Bronze
Work signed,
Dimensions: 35 x 37 x 30 cm
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"It was his drawing himself, modeling himself, that was at the same time the work of an artist." - Olgierd Łukasiewicz once said about Tadeusz Łomnicki. Jan Kucz's work, in a way, materializes the essence of these words - he encapsulates in plastic form the mystical experience of the artistry of acting.
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Jan Kucz (born June 10, 1936 in Zarzecz). In 1961 he graduated from the Department of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In 1982 he represented Poland at the Venice Biennale, from 1992 to 2002 he was a member of the Artistic Council of the Polish Sculpture Center in Orońsko. He was a lecturer in the painting studio at the European Academy of Arts in Warsaw.
Jan Kucz, is one of the most prominent representatives of new realism in Polish sculpture. As a professor at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, he shaped hosts of sculptor-artists.
Responding to a question about monumental sculpture - one of the most significant areas of his creative activity - Jan Kucz said that: "The reasons are many. One of them is a sense of participation in the construction of life, responsibility for the state of culture and humanism (...). It is a willingness to make an effort, to step out of one's own hermetic visions, ambitions explained by law and the duty of a sincere attitude of the creator. To take up from the levels of people "left behind" unconsciously distancing themselves in their unpreparedness from art and culture. The monument is intended to be a form of effective dialogue with them, without grossly compromising the quality of this encounter."
These artist-created spaces for dialogue are scattered throughout the country. Just to mention Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski kneeling on the Częstochowa meadows, Jan Kochanowski looking at the Sandomierz Palace in Radom, or the dignified Cyril Ratajski of Poznań's Anders Square. These are just three of more than a dozen monumental realizations that have remained an integral part of the landscape of Polish cities for decades.
Professor Kucz's work has been exhibited in The Hague, Madrid, Lisbon and Paris, among others. In 1982, the artist represented Poland at the Venice Biennale.
Jan Kucz's space of artistic expression is a harmonious marriage of technical mastery with a substrate of philosophical reflection:
"Art is a constant hope, a promise. It is a longing for a higher state of what the logic of earthly attraction brings. (...) it does not want to be captured by human intelligence. Rather, it is the result of the artist's constant struggle between wanting and being able to, between I think and I know.(...) Art that pursues its ambition to form human being, cultural and humanistic, cannot carelessly for the immediate needs of the moment, have an arrogant attitude towards the past and act without concern for the expression and shape of human tomorrow. In its activities, art, among the many qualities that make it up, should reveal moral sensitivity."
Over the years, the artist has carried out didactic and pedagogical activities: "As long as I am a student of my student, I am young and climbing upwards," he writes. - he writes. He has been a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw since 1989, and served as its vice-rector from 1984 to 1986.
