Haptic resonance of matter

Maria Papa Rostkowska's work has so far been shown mainly in the circle of the artist's male friends: Lucio Fontana, Joan Miró, Jean (Hans) Arp, Marino Marini and many other great names associated with the prestigious Parisian gallery XXe Siècle. The exhibition at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, however, has a completely different character: on the centenary of her birth, the sculptor will "throw a party", at which women artists and their works will appear. They will accompany about sixty of Papa Rostkowska's sculptures, representing both the generation contemporary to her and the one working now, but with a similar sense of the haptic resonance of matter. The party will therefore feature Katarzyna Kobro, Maria Jarema, Alina Szapocznikow, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Agata Agatowska, Magdalena Więcek, Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Barbara Stańczak, Barbara Falender, Iwona Demko, Martyna Pająk...

These notions of "haptic resonance of matter" contained in the title of the exhibition are meant to draw attention to several extremely important, yet so far not sufficiently deeply analysed, aspects of Papa Rostkowska's sculptures: the role of the sense of touch and hapticity as a phenomenon involving the whole body, embodied and somaesthetic perception, and matter as an actor that not only collaborates in the process of creation, but also resonates with its vitality during contact with the works. The term "haptic resonance"/"haptic space" was proposed by Gilles Deleuze when he described the painting of Francis Bacon. Ideally - as a metaphor - it also reflects the impressions experienced by the viewers of Papa Rostkowska's sculptures: they feel the haptic resonance of the matter of individual sculptures, which is transmitted to them. The curatorial strategy is thus based on the theory of extended haptics and posthumanism, and above all on the conviction of the co-creative role of matter as a non-human actor during sculpting. It is these issues that make Papa Rostkowska's work increasingly relevant over time. The aim of the exhibition is also to reorient the position of the artist and to place her in a circle in which she has not functioned so far.