David Jablonowski (1982)
Sculptures with a painting-like quality, or paintings occupying space like a sculpture. David Jablonowski sculpts with the eyes of a painter. He approaches the art of contemporary sculpting with the understanding that while it is primarily two-dimensional, fleeting images that dominate today’s world, in fact very little has changed. He draws deep connections between billboards and advertising displays and the primal function of sculpture: ritual, faith, recollection. The collective memories of artworks, and the cultural heritage they communicate, are an inexhaustible source of inspiration. In one work, Jablonowski frames quoted text from a Medieval codex around plant details taken from a work by 16th-century master Albrecht Dürer. The ideas of 19th-century philosopher Henri Bergson and art historian Wilhelm Worringer fire Jablonowski’s imagination. Can an artwork communicate history?
German-born Jablonowski breaks down the barriers between the germination of the concept, the process of creation of the image, the image that results and the way it is experienced, both by creator and by viewer. “I want to take the concentration of the art of painting and turn it into a spatial phenomenon,” says Jablonowski.* Spatiality is a driving force in this process. He presents his works in small and confined spaces, to create monumentality and inevitability.
* K. Keijer, “David Jablonowski,” Het Parool, 28 June 2007
