SCULPTOR
“Human, an angel and a demon, or, on other words, you...” – a handful of reflections on the works of Mariusz Otta
by Marta Wróblewska
Entering the works of Mariusz Otta we enter another dimension – strange, hallucinogenic, surrealistic, a dimension of Another Place, which according to Lacan’s theory, is a space of subconscious fantasies and an attempt of self-identification. Another Place observes the rules of night dreams, unconscious gestures, automatic activities. It is a zone of disclosing the desires dormant in man, his fears and longings. At the same time it seems to us that we know the works of art that we see very well. They so strongly stem out of the tradition of the history of art which is already encoded in the consciousness of both the viewer and the artist.
Looking at the works of Mariusz Otta one can see that he actually operates with a fairly limited spectrum of iconographic motifs. Actually quite forcefully, there appear wired heads, piling, blasting with a look of multiplied eyes, faces torn with a mute shout, or glancing secretly, quietly and portentously. On the other hand, the artist quite obsessively comes back to a nude, presenting torsos, or studies of limbs, convulsively twisted, unnaturally bent, spastically deformed in pain or ecstasy. These portraits and nudes surely have their roots in antiquity. There is no doubt that the artist is very much aware of and sensitive to antique traditions as a sculptor and an artist. What is interesting, his works, remaining extremely sculpture like, almost three dimensional, constitute an inseparable whole with his works in stone. Mannerist nudes sometimes are similar to a Hellenistic silhouette of the Laocoön group twisted into a letter “s”, to the same degree realistic and extremely expressive. The slithering serpentinata figure of a sacrilegious priest instinctively struggles for life in a tragic situation of no escape or help, as if it wanted to liberate from its own human shape. Following a bit further in memory the rooms of the Vatican Museums, we encounter the famous Belvedere Torso – with no hands or legs, without a head, but still with the torso sculpted so perfectly that it was an inspiration and an example to follow for many great artists, with Michael Angelo as well. Anyway, it seems that Otta has studied the lesson of Florence Renaissance and Mannerism thoroughly. As in his drawing and sculptures there concentrates the perfection of the sculptures of Donatello, with the dynamism of Giambologni and profusion and fantasy of Michael Angelo.
The question that undoubtedly must be asked in the context of the art of Mariusz Otta refers to the identity of the people being portrayed. Do we have to do here with a portrait, an self-portrait, or with a surrealistic phantasm? Is it all the time the same model presented in a distorted mirror, or a selection of nightmares or dreams. As those portraits or self-portraits do not easily inscribe into the traditional ways of understanding the history of art. Surely, they are not a proud self-presentation of the author as a witness of certain scenes or events. (comp. Jan van Eyck in the picture “The Arnolfini Portrait” or Velázquez in “Las Meninas”). Neither are they a register of the life of the artist sensu stricte, as it was the case with Rembrandt. Maybe, because Otta does not really make a portrait but creates “a study of a face”, which is not the same, as notices Hans Belting. Following further the thought of Belting, one should also quote the Deleuze’s distinction he refers to between “face” (as a system of signs) and “head” (as a part connected with physical body). It seems that Otta, like Francis Bacon described by Belting “wakes a new body life in a face. When the face shouts, the entire body shouts”. On the other hand, if one carefully considers this observation, one comes to a conclusion that in Otta’s works body and head can equally strongly exist together and separately, as the artist seems to treat them as autonomous wholes. One has an impression that without a head expresses the emotion that would normally be seen on the face. Extreme tensions, being torn apart, the dynamics of the presented body tell us everything about the condition of the pictured man, even if his face was skipped. And vice versa. Looking at the faces shown, it seems that we can see the entire man, as their power anticipates the entire figure and its shape. Additionally, in Otta’s art the body belongs more to culture than nature, shaped rather by the use of patterns and examples taken from the long tradition of history of art and civilization than following primitive instincts. The body that reflects a certain vision or philosophy of the world, in which there is the creator/model/viewer. Hence its idealisation, increased by the expression of the message, hence its role not any more as an ordinary reflection of the reality as it is, but a reflection of certain notions, ideas behind the picture. “The body can lead to awareness before it becomes its subject”. It can be a symbol of liberation from the burdening traditions, of getting rid of the limitations imposed by culture and mores. It can also be a representation of this straightjacket in which man in imprisoned. In Otta’s works we have to do, on the one hand, with a cult of this idealized, divine body, and on the other hand, we are confronted with its imperfections, being torn apart, with its cracks, which actually are not physical but emotional, which lets us think that body remains only a metaphor of psychic states, of abstract notions, a picture of what one cannot see.
The eye and the look connected with it undoubtedly is an interesting and central motif in the art of Mariusz Otta. Both in the history of art and psychology the issues connected with sight and the way of looking have always been a subject of through analyses. As PoprzÄ™cka says, an eye is a mirror of the soul, a window to the world. A look can be very powerful, also in the magical sense. A bad eye casts a bad spell. It seems, however, that this “malocchio” does not fully exist in Otta’s works. Eye is a centre of his universe, but it is not an anamorphic representation of the organ of sight, as in Leonardo, subject to experimental distortion and deep scientific analysis but rather a study of the mirror of the soul, a symbol of identification/self-reference. This eye “unsatisfied, being blast by greed”, inquisitive, piercing; the eye of the artists who “sees more and better”. The look of the presented models-creatures, models- phantoms is not so much ominous but more terrified, dramatic, shout out of helplessness, cracking the picture, or, at times, totally unrealistic, wandering somewhere in the world of its own. The portrayed figure is Narcissus and Cyclops in one, a tragic figure torn between beauty and ugliness, love and hatred, calmness and aggression, the good and the evil. Coming back to Lacan and the study of a “mirror” that he defines, such portraits/self-portraits that are real or devised representations, constitute a way towards getting to know oneself, towards a definition of the hidden “self” in relations to the picture, physically or psychologically, of similar to this “self”. This omnipresent look rather draws our attention to the objects of our desires, drives, fantasies than looks directly at the viewer.
Just as eyes pile up in the representations of Mariusz Otta, the traditions from which the artist draws - overlap. In his famous book “The Story of Art”, writing about Rene Magritte and the surrealists, Ernst Gombrich noticed a drive for creating rather a new reality than for mimetic copying of the existing reality according to the rules of the centuries long tradition, emphasizing the imperative to create new fantastic pictures, often inspired by night dreams, but sill by the use of academic tools. This combination of the recognized achievements of tradition with experimental novelty is clearly marked in the works of Mariusz Otta. His art is both oculocentric, dominated by the the sense of sight, scopophilic , so it actually forced the viewer to look and looks inquisitively at him. On the one hand, the works of Otta attract with their objective beauty of the studies inspired by nature. On the other hand, they intrigue with deformation, puzzle with emotionality, provoke for a different looking – inside yourself, deep into the human nature, coming from the Renaissance well studied following of the reality towards the surrealistic sensitivity and making fantasies about the world and the position of man in the world.
Review of Otta art
by Rafał Radwański
The art of the Tri-City sculptor Mariusz Otta does not belong to an artistic proposal colloquially called easy and pleasant. The artistic activity of that graduate of Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts and a student of Professor Sławoj Ostrowski is far from tempting the viewer with a safe and harmonious vision of the world.
With his drawings and sculptures the young artist actually forces people to observe carefully, although such observation often does not relieve the feeling of discomfort. The disconcerting works of Mariusz Otta require being focused. They do not leave anyone indifferent, which in the deluge of “mediocre” and ad hoc art that often superficially copies the reality is already a great achievement. In this case the different look provokes to reflect on the complexity of human nature. It is all of us, “the crown of all creation” that in the art of Mariusz Otta are an object sometimes cruel, sometimes tender but also ironic vivisection. The words of the painter Feliks TuszyÅ„ski: "One form contains other forms of life. There is no beginning or end. We all seem to be a part of an entirety” seem to be the underlying principle also of the artistic choices of the Tri-City sculptor.
In the artist’s view deformation becomes a tool for taking off masks, a necessary stage in the difficult process of looking for authenticity under the layers of faces and grimaces imposed by social norms. The emotionality of the artistic rendering manifests itself through numerous transformations and multiplications. The atomization of figurative depictions emphasizes the mystery man remains for himself and for other people. A sort of document of experiences, an artistic diary confirming the integrity and separation of the experience of this artist is a tangible effect. The talent of Mariusz Otta can be seen in his ability to give his very special visions, brining through their pessimistic diagnosis of the society, associations with the painting of James Ensor, universal features. In such an approach, no matter at what time it functions, the human being remains the same with all his vices and virtues, hopes and fears, needs and emotions.
Otta deliberately avoids direct references to the surrounding reality, focusing on consistent building of an original artistic world. It happens even when in his latest sculpting creation the artist tries to cope with the “fashionable” theme of invigilation. Like is his previous works, also here one can see a strong need to divert from the classically understood harmony and unity of form. In the artistic creation of this artist, questioning the academic assumptions does not, however, change into a blind search for novelties.
The artist remains faithful to himself and his artistic temperament. He puts the world built with a pencil and a chisel over installations dazzling the viewers with “current messages”. In this case, the solid, traditional tools are used to create uncompromised visions, often served “without anaesthesia”. In this complex game of opposites, the relations of ugliness and beauty remain disconcerting and unpredictable. High and low; elevated and trivial, one cannot exist without the other. Mariusz Otta sees sacrum in w profanum, and makes a hole in the elevated to puncture the balloon of pomposity of “moral winners”.
The artist can also show the terrifying helplessness of man, his overwhelming loneliness in the world of thousands of eyes and ears. He is fascinated with the moment of clash of coincidence with order, confrontation of mathematical order with the growing chaos. The need to express his individual truth is more important than the dilemmas connected with the choice of the tools of artistic expression. A pencil, a ball-pen and clay have become means of expression of equal significance in the artistic work of Mariusz Otta.
Moving from sculpture to drawings that enable more direct recording of emotions is a consequence of such an attitude. These achievements should be treated in terms of autonomic artistic expression in which “sculpting roots” are of secondary significance. These formal associations, probably often automatic and unconscious, are more of a virtue than a fault. It would be thus a misunderstanding to call Mariusz Otta a “drawing sculptor”. He has significant achievements in both fields. This graduate of GdaÅ„sk Academy of Fine Arts skilfully puts together brave formal search in figurative and portrait sculpture and respect for tradition. The artist’s diploma at the Faculty of Sculpture in 2010 was already a significant example of combining those two tendencies. His interest in a synthetic portrait gave rise to a work that is an original reference to the Chinese terracotta army. Since that time the artist has also developed an artistic language of his own, finding an original and autonomic formula of artistic expression. He showed a lot of invention using elements of a divided into bits and pieces portrait, which is always surprising and provokes different interpretation. What is important here is the primacy of inner truth over physical resemblance, consistent avoidance of literality of artistic message. The abstraction of anatomic multiplications gives the sculptures of Mariusz Otta the character of metaphoric tales. The artist does not avoid a subtle synthesis, of which “Swimmer”, with no excessive narrative is the best example.
Faithfulness to the traditional media accompanied by formal courage indicates integrity of artistic attitude. The words of Hermann Hesse: "Most people live so unrealistically because they consider external pictures to be the reality, and they do not give voice to their own world” very truthfully render the artistic effort connected with looking for a way of one’s own. Mariusz Otta has already passed that stage. It is worth listening to him.