What I desire is not beyond me, but inside me
On eroticism in the oeuvre by Sylwester Ambroziak
“The Minotaurs”, as Sylwester Ambroziak calls his figures. Carnal, bestial with anonymous faces. A thin line of division between the human and the animal. The huge in size are made in wood, the smaller – in bronze. The Minotaur, a mirror of our dark sphere, of the unconscious. An anonymous instinct, blind life energy. An element impossible to be tamed, vibrating intuitively, in spite of the fact that the mind, its structures and products make efforts to grasp and subjugate it. The figures by Ambroziak seem to represent all these dark forces that the civilization – treating them as a source of chaos – would like to close down in a hardly accessible place, as though they were the Minotaur who personifies them.
The characters, seemingly gentle, warm and exuding a specific tenderness – as though they contradicted their shapelessness and clumsiness – symbolize life energy (also the energy of death since the two are naturally intertwined) mainly manifested in their sexuality.
Sylwester Ambroziak does not comment much about his art, the sculptures are to speak for him. Sculpting does not pertain merely to the matter. First of all, this is about shaping our wishes and emotions. Voicing what has been deeply hidden. Ambroziak has selected anonymous, clumsy actors to speak on our behalf, or rather to make a hint, bordering on the mystery. This is a comfortable situation. One can feel safe, faced with an allusion when nothing is being said directly. The homely, primeval, unadorned simplicity of these sculptures (most critics point out such “positive” features of the output by Ambroziak, as: authenticity, expression, affirmation of life) has been only superficial. It has been meant to mislead and invite one to join the game of coming close and moving away from what has been their (and our) essence.
Recent works have been different. The statement has grown more uncompromising and… disturbing. Several figures located in the gallery space bring an association with a spectacle that entangles characters in a network of mutual interrelations. The sculptures by Ambroziak are “social” oriented, they make couples and coexist in a group. The existence “in relation to”, and a sort of silent communication have been their natural environment. In this case, however, one is faced with a more developed set: the figures share a story. The gallery space is turning into an installation. It is becoming a stage of drama, a death scene. One is watching a performance based on a screenplay that one cannot fully understand. Smaller characters (dolls? children?) of both sexes with their genitals distinctly marked, are lying on the floor with their legs widely spread. The larger are standing or sitting, looking at the smaller or at one another. What is going on between them is not completely clear, nevertheless, a sexual aspect is quite sharp. There is something disturbing, a kind of dramatic tension visible in the whole performance. One is not sure whether the larger and stronger dominate the defenseless? Are they aggressive and hostile, or just indifferent? Are they keeping an eye on them, or protecting them? Are there abandoned dolls on the floor? Can they be…children? This is not clear. We feel ill at ease in this humanly inhuman space filled with gray, pink and white characters.
The latest work by Sylwester Ambroziak draws one’s attention not only with its developed spatial arrangement and a resultant disturbing story. The artist has made the figures in new material – silicon. Silicon is soft, carnal, sexual. But first of all, it is ….artificial (what does it really mean today?…) This ambivalent quality of silicon has introduced an additional context when we refer to the earlier works made in wood or bronze. The primeval, natural features have been lost – one cannot help thinking. Instead, one should say: this is an opportunity to be creative. One can process the world, emotions, relations with other people. A silicone perfect body can be replaced with the natural. Silicon is used to fill in lips and breasts, to shape dolls – phantoms. The objects, emotions, other people, surrounding reality are becoming “things”. Silicon figures seem to confirm the associations with dolls. The dummies with sexual features strongly marked, as though they were a projection of carnal fantasies onto the external world. Dolls are passive and exhibitionistic. They give in to our will but all contacts with them are tragically one-sided, there is no way to communicate. A doll reminds about the art by Hans Bellmer. No artist has ever said more about a doll. His dolls have been “sexual goddesses” to “open desire” and “find out its new forms”. A doll has been a fetish. Something in between a deity and a lucky charm. This has also been a most treasured childhood memory. Most likely, the forbidden combination of the childish and the sexual has made a distinct, multiple meaning symbol of a doll. A doll, being an object, can be a metaphor of our life reduced to the material and function oriented existence.
The situation created by Ambroziak refers to the carnal, sexual, and their complement – death. One is watching figures standing in a circle sharing complex sensual – sexual relations; only guessing what is going on during this motionless sculpting spectacle.
As a metaphor, one can say that life is the journey of the body and the journey across the body. Do not we have an impression, however, that we do not go on these journeys personally? In fact we just “live in our bodies”. One’s body (first of all, its freedom) has been taken away, and then offered back on lease terms. All modifications, “improper use” are being punished. This particularly pertains to the erotic presence of the body. Here, the list of do’s and don’ts is quite long. This is not about rejecting bans, this would automatically deprive our existence of the ban opposite, i.e., transgression. The latter helps to preserve the continuity of existence.
In primitive cultures, the taboo against death and sexuality used to be lifted at the moment of orgy and sacrifice, these specific “moments beyond time”. The spectacle directed by Ambroziak has combined dramatic qualities and inexplicability of both. Losing one’s sense of time and space, one can reach into the most intimate inner self, unclear, untamed, deeply hidden. These feelings – coming up on the surface of everyday reality – help one to participate in the continuum mystery, the reality sensed as undifferentiated. The experience of continuity makes one human, sensing oneself beyond the function and time. “Only losing one’s sense, the human does not allow for being reduced to a thing”, as put by Bataill.
The civilization has been striving to “tame” the sphere of sexuality
(also death, to some extent ). Its seemingly permissive attitude has been nothing else but an attempt to homogenize the element of sex. Death and sex are the elements – energies, once at large, posing a potential threat to the civilization and social system based on rationality and function oriented, aspiring to ensure development and a sense of safety. The energy of death and sex cannot be completely pushed out from our consciousness. This is why culture has been providing shows, a substitute of authentic experience. Sex (and death) have been becoming things, domains, functions available on strictly defined rules. Thus, social order can be relatively balanced.
The installation by Sylwester Ambroziak has been disturbing since it offers a dramatic and sexually ambiguous situation. Domination? Violence? Rape? Perversion? Indifference? Rejection? Michel Leiris has described the essence of eroticism in the “Corrida Mirror”:
“…the art of love, namely ‘eroticism’ involves introducing into a sexual act an illicit element, a jarring note letting emotions loose …. Only the ambiguous, balancing between the right and wrong can be sexually arousing…” ¹ The concept by Leiris has been developed by Bataill who has stressed that violence, as individual features depriving condition, leads to an opening of authentic communication which in turn results in true closeness. Eroticism means mutual “devouring”.
While one might be capable of combining eroticism with dramatic and violent qualities, even perversion, death introduces uncomfortable, difficult context. Colorful silicon figures scattered on the floor are associated not only with the passivity of a doll, but also with death and final stand still of a sexual object. “ What characterizes eroticism is not a mobile, life object; rather the motionless and dead, broken away from the normal world. This is the end when one is striving to lead the living and moving” ². The tragedy of death has been written into the world of desire. Once, the coexistence of contrasting energies used to be considered natural. The contemporary civilization, while affirming sexuality (regardless of the fact that it is limited to the function), has been pushing death out of a sexual zone (what is more, it has been pushing out death in general). As though eroticism equaled exclusively vitality. It is also a praise of death. In a state of bliss, one sinks into oblivion, adjusting to one’s own end.
Anxiety, tension immobilized rape. One does not know what is really going on, what are the relations between the characters one is watching. We do not even know who are the actors taking part in the spectacle. Are there children or dolls lying on the floor? Are the perpetrators or rescuers standing there? Is this a spectacle or the moment after a sexual act (orgy) has been over? Or… death? We are not going to learn this. The author has left the riddle for us to solve. We have been faced with the UNKNOWN. With our own associations, desires, guesses, anxieties. With what is in our inner selves… our own Minotaurs.
In the world that makes myths of safety: work, home, objects, health, safe sex…As though man could not stand what terrifies him and could not look it straight into the face… Possibly… Perhaps… How can one live without the prospective unknown?
¹Michel Leiris, The Corrida Mirror, translated by M. Ochab, Gdańsk 1999, p. 42
² Georges Bataille, History of Eroticism, translated by I. Kania, Cracow 1992, p. 122