The exhibition of Xawery Wolski at the National Museum in Lublin has a dichotomous character. On the one hand, it is an attempt to capture the extraordinary life and artistic path of the outstanding sculptor – Xawery Wolski, and on the other one its essence is to commemorate the anniversaries of the liquidation of the German prison in 1944 and the NKVD prison in 1954 at the Lublin castle. These are the history, memory and existential experiences of different generations that are the subject of the “Xawery Wolski. Genetics of Memory” exhibition. Its aim is to confront two ways of recording memory: collective, historical, and subjective memory of an individual – personal experiences, feelings and thoughts expressed in a work of art, which is a reflection of the artist’s consciousness and unconsciousness. Xawery Wolski’s work should be considered as a total work. The artist does not limit himself to one medium, but experiments, sets new directions, creates new beings that are subjected to natural processes of development in his work. The added value of the exhibition is represented by previously unpublished fragments of Xawery Wolski’s memoirs from the artist’s private archive. The quotes introduced into the exhibition space, which are a reflection of personal experiences and creative struggles, draw a subjective, authorial narrative line of the exhibition.
Xawery Wolski’s exhibition was conceived as a five-act poem, consisting of designated spaces on the Lublin castle hill – the temporary exhibition hall and creative interventions in the cultural landscape: the courtyard, the lapidarium, the Holy Trinity Chapel and the medieval castle keep. The aim was to confront the artist’s works with places of historical character, to create a quasi-site-specific situation that would highlight the mutual relations between the work and the place of its presentation and would encourage the discovery of new meanings, reinterpretations and dialogues between Xawery Wolski’s sculpture and the space of the National Museum in Lublin. The lyrical structure of the exhibition is underlined by choruses – repetitions of selected motives from the artist’s work, which are characterised by the usage of symbolism, minimalism, even asceticism of form and seriality, allowing his works to be grouped into specific constellations and themes. One should not run away from repetition if one is repeating something that is important and requires a different perspective. Thus, at the exhibition one will find traces of Wolski’s artistic path – imprinted, sketched, woven and forged in diverse materials that bring new textures, stories and emotions. In a place touched by history, Wolski’s works combine the past with the future, becoming a magical antidote in art therapy for the area of memory, trauma and reminiscences.