“(…) And then SHE – Annette – will say: ‘… The essence of art is mystery…’ ‘… The truth of art is mystery…’ – I will add.”
“She” is the French artist Annette Messager, and “I” is the Polish artist Izabella Gustowska. At the beginning of this story is an envelope that was found, after several years, in Izabella Gustowska’s studio. It contained works by Messager that were meant to be exhibited at the ON Gallery in Poznań. The exhibition, however, never took place. In 1981, martial law was introduced in Poland, leading to the closure of the gallery and its storage space. The envelope was subsequently lost and was only found recently, demanding that its story be given a new ending.
and Gustowska, whose works had a significant influence on art, have never actually met. They were born five years apart: Annette in 1943, Izabella in 1948. They belonged to the same artistic generation, likely read the same books, were inspired by the same films, and lived through the same events – albeit on two different sides of the Iron Curtain. In their work, both combined – in their own distinct ways – elements of photography, installation, sculpture, and text. Themes of identity, the body, and memory were central to their practices. Each of the artists addressed the question of femininity – understood both as a social construct and as a personal experience – and challenged stereotypical roles imposed on women and the constraints of patriarchal structures. Both artists questioned the idea of a singular, coherent identity. Their works often showed that the “I” is only a complex, but ultimately malleable, cultural construct. The written word – appearing in installations, embroidery, and collages – played an important role in Messager’s practice. Texts – such as poetry and critical writing – accompanied the work of Izabella Gustowska in the form of commentary, manifesto, and personal record.
This is an exhibition about the mystery that accompanies art, about the mystery hidden for forty years in a lost envelope, about the search for the author of its contents. It is also about the inspiration that comes from reinterpreting and rereading other female artist’s work. Izabella Gustowska writes: “The notebook and the exhibition SHE and I are a record of my chaotic thoughts and my everyday work, as well as some short trips taken between February and November 2025 (over a period of around nine months). Almost everything that proved inspiring during this period of time has left its trace in the project.” The exhibition is a record of a journey through time and space, as well as of an inner journey. Here, an exotic excursion towards Isabela, a volcanic island in the Galápagos archipelago, becomes a pretext for looking into mirrors – both real and imagined – and for multiplying and complicating threads that relate to art and the definition of one’s identity. In her notebook, Gustowska writes that she wishes to “loop our demons, shadows, faces, and doppelgängers”. In the course of this journey, the quest for a twin duality is interweaved – in a strange and enigmatic way – with the exotic appeal of South American nature, events occurring in a world seemingly careening towards catastrophe, as well as distinctly private narratives. These various loops, fragmentary images, and mirrored reflections coalesce into an interdisciplinary exhibition in which images, sounds, objects, and photographs merge together to create an ambiguous, enigmatic narrative. Perhaps, although not certainly, this narrative constitutes a fragment of the artist’s intimate diary as she withdraws from view behind a symbolic mask.
The exhibition is accompanied by a book published especially for this occasion – a travel notebook that combines text and photographs. It features references to everyday life and travel, sporadic allusions to earlier artworks, and lines of poetry. It provides a crucial reading guide for this intricate, multi-layered exhibition, throughout which Izabella Gustowska weaves yet another half-authentic, half-fictional tale.
curator: Marek Wasilewski
