Woven on the bright side of imagination

Writing about Włodzimierz Cygan and his artwork is both easy and difficult. Easy, because his works fascinate, stimulate imagination, and trigger a variety of associations and inspirations. Difficult, because he is a remarkable artist and his substantial oeuvre has been analyzed and reflected upon many times. He is one of those artists who significantly reshape the art of weaving, daring to overcome the traditionally guaranteed limitations of his field of art. He attempts to move away from the concept of fabric as a discipline with limited possibilities of expression due to its immanent technical regularity. Strands of fibres in Włodzimierz Cygan’s works, as if in defiance of that statement, constantly seek new – not necessarily easy and simple – ways, meeting the warp in successive places of interlacing, and each time being surprised that it is so unpredictable.

Włodzimierz Cygan amazes the world with his spectacular works for the most sincere, simple reason. The author has more than once stressed that the art he makes seems to him to be the realization of one of the most basic activities which has driven man since the dawn of time, ever since he discovered the blessing of covering his body against cold and damp, and later did it out of vanity or, on the contrary, ashamed of his corporeality. Włodzimierz Cygan’s art brings many unexpected sensations. For example, those which stem from admiration for the mastery of execution or originality of imagination. But also those that make us think that once we could limit ourselves to compositions based on parallel rows of warp lines, or reject unconventional fibres as components of the weaving matter.

Sometimes it seems that the compositions have emerged from some merely potential, abstract existence, which was only waiting to be caught in the trap of form, to be materialized and given shape to phenomena difficult to grasp. Fibers woven into the airy tissue become a visible, nervate epidermis for concepts. This one is an interdisciplinary creation, finding its position between sculpture, painting or drawing realized in space, and tapestry.

The works created by Włodzimierz Cygan belong to open art, in a multiple sense of the word. Both due to the way in which they show imagery motifs, components of compositions which – even when framed, though the frames are merely woven – actually find continuation somewhere in space, and due to their structure. The physical substance of the work develops from the center towards the outside, and the lines that permeate the object tear and disappear, especially in the works in which their existence is marked by artificially evoked light and in which the energy visibly bursts, disperses in space and runs away somewhere to expanse. Thus, the artist expands the scope of the area appropriated and dynamized by the works of art.

The artist avoids imitation and does not impose clear-cut, let alone limiting interpretations. He embraces the attitude represented by Tadeusz Kantor who, while verifying his subsequent creative and philosophical ideas in his artistic realizations, assumed that ‘there can exist a work of art which (...) simply exists, without any explanations. A work of art (...) that does not communicate, is not a reflection, has no reference to reality, to the author or the viewer, is not open to interpretation, is directed to nowhere, has no destination and no place, which is like life itself – transient, fleeting, unstoppable, which simply is. By its very existence it sets the whole of the surrounding reality in an unreal – one could say – artistic situation’1.

The evocation of certain motifs, e.g. the Book, the use of basic symbols hidden behind geometric figures and their relations prove that Włodzimierz Cygan looks for references to fundamental values in his art. If one considers these works to be universal expression, then there is also room in each of them for what is individual, what derives from the artist’s experiences and emotions.

When trying to interpret Włodzimierz Cygan’s works, we often look for clues in the natural world, trying to find sources of inspiration in nature. The impression of being drawn to this world is perhaps expressed by a system of rhythmic forms with a recognizable type of ornament. This is further enhanced by the artist’s use of natural fibers and a subdued, limited colour palette, evoking associations with the biological world. Colour, used sparingly, does not distract from the structure, and the works free themselves from potential painterly domination. Then colourful inclusions are all the more significant. They make us follow the path of thread, ‘read’ the fabric, feel its rhythm, participate in the time perception of the work of art, which by its very nature is a merely spatial phenomenon.

His art is full of oppositions. There is a contrast between what is light and massive, rough and soft, compact and openwork, flat and spatial, between what hides the shade and reveals the light. The latter has always been an important factor exposing the qualities of artistic textiles. The light brought it out of the darkness, gave meaning, authenticated the character of pictorial motifs, emphasized - in the painting aspect - the spatial depth of the composition, and played a mood-creating role. In Włodzimierz Cygan’s works - especially the latest ones - it is definitely something more. It defines the object, constitutes its building material, often brings it into existence, decides about its condition. It expresses the inner energy of the fabric, organically and naturally. It is both part of it and its external illumination; coming from the same source, it is something internal to it and at the same time something from outside its space. Exposition of the work is facilitated by its openwork character and thus the specific openness of its form, which can be treated not only as the realization of the course of line of tensions from the center outwards, but also in the relationship of what is in front of and behind the fabric. It is then created from the very beginning with the premise that it will find a place in space, away from the closing plane of the wall. In this way, and also thanks to the character of the fibers used, their incompatibility with the surface of the fabric (moving texture and relief ), the transfer of the artwork from the realm of flat textile into three dimensions takes place.

Włodzimierz Cygan does not mind associating his artwork with utilitarian values. His unique works are indeed autonomous, independent, belonging to the domain of art, aesthetics and beauty, but they are also unapologetically related to the role of elements complementing space as functional forms, especially because in the viewers’ reception the discipline Włodzimierz Cygan pursues is strongly burdened with such a tradition. There is something shamanic in Włodzimierz Cygan’s artistic work; in the very form of some compositions, as if out of this world, in the way the artist works and in his technical explorations, which at least at the beginning are not apparent, in the use of light (again the light!), something intrinsically immaterial, which, when captured, becomes an element of form, enclosed in thin fibers of fiber-optic threads. Also in the frequent associations, probably not even inspired by the artist, with the metaphysical world. His ‘totems’, as in many cultures, play the role of specific bridges of communication between two worlds.

Painstaking creative activities acquire the features of a ritual, and through the tendency to search, to depart from the canon – they are connected with the act of transgression, the process of passing. The world of fabric created by Włodzimierz Cygan is a world of inexhaustible power, a field radiating with energy, condensed and thinned matter. All this does not deprive the artist and his works of their seriousness; nor does it distract from the sense of order, rigour and discipline. As is the case with the artist’s entire creative stance in which his discipline and patience are challenged by his urge to experiment. Thanks to this, the artist does not get stuck in the schemes he worked out before and still surprises us with the right decisions.

Włodzimierz Cygan’s works – although taken away from the loom – retain the memory of it and due to their structure they discreetly reveal the ropes of the weaving practice, once hidden, isolated from the created work. This approach is similar to that which the graphic matrix is subject to, accompanying prints or even acquiring the status of an autonomous work. What is traditionally subordinate to the finished work, what is only a tool, gains new meaning. It becomes an important element of the whole, standing somewhere in the background (because, after all, the artist does not exhibit it), a component of action in which not only the final effect is important but also the whole process, as in work in progress practices, in artistic acts of conceptual nature. It seems that this aspect of processuality, the course, the method is very important both in the context of a single composition, as well as of Włodzimierz Cygan’s entire oeuvre.

Nothing happens twice2 – the quotation from a poem corresponds to the artist’s philosophy, to the nature of his weaving practice – even if we see similarities of inspiration in his compositions, each subsequent work always stimulates him for new solutions. It might be said, with slight exaggeration, that Włodzimierz Cygan’s works are an attempt to capture time, to give it a physical form, to reveal its mystery. The artist shapes the rhythm of the composition, consciously interfering with the structure of the fabric. Like a calligrapher, he builds the form by weaving the thread of the weft through the framework of the warp. Włodzimierz Cygan deals with fiber art, but in his work he also acts as a draughtsman or graphic artist, creating in space an opposition between expressive form and linear drawing. Regularity (the general rule) confronts irregularity (modifications) of the warp.

We realize that all of Włodzimierz Cygan’s body of work is a path of access to his world. He uses fabric to talk to us about things that are difficult to convey with words, especially when they are almost inexpressible abstract notions and relations. They are also not easy to visualize through the means of art. It cannot be done using traditional formulas. To do this one needs a new, convincing language. The language that is precise and at the same time vivid, open to metaphor and sensitive to poetry.

--------------------- 1 Quoted after: August Grodzicki, Reżyserzy polskiego teatru, Polska Agencja „Interpress”, Warszawa 1979, p. 118.
2 From Wisława Szymborska's poem Nothing Twice.

Dariusz Leśnikowski

Transl. Elżbieta Rodzeń-Leśnikowska