbook I was inspired by the first books I have read about quantum mechanics. The whole book contains 100 drawings.

 

quantum diary

Pencil on paper, 7/7 cm, 2012

 

 

“The Holiday Makers” exhibition (2012)

 

the holiday makers

 

This exhibition was the first show made by the art group Banda. It took place in the Library of the Museum Of Contemporary Art MOCAK in Krakow. I co-organized the project. As my art works I made (among others) two artbooks. Presented works were inspired by the summer time, especially holidays when we take a break from our work and normal duties and activities. We asked ourselves a question (which remain opened) – can an artist truly go on holidays? Is creating art a job? Can creative person truly rest and not create at all? What does this weird time of the year mean to us? I answered few of this issues by creating the book “122”, where all days of my vacation time where shown – each day was represented by the phase of the moon that was visible at that time. I chose the number of 122 days because that’s precisley how long the summer break lasts for the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow students (which I was at the time). For me vacation was the period of the year when we didn’t have classes, but it didn’t mean the break from art activity. I started to be fascinated by the astronomy around that time and spent my summer looking at the skies, mostly on the Moon, since it’s the easiest to observe and I had no proper equipment to make observations of any other celestial object on satisfactory level. The book was also an analog-animation. When pages were browsed quickly there could be seen moon phases changing. The gif shows the effect that the book created as well. The other book (“Moonstone”) was the result of my more abstract feelings and impressions about the moon that took so much of my attention during the summer that year.

 

the holiday makers moonstone artbook

“Moonstone”, charcoal on paper, 4/6 cm, 2012

 

 

 

the holiday makers 122 artbook

“122”, digital print, 17/10 cm, 2012

 

the holiday makers 122 artbook

 

Old notebook (2011-2013)

 

I was making drawings in this book in a long period of time, so I had many different inpirations. Starting with Bolesław Leśmian’s poetry (which I used a lot in 2011), through first astronomy references, ending with quantum mechanics in early 2013. Three years might not be considered long period of time, but for me that was the time during my masters studies when I developed quickly and both my inspirations and way of creating drawing were changing siginficantly. Book contains around 60 works, but I show only a few of the most representative ones.

 

Old notebook

Ink/charcoal/pencil on paper, 19,5/16 cm, 2011-2013

 

 

“Return Of The Book” project (2012)

 

return of the book

 

The project was organized by the Library of the Museum Of Contemporary Art MOCAK  in Krakow and the art group SÓL krakowska. The task for all participating artists was to choose one of the old, unwanted books from the antique shop and turn them into artbooks. After the exhibition in the Library was over, the books were returned to the shop and put for selling at the same price as they cost originally. Book of my choosing was the old geometry handbook, which can be seen here.

 

“Geometry”, pencil on paper, 6,5/8 cm, 2012

Artbook inspired by winter (2012)

 

The book was made by me during the coldest days of winter. I designed and made the book as  an object, not only created drawings on each page. The book is an art piece itself – I don’t see it as a sketchbook, place where different ideas are collected. It is a narration, the order of illustrations is important, as is the size and cover material of the book that I chose while working on it. The whole book contains 50 drawings.

 

winter diary

Color ink and/or mixed media on paper, 7/7,5 cm, 2012

 

 

Diary inspired by poems wrote by polish poet Bolesław Leśmian (2011)

 

Diary was created while reading Leśmian’s poems and experiencing wild nature first hand in Polish mountains (Beskid Żywiecki). The whole book contains 109 drawings.
Color ink and/or mixed media on paper, 15/10 cm, 2011

 

lesmian diary