[The smell of…] a rose, dust lingering in the air; freshly cut grass; ozone after the storm; pine; skin; me; a charity shop sweater; magnesia; zippo gasoline; scrambled eggs with fried bacon; dandelion; a minging bus stop reeking of piss; musk; a flat; salmon; coffee, either white or black; wild grapevine; fear; attic; burnt milk; cottage cheese; rubbing alcohol streaming down a fresh wound down; soy sauce; sea breeze; forest floor; polystyrene; burnt hair; old library book; a vitamin tablet fizzing in a glass; wild garlic; morning dew; cigarettes; Wunder-Baum [air freshener]; pineapple; sea buckthorn; leek; hotel room; cognac; warm bread; dill, anise...

Is this the end or the beginning? Undetected, the tale of time is penetrating the air. It is subtle, omnipresent. It contains everything: why did bananas fall out of a lady’s bag on the street? Why do horses die transporting lazy people? Do planets with other colors exist? How does disintegration of microtubules occur? ... Everything. From this tale one can learn a thread-story: the history of our present.

In The Smell of the Beginning, the Smell of the End Ida Karkoszka, Jan Eustachy Wolski, Kamil Pierwszy, and Øleg&Kaśka employ scent not for us to sense it, but in order to stimulate our imagination. In day-to-day life, we often ignore what we can smell and often only notice it when the scent is unpleasant or disturbing or when we can identify its cause: for example, a whiff of something burning or the odor of a dying animal. The artists attempt to bring our attention to these invisible elements that reveal the complexity of the world and its fragile balance.

 

Galeria Serce Człowieka

 

Operating since 2017, the gallery is a hybrid grassroots initiative that aims to provide a bridge between art and life. Life? Does this mean that the art gallery world is dead? The originator of this initiative, Kamil Pierwszy, believes that yes – to a large extent it is indeed dead and the reason for this is bureaucracy and the nonsensical distribution of goods. Artworks locked away within gallery walls and artists creating various projects are no different from commercial and corporate mechanisms. The more art is tied to money, the more standardized it becomes, and yet the initial encounter with art should be about something quite simple: a simple pleasure or food for thought, a mediated encounter with other human and nonhuman beings. Human Heart Gallery supports itself (or rather, is supported by artists and art enthusiasts), and simply exists.

Ida Karkoszka

 

(b. 1985) – artist, studies at the Faculty of Sculpture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Defence of the M.A. thesis in 2009 under the guidance of prof. Antoni Janusz Pastwa, the tile of the M.A. thesis: “FROM THE DEPTH…”, a medallic annex with prof. Hanna Jelonek under the title: “Signum temporis” (cycle of medals cast in bronze and cast iron). The central theme of the diploma thesis and the annex was the image of a horse. Works in the British Museum (2010), on Stare Powązki Cemetery (2012), in private collections in Poland and abroad (Canada, Holland, Japan, Great Britain, Germany and Finland).

 

Oleg&Kaśka

 

(b. 2018) – artist born in the summer of 2018. Was made by absorbing two independent organisms which led to the birth of a super organism. Unfortunately, the body, due to the surrounding, fluid reality was not able to adapt to the prevailing conditions, so it decided to become a brand, a brand that sells its own idea of identity.

 

Kamil Pierwszy

 

(b. 1987) – artist. Pierwszy studied Cultural Anthropology in Wrocław. In 2013, he set up an independent publishing house Zwykła Maps. Since 2017, he has been running Serce Człowieka (LAW) gallery. He initiated the Warsaw Preview festival. He focuses his attention on life. His practice is rooted in photography, which as a medium is an expression of vitality’s chaos, manifested in human destruction and the need to create; the complexity of nature and non-human organisms. The artist is fascinated by the world’s complexity and he aims to find his owns means of expression for the images and feelings present in his mind. 

 

Jan Eustachy Wolski

(b. 1997) – painter, he also creates objects and installations. Currently, he is studying at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow in the painting studio of Prof. Andrzej Bednarczyk and the interdisciplinary studio of Prof. Zbigniew Sałaj and Prof. Grzegorz Sztwiertnia. He studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.