Utensils

Three-dimensional, mobile object entitled Utensylia – a work by Piotr Kurka (born in 1958) was created in 1999. It was purchased for the contemporary art collection of the National Museum in Szczecin in 2013. Kurka’s works are usually ambiguous and metaphorical, as the artist mixes the banality of everyday life with a sophisticated reflection on the fundamental aspects of human existence. In the case of Utensylia, the artist employs everyday objects – elements of tableware, a hospital bedpan and a medical tray. On the other hand, a wooden object resembling a coffin in size and shape, refers to fantasy and fiction. However, Kurka's ‘coffin’ has one unusual feature – it is also an optical device. The artist placed two lenses in the shorter sides of the ‘coffin’ the first of which serves as a viewfinder, the second as a lens. The body of the box thus turns into a kind of an optical tube. The metal structure resting on wheels, which houses all of the pieces of the work, enables free movement of the object and selecting any target for observation. Thus, the symbolic coffin, associated with death and stillness, paradoxically becomes a tool for observing life. In Utensylia, Kurka touches upon the very sense of existence, which is always experienced in the context of death that brings about extraordinary intensity thanks to this.

Magdalena Lewoc