Bianka Rolando, Mleko potrafi uciec /Milk Can Escape

Opening: Friday 22 March 2024, 6.00 – 9.00 PM

Exhibition runs from 22.03. – 11.05.2024

Curator Katarzyna Krysiak

Bianka Rolando took the title of her latest exhibition from the name of a famous act performed in the early twentieth-century by the famous illusionist and stunt performer Harry Houdini (Erik Weisz, 1874-1926), whose speciality escapes have gone down in history. When Rolando translated the title of his Milk Can Escape into Polish, she treated it with the distance and sense of humour so characteristic of her work and, in doing so, she brought out a wholly different potential of meaning. Mleko potrafi uciec plays with the word ‘can’ and singles out its meaning as ‘be able to’ (potrafić), rather than as a vessel for carrying milk, giving us ‘milk can escape’ in the sense of ‘milk has the ability to escape’. In twisting the original meaning of the title like the dial of a safe, one click clockwise, she not only sets the magician free, but also releases the cage from its function.

In the main, the paintings and drawings on show at the Foksal are new and Rolando uses her own poetic texts to interconnect them. This enables her to try and seek out ways of freeing or liberating images from forms which themselves possess a form not closed, but merely transitional. The works allude to the theme of departure, of seeking an opening, an unlocking of closed concepts and forms, and to the freedom of metaphor, which is confined only by our imaginations.

The exhibition also presents an occasion for the publication of a book offering a wide overview of Rolando’s work as a visual artist, writer and poet. It will contain essays by distinguished critics and experts in the fields of the visual arts and literature, namely, Professor Anita Jarzyna, PhD Marika Kuźmicz, Natalia Malek, Joanna Mueller, Professor Paweł Piszczatowski and Adam Wiedemann.

Bianka Rolando (b. 1979), artist, poet, tertiary teacher and professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Kalisz, is the author of a number of poetic books: Rozmówki włoskie (An Italian Phrase Book), Biała Książka (White Book), Modrzewiowe korony (Larch Crowns), Podpłomyki (Before the Flames), Łęgi (Riparian Forests), Pascha, Stelle, Ostańce (Inselbergs), Abrasz (Abrash), Mała książka o rysunku / A Small Book about the Drawing and Dobosz (Drummer). She exhibits in Poland and around the world and has a long-established connection with the Foksal Gallery in Warsaw.