Mały świat (plaża) | Small world (the beach)

Small World (Beach) and Small Intimate World (Beach) from 1969, painted by Wiesław Szamborski (1941- ) during an open-air workshop in Świnoujście, are spatial, briefcase-like paintings consisting of two small canvases connected by hinges and presented when unfolded at right angles. These works initiated the theme of the beach-goer, which Szamborski used particularly often in the 1980s. Since graduating from university in 1966, Szamborski has consistently practised painting that is as contemporary as possible. This was somewhat paradoxical, since he himself was rather critical of contemporary art. "He was always pointing out its shortcomings, even though he was part of its avant-garde," recalls his student Janusz Knorowski (1964- ). Szamborski's artistic debut coincided with a period of fundamental change in world art, which was also taking place in Poland, although the socio-political circumstances made the course of events somewhat different. The 1960s The 1960s saw the birth of performance art, conceptual art, new media art, video art and body art. The death of painting that was proclaimed at the time did not occur in Poland, where painting was both negated and affirmed within the emerging canon of Polish art of the second half of the 20th century. Szamborski distanced himself from abstractionism, post-impressionism and academic realism. Nevertheless, he made liberal use of the reality that surrounded him. He was a keen observer of everyday banality. He painted ordinary subjects in extraordinary ways. Sketches to treat figures or objects, the use of dark contours combined with bold use of colour, flat contrasting patches and expressive streaks of thick paint, as in the present work, introduce an additional factor that heightens the emotion. Although he is often classified as one of the main exponents of the New Figuration, a movement characterised by expressionism, subjectivism and deformation of the reality depicted, the artist himself distances himself from any trend. Marlena Chybowska-Butler