Artist Przemyslaw Lasak and his constant companions, Zenek and Zyga.
Going against the grain is often an artist’s stock in trade, whether that means developing a new technique, exploring unusual materials or embracing an uneasy subject matter. And while the likes of Kandinsky, Warhol or Damien Hirst rate high in “shock and awe,” individuality is not always steeped in transgression. Not every outlier is a radical, but that doesn’t mean they are running with the pack, either.
Przemyslaw Lasak has not taken an easy route. As a ceramist, he occupies a position several notches below painter in the art practice hierarchy. And as a figurative sculptor, he no doubt seems out of step to those for whom Damián Ortega, Kate MccGwire or Richard Deacon define the contemporary standard. But Lasak has set his own course. As a youth in Poland, he was taken with painting and drawing; the last thing he wanted to be was a “potter.” That changed after high school, when he enrolled at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, which operates the only university-level department of ceramics and glass in Poland. “Wrocław has a great faculty, excellent workshops and teachers,” notes Lasak. “It was there that I majored in ceramics and connected with it for the rest of my artistic life.”
Lasak’s most significant forms are the life-size figures he makes from casts. Working in multiples, his first series was Mercenaries, for which he used his own body as the template. “For me, a cast is a mannequin,” he explains. “It accepts everything. I can transform it and give it a different meaning.” As a mute impression of a physical reality, a cast, he suggests, is both familiar and alien. “Although they are almost perfect reflections of ourselves, sometimes you have to look closely to see the original model in the cast. Because character is gestures, words, movement.” The artist’s latest collection is NIEwinne (NOTguilty/Innocent), which addresses the emancipation of women and the illusion of empowerment. “Women have to take to the streets again and fight for their rights, because some ‘wise’ men have decided that they know better,” he asserts.
Lasak, who has long been a professor at his alma mater, lives and works in an austere, functionalist compound approximately nine miles from the center of Wrocław. The property comprises a single-story, three-bedroom residence designed by Archicom Studio, and a separate ceramics studio conceived by Lasak himself. The studio is like a small factory, and the living space expresses an appreciation for spareness. Together, they seem a telling reflection of a man for whom work is truly paramount. “There is something strange about art,” Lasak muses. “We are able to sacrifice everything for it – our lives, loved ones, friends – just to be in the studio and create. We are convinced that what we are doing is right.”
Photography by Hanna Dlugosz/Alicja T.
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