Daniel Rycharski. Passion | art installation

Passion is a monumental, outdoor installation by Daniel Rycharski prepared especially for the Łódź of Many Cultures Festival. The work consists of fifteen sculptural groups, thus being a contemporary, artistic interpretation of the Stations of the Cross. In the version proposed by the artist, the traditional fourteen stations have been supplemented by a representation of Jesus carrying a dead Judas on his shoulders, who thus becomes the essential – indeed central – character of Rycharski’s work.

The phenomenal – as spectacular as it is vernacular – form that the artist has given to his Stations of the Cross, built from old farm machinery, has at least several sources of inspiration. The first is the 1952 design for the Stations of the Cross at Kościół św. Kazimierza in Nowy Sącz by Władysław Hasior, an artist with whom Rycharski has been in dialogue for years. The second are illustrations from two textbooks for students of agricultural schools, published during the communist period: Maszyny rolnicze by Bolesław Łaszczyk and Bronisław Pokrzywa and Maszyny i ciągniki rolnicze by Stanisław Dąbrowski and Danuta Kozłowska. However, Oskar Schlemmer’s set and costume designs for the experimental Bauhaus stage and Norman Jewison’s 1973 musical Jesus Christ Superstar are also important points of reference for the artist.

Composed of upcycled found/ready-made objects, Rycharski’s installation is part of the avant-garde and neo-avant-garde tradition of assemblage, which was also important for Hasior. On the other hand, this kind of (de)constructivism of agricultural machines, committed by the artist, is reminiscent of vernacular, non-professional – folk and neo-folk – art and crafts, to which bricolage and DIY (do it yourself) practices are relevant. In this sense, Passion is located at the intersection of two traditions and cultures: professional, high and folk, peasant. At the same time, the artist’s intention is not to simply refer to the much-discussed folk turn and immerse himself uncritically in rural culture. On the contrary, the form of Rycharski’s installation points to the violent aspects of this culture, which – such as the folk anti-Semitism exemplified by the figure of Judas – demand to be worked through.

The heroes of the Passion – Roman soldiers, Jesus, Judas, Mary and others – are made from fragments of agricultural machinery and painted by the artist in several saturated colours, characteristic of folk art. Rycharski makes use of the symbolic dimension of colour when he paints the crosses, the crown of thorns and the elements of the weapon in red, emphasising their violent, “bloody” character, and when he covers the figure of Judas with yellow paint, which – often used in Europe to mark Jews (the order to wear yellow caps and patches sewn on clothes in the Middle Ages, yellow stars in the ghettos created by the Nazis) – in tradition and iconography symbolises betrayal, transgression, impurity. For it is Judas who is of primary interest to the artist: Judas as the villain of Christian culture and its textual and visual products, a figure who has become the embodiment of faithlessness and betrayal (both individual and collective), and whose story is a pretext for justifying anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish violence in Europe and beyond. At the same time, the anti-Semitic figure of Judas, created by Christianity, becomes for the artist a contribution to the reworking of its black legend. In Rycharski’s reworking, Judas is a key biblical figure from the point of view of the passion and redemption story, whose fate can be read as the reverse of the story of Jesus, and he himself can be seen as Jesus’ alter ego. In this sense, in the unflinching Passion, the artist also creates the possibility of suffering and a place of encounter where he engages in intercultural dialogue.

curator: Wojciech Szymański

Bio

Daniel Rycharski – born 1986 in Sierpc. He describes himself as a conceptual and avant-garde artist. He uses a variety of techniques, mainly installation. Between 2005 and 2009 he studied graphic design at the Faculty of Art at the Pedagogical University in Kraków. He then defended his doctorate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. In his artistic practice, he explores the themes of provincialism, religiosity, christianity and LGBTQ+ identity, looking for tensions and new connections between them. Rycharski’s art manifests his personal search for a space where non-heteronormativity and Christian faith can function together. The artist works with activists from the LGBTQ+ community, as well as religious and agricultural associations, to express their problems and experiences and to contribute to building understanding between the inhabitants of Polish towns and villages. As one of Rycharski’s main aims is to promote art in the countryside, he often involves his local community in the production of art. He teaches at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. He lives and works in Kurówek and Szczecin. A film based on Daniel Rycharski’s life, All Our Fears, directed by Łukasz Ronduda and Łukasz Gutt, was released in 2021.

Phot. Katarzyna Legendź. Courtesy of Gunia Nowik Gallery

Accompanying events:

Saint Judas? Traitor and martyr. Meeting around the Passion by Daniel Rycharski

Performance It’s me, Judas by Daniel Rycharski and Tomasz Terlikowski