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Breughel Senior had the habit of studying landscapes and works of art upside down. To achieve the desired perspective he would stand with his back to them, and then straddle and bend double, so that his head dangled between his legs. That little eccentricity of his is told to have killed him. Death, in the shape of cerebral haemorrhage, found him in that very position. His behaviour, however outrageous it may have appeared in art galleries, is in fact metaphysically justified (to those who would like to explore the topic I recommend the Phenomenology of perception). What appears after the inversion is not just the world upside down, just like an inverted image of a face transforms into a grotesque masque with two slimy balls surrounded by stiff cilia in place of a mouth, and an obscene moist chasm leading deep inside the dark mysteries of a human body right where a forehead should be. The other face of art, appearing after just a minor interference with the position of a work itself, that nonetheless changes the way we learned to look at it and make it safe, evokes my constant interest. The minor interference I am talking about could be introducing an economic, philosophical or political aspect, or even a decent intellectual analysis, when we are dealing with works which are fashionable, but of doubtful value. Incredible how many works and rituals of art the latter can throw completely off balance.
The texts presented here are intended to function in a similar way as the Breughel?s method. This is the intended purpose of the commentaries, interferences and polemics. The same purpose lies in the choice of the discussed works. The majority of them will have been created or exhibited in Warsaw, which of course is not an assumed restriction, but a coincidence and a starting point. I will not try to avoid showing what I like, be it the young and the unknown or the old and renowned masters. After all, the main purpose of this blog is pleasure, hence my unwillingness to compromise, and my incorruptibility. After all, we all have our little eccentricities we would hate to give up. And personal taste, while being subjective, still claims the right to be universal.
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