opening of the exhibition 05.03.2013, 6pm
Exhibition open until 31.03.2013

Aleksander Dętkoś was born in 1939, graduated from the Kenar school in Zakopane, in the years 1955-1960. Studied art at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, at the Department of Sculpture and Ceramics, under Prof. Stanisław Horno-Popławski, in the years 1960-1966. At the same time, he also completed pedagogical studies. In the years 1966-1969, he worked as artist-educator in special education on the Coast. His name appears in the English edition of the biographies of contemporary artists, published in Lausanne under the title “Who is who”. Since 1999, he’s a member of the ACCADEMIA INTERNAZIONALE; GRECI MARINO ITALIA, with the title of the member of the Academy of Arts.

The work of the Bydgoszcz artist is due to the number of references very broad. Here, we can find traces of the classic conventions with its balance, economy, restraint; abstract compositions based on the geometric order of lines and the grace of rectangular shapes; but also sculptures filled with detail, characterised by ornamental splendour, abundance, wealth, compositions made dynamic, asymmetric, full of tensions and saturated with intense emotions. We see objects that are both a response to the experience of the present tense, works born of the need for community involvement, which are a form of expression on the most current issues, as well as symbolic projects, bringing together reflections of a much more versatile character: reflection on the metaphysical dimension of human existence, the spiritual condition of modern man and the value of contemporary culture. Due to this unusual number of references, but also because of the multiplicity of meanings and contents one can speak of specific erudition of the artist and erudite nature of his work.
The works of Aleksander Dętkoś are narrative; they are stories, anecdotes and thoughts closed in forms made of bronze, centred around a single, overriding central point, which is man. His artistic representation is a bust or portrait, oval of the face presented as a profile or full face, sometimes single, sometimes doubled, presented in the an integrated form or separated by a crack opening space for light and air. These treatments have an aesthetic as well as semantic meaning. Operating with forms of flat faces-masks deprived of expression, disintegration of likenesses, exposing cracks, splits , inconsistencies, smart use of empty space — all these suggest absence of personified being, reveal spiritual emptiness of modern man, present the contemporary culture as immaterial dialogue of masks, as an apparent discourse, with no anchor in the world of values.
Piotr Siemaszko (an excerpt from an article in the exhibition catalogue)