Patrycja Orzechowska

Retrogradation is a term from the glossary of astronomy. It describes the apparent reverse motion of a planet resulting from the relative orbital progress of the Earth and such planet, nothing but an optical illusion observed from Earth. The phenomenon itself has been detected in ancient times already, its Latin name derived from Hellenistic astrology. Retro stands for “backwards” or “of the past”, gradus—for “gradation”, “growth”, “ascending order”. In her exhibition’s title, Patrycja Orzechowska has offered the word a new and metaphorical meaning, the prefix hinting at a glance towards the past or a step back rather than past-inspired styling. The core references the artist’s hoarding strategy; gathering diverse objects, she has created a curious collection. The sum of both meanings yielded a name for a visual tale of man’s productivity, blending visions of the past and the future.

Orzechowska’s artistic strategy involves hoarding, rediscovering an object resulting from human (and non-human) activity. The artist scrutinises the production excess we exist in, in search of worn defective objects: those evidently created by hand and those resembling natural creations; industrial waste; parts of a larger whole. Usually considered useless and worthless, they are rarely of interest to other collectors. Orzechowska uses her growing collection to create installations and assemblages, altering the meaning of objects, turning ordinary companions of everyday life into artworks. Removed from their original context and made part of the artist’s works, they embark upon an ontological journey from what they were to what they may become.

“How to carry the world on one’s back?”—one of the most popular quotes from Aby Warburg, historian and theoretician of art, culture expert, author of the Mnemosyne Atlas. How does one carry the past and future alike once we realise we know both everything and nothing of one and the other? Retrogradation, Orzechowska’s title installation, comprises Atlas totems supporting the heavy load of planets. The entire work has been arranged with the use of components displaced by modern technologies, objects we will soon be viewing in museum cabinets or digging up at archaeological sites. The opening work of the virtual essay points to the artist’s focal point of interest: mankind’s primary propensity for changing “a planet into a world”, to quote Hannah Arendt.

Atlas is a mythological elevator, a Titan responsible for supporting the heavenly sphere—yet also a collection of maps and illustrations describing a given geographical area: everything and anything collected as part of human knowledge and enclosed in a rational frame. Orzechowska uses the atlas critically, as a useful tool in perceiving man’s productivity. Yet human labour is not the most interesting thing to ponder; the resulting objects are. The artist confronts the visuality of objects of material culture created across assorted historical periods, pointing to culture’s inner schizophrenic fissure. The Thoughtforms cycle resounds with similarities between the prehistoric and natural and the secondary and artificial, in an afterimage of primary needs. These works are accompanied by glass Dewar flasks, inner thermos tubes transformed by the artist in her retro-futuristic narrative into a face urn cemetery. In her photography series Ashes to Ashes, Orzechowska observes Balinese cremation rites forming part of a Ngaben funeral ceremony. Inspired by the vista of smouldering ashes, she created installations of assorted remnants: ceramics, charred fruit, eggshells. Rite of passage flames fuse objects and animal and human bodies into amalgamate matter. Black still lives arranged by the artist against the exotic backdrop of Balinese nature seem eerie; were it not for the well-known context, they could well evoke an impression of timelessness. They are neither the past nor the future or the present. In view of the incessant circulation of matter, time also becomes relative, after all.

Retrogradation#2 is a yet another rendition of Orzechowska’s project which “travels” across field sand meanings with objects as her dramatis personae. From one version to another, objects used by the artist are afforded new reincarnations, chances for a new life. “Objects which surround us say more about us than the words we speak. Manufactured again and again, the materiality we use and discard is a challenge we have to face here and now,”the artist says. This challenge may evolve into positive/ creative or negative/ destructive scenarios. It all depends on us.