Jan Lebenstein from the collection of Tom Podl
February 3 – April 22, 2007
The exhibition of 10 paintings by Jan Lebenstein at the Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola is part of a large collection of Polish painting assembled by an American of Polish descent, Tom Podl.
It brings together an extremely interesting collection of Lebenstein’s paintings, from the artist’s early gouache “Female figure” (already a collector’s rarity), through the various stages of his work, figurative paintings (“Axial figure #89”, “Golden figure”), to his fascination with the archaic dimension of culture (“Bête morte” dead beast, “Bêtes de salon” salon beasts).
The first stage is represented in the exhibition by three paintings from the series of axial figures. Here Lebenstein created a certain personal and, more importantly, highly original formula for figurative painting. The geometric sign evolved into an organic form, where precise, anatomical, but also deformed drawing expressed his existential anxieties.
In the next period, the artist was fascinated by great cultural texts, including the Bible, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek mythologies. From this period, the exhibition presents a series of zoomorphic forms, referred to as bestiary. During this stage, the myth of Eros and Tatnatos comes to the fore. A special place in the exhibition is occupied by the composition “Actualites” (News), representing a series of “paintings on the subject of spectacles,” showing a sophisticated critique of mass media.
The paintings on display also illustrate the artist’s formal experiments with the matter of the painting, characterized by original textures.
Jan Lebenstein (1930 Brest Litewski – 1999 Krakow)
Graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1954. In 1956 he became associated with the independent Theater on Tarczynska run by Miron Bialoszewski and had his first solo exhibition there. It was during this time that his concept of geometrized figures resembling human silhouettes, which were further deformed, came to the fore. The result then was, among other things, the famous series Axial Figures.
After his success at the 1st International Biennale of the Young in Paris in 1959, he settled in France. He looked for inspiration in archaic art, as he believed that the way to modernity is through processing tradition. The 1970s in the artist’s oeuvre resulted in a set of outstanding illustrations to George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski’s short stories, among others.
Lebenstein was associated with the Polish émigré community centered around Paris Culture. Therefore, although he gained recognition abroad in Poland before 1981 he had only one exhibition. In the 1980s, his works appeared in the independent cultural circuit. The largest retrospective exhibition of Lebenstein’s work was held at Warsaw’s Zachęta in 1992, while the summation of the artist’s work began in Paris with the exhibition Stages, which was also presented in several Polish cities, in the year before the year of the artist’s death.
”…You have to look for your own shape. Fashions change, every four years something different applies. It is known that we are bound in our own time anyway, and it is possible to break free from it, but one must try to jump out of one’s time, to be out of actuality.”
Jan Lebenstein
Compiled by. AS and AG on the basis of the catalog “Color of Identity” (article by A. Tanikowski) and text by M. Kitowska-Łysiak about the artist on www.culture.
Curator of the exhibition: Anna Szlazak
