Shrine

“Shrine” combines many forms of artistic expression such as: sculptural, visual and musical, while its key elements are the testimonies of Majdanek prisoners, recorded on an audiotape and derived from the Museum’s archive. In the sound layer they were correlated two independent tracks - one is connected to music, and the second one to the choir of voices, which according to the author’s intention, are meant to refer to ancient tragedy.

The central visual element is a composition of spherical forms made of barbed wire, running alongside the barracks. First of its parts are balls glowing from the inside with dim light of the bulbs and hung in four rows over the black stone platform. This is followed by a zone with balls without light. They were laid on white stones. The whole is completed by the composition, which visually refers to the form of iconostasis, divided into 12 areas, each filled with the drawing of a black spot on a white background. In front of this spot, on a lectern, there is a book containing the names of the nationalities of Majdanek prisoners being commemorated.

Tadeusz Mysłowski

The artist was born in 1943 in Piotrków near Lublin. He graduated from the Faculty of Painting at Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow (ASP Kraków) in 1969. Not long after there was his first solo exhibition at the Gallery BWA “Arkady”. In 1970 he went to New York, where he settled permanently. In his work Tadeusz Mysłowski refers to constructivism and geometric abstraction. He made: a point, a line, a cross, a square, the primary signs of his aesthetics, showing the relationship between geometry and metaphysics, and the universality of the laws of nature.

Zbigniew Bargielski

He was born in Łomża in 1937 and attended the music school in Lublin. He graduated from the musical composition studies at the State Academy of Music in Katowice. He continued his education in Paris and Graz in the 1960s and the 1970s. He settled in Vienna and worked for the Music Academy in Bydgoszcz and the Music Academy in Kraków. He was awarded the title of professor of the musical arts in 2011. His compositional portfolio spans across several hundred pieces of various genres and forms.