Edward Krasiński. Les mises en scène

Edward Krasiński (1925 Łuck–2004 Warsaw, PL) is one of the main protagonists of the progressive Polish art scene of the 1960s and 1970s. Building on the avant-garde legacy of Constructivism and Surrealism in Poland, he created an oeuvre that is comprehensively documented for the first time in this publication with around 300 historical views of his exhibitions and studio. Numerous photographs by Eustachy Kossakowski and Tadeusz Rolke, who accompanied Krasiński’s work for more than forty years, are published in this volume.

The focus of this extraordinary book is on Krasiński’s unique exhibition designs, which always went beyond the presentation of individual works. Exhibition spaces became extraordinary spatial situations into which he integrated his works. In this way, he repeatedly opened up a new perspective on his artistic work, which oscillates between painting, sculpture and installation. Krasiński turned his studio, which he had taken over from the Constructivist Henryk Stażewski, into an environment and thematized it in new works. His play with the blue “line,” which appeared as a rejuvenation of his sculptural objects, as a telex at the 1970 Tokyo Biennale or as adhesive tape, is well-known. The blue Scotch tape became Krasiński’s preferred means of defining spaces.

The book was published to accompany the exhibition of the same name at the Generali Foundation in 2006.