Group exhibition curated by Ania Batko and Pawel Wylag at Henryk Foundation.

Paulinka and Lucynka
Artists: HOLY SPELLS, Maryna Sakowska, Wiktoria Walendzik, Krzysztof Grzybacz
Curators: Ania Batko, Aleksander Celusta
Record of the exhibition: Paweł Wyląg
Scent of the exhibition: Ania Batko, Paweł Wyląg
Translation: Dorota Wąsik
October 29  - November 5, 2021
Henryk Foundation, Trzebinia

Paulinka and Lucynka open the closet. First they are assaulted by the smell: a strange, bittersweet aroma. In a moment they shall hear a moan, gradually turning into a nervous giggle. A pile of skeletons spills out of the wardrobe and onto the floor.
“Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm […] There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these—the dreams—writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff- frozen as they stand.”
[“The Masque of the Red Death”, Allan Edgar Poe]
“I’m not sure I know [He slowly removes several masks, one after the another]. Am I this? Or this? Or this? What a frightening thought: If I keep on removing layer after layer, I might peel myself entirely away.”
[“Leonce and Lena”, Georg Büchner]

“Hyrkan IV: Of course. But when all mankind puts on the mask, the problem of Truth will disappear by itself. My two friends – Duke de Plignac and Rupprecht von Blasen – and I are making that mask. The masked society and us – the only ones who know everything.
Bezdeka: So there is nothing akin to comedy about it? Do you know what really put me off? Your costume.
Hyrkan IV: It is a small matter. I thought you were more sensitive to decorations, which is why I dressed like that. I can take off these frills.”
[“The Cuttlefish, or the Hyrcanian World View”, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz]

***
The studio at Zamkowa street becomes the stage of a drama. It features the inside of a wardrobe, and the Villa of the Mysteries, excavated from the ruins, which becomes a place of a secret ritual. Dressing up is a performance. So is undressing, in fact. A grand striptease, and an obsession with emballage. The mystery of wrapping, un-wrapping, revealing, covering, keeping, and enduring. Apparently, in the room where the frescoes were supposed to illustrate the rite of initiation, in a place that was sup-posed to be an epiphany of occult meanings, the ancients carved a window. This time we are not going to dress up, but we will take a peep. We will become part of the vo-yeuristic theatre – yet another story about how the outside – like in a Maeterlinck play – looks inward, and how voyeurism draws but also creates reality. Everything is for sale here, as if it were a shop or a gallery. As in the movie by Wajda, everything and everyone plays themselves. They speak their lines, telling a story about clothes and disguises, about the curators, about the works that compose the exhibition. Part of the screenplay is that there is no screenplay. After all, we just keep repeating ourselves. As Deleuze would have it – a repetition, dressing up.
The exhibition, whose title refers to a series of fashion columns published in “Przekrój” weekly – funny stories and dialogues of the title characters about clothes and their whens, what-withs and hows – examines the fluid constructions of identity and social structures, the boundaries between fashion and art, life and theatre. It shows things that are not so much clothes as disguises. Whereas Lucynka is interested in practical uses, Paulinka is drawn to exclusive creation. While Paulinka is a fetishist, whose suppressed libido is pouring out in waves of an unbridled tsunami, Lucynka is a per-vert-voyeur who is amused and excited by text only. Or maybe it is the other way around. They both like glad rags, anyway: the frills and fancies that tell serious stories. The costume determines the roles and multiplies incarnations. The emperor is always naked. The skins, hurriedly shed, come out of the closet. What if it is not the costume that parasitizes the body, but it is the body that is gnawing at its tangles?

All images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Henryk Foundation, Krakow (Po-land)