Barbara Falender Unity

BARBARA FALENDER UNITY 
Falender's first solo exhibition in Poznań in almost 40 years....

Molski Gallery is pleased to present four sculptures by Barbara Falender that signal different themes in her work, which has been developing since the early 1970s. Each of these works will be exhibited in a separate space, providing viewers with the opportunity to contemplate the meanings and surfaces of these extraordinary realisations, which are an important part of the history of modern sculpture in Poland.

The central and eponymous object of the exhibition is the 1994 marble sculpture Jednia, which concentrates the theme of motherhood, which the sculptor continually explores in marbles that are on the border between abstraction and figuration. Unity belongs to a group of works that materialise in marble the act of birth and the primordial union of mother and child's body. They are sculptures and at the same time psychoanalytical and existential treatises in stone, linked to Falender's experience of motherhood. For the first time, Unity will be seen in relation to the artist's preparatory drawing studies and historical photographs showing her work on the sculpture.

Beside motherhood, metaphysical abstractions are a second theme. Falender is a sculptor who is attached to figurative art with classical connotations complemented by modern fragmentary and organic forms. Meanwhile, the exhibition will accentuate a side thread of her work, namely geometric metaphysical sculpture dedicated to loved ones and reflecting on time, destiny and transience. This is the case with the marble Hourglass (2005) and the basalt Fatum (1995), mourning sculptures that transport viewers from birth to death.

Falender is a master of sensual and idealistic sculpture in the most difficult and precious material - marble. Her works are striking for their quality of execution, depth and authenticity of emotion, and independence of exploration. The sculptor creates in materials such as bronze, granite, basalt, epoxy and porcelain, which she often combines. This materially and spatially experimental and surreal character of her art is reflected in Egg of Hope (2004) made of basalt, steel and ostrich eggs; specially rediscovered for the Poznań exhibition.

The artist's always separate creative path allows us to follow the development and craftsmanship of her individual sculptural language, as well as bearing witness to important phenomena characteristic of the history of contemporary sculpture.

Curator of the exhibition: Paweł Leszkowicz

Opening: 06.06.2025 at 6 p.m.
Exhibition: 07.06. - 30.08.2025