KRUPA warmly invites you to celebrate the launch of Radek Brousil’s catalogue for the solo exhibition What You See Is Not Here Tomorrow. 

Join us for this special occasion on 25 April, from 6–8 PM, at our Wrocław gallery. 

KSIĘCIA WITOLDA 48/70 8th FLOOR 
50-203, WROCŁAW, PL 

We are pleased to share that Radek Brousil will join us for the event; a guided tour of the exhibition with the artist will take place. Copies of the exhibition catalogue will be available at the venue. 

Aeon, the longest geochronological unit, opens a reflection on the planet’s past and future, mythology and geology, technology and organicity. The show is a speculation about the time before and after humans – a story about transformation, alienation and erosion of forms.

The artists explore the strangeness and horror of ecological crises viewed through two temporal axes—the past and the future—urging a shift in the way we conceive interspecies relations.

Baśniks’ works overlap on a semantic level, exploring the exploitation of nature and anthropocentric religious constructions. They juxtapose transhumanist fantasies of immortality (as well as their mythological and religious roots) with mineral structures shaping the earth billions of years ago. The dialogue of Justyna and Paweł’s works is shrouded in a sacred aura, where the geological axis intertwines with the mythological one, and structures resembling prehistoric drawings blur their boundaries and meanings.

While the first duo operates on a geological timeline stretching infinitely back before the age of man, Inside Job looks forward, exploring the limits of futuristic materials. Their works combine organic and technological processes, speculating on the forms that may emerge in a post-natural world – hybrid objects, balancing between construction and disintegration, the synthetic and the biological, precision and randomness. However, their seemingly dystopian visions conceal a story of survival and fragile hope. The ruins of the Anthropocene become unknown territory where a new, post-human life unfolds.

The exhibition spread across two locations, as a symbolic portal simultaneously separates and connects two spaces – KRUPA gallery in Wrocław, Poland and its newly opened venue in London – marking both the conclusion of one chapter and the beginning of another,  for Radek Brousil as well as for the gallery. In his latest series of works, Radek Brousil, returns to painting while simultaneously remaining faithful to his photographic past. By referring to chronopolitics (the politics of time) and selecting images from his own archives, the artist reflects on photography itself and the connection between conceptualism and the image, between the conscious and unconscious mind.

In this series, there are 25 large paintings (12 works in London, 13 in Wrocław)—one more than the usual 24 hours on a clock (in contrast to the 12-hour US time format)—which form a complete whole. Each element of the black oil paintings on jute is a carefully chosen reference to politics or personal and collective memory. These works also question the memory of the material and medium of photography. The artist creates a unique connection between oil underpainting and image transfers, including details of clock hands sourced mainly from the facades of churches. Each painting features a photographic transfer in a different position, freely referring to the rhythm of counterclockwise movement. Dark, empty, and raw, surfaces allude to the theory of black holes—a symbolic beginning and, at the same time, infinity—as well as the idea of invisibility. Some photographic transfers are more precise, revealing structures or specific clockwork elements, while others take on a more abstract and organic direction. In the London exhibition, the series is also accompanied by works in a detailed format with global underpainting and photo transfers where the entire surface of smaller canvases becomes a dialogue between the painting and photographic layers, leaving no empty space.

Made from old furniture, the site specific installation in Wroclaw and sculptures made from table legs in London create a bridge between these two exhibitions. In a world where manual and craft-based labor performed by humans is increasingly undervalued by society, and intellectual work is worshiped, free time and time spent at work are becoming ever more controlled—whether by ourselves or by large corporations. Productivity, efficiency, and the cult of intellectual labor, driven by the pursuit of higher social status, take precedence. Priceless, timeworn tabletops from historic and socialist-era (PRL) tables, bearing traces of work tools, provide an essential backdrop for a critical reflection on contemporary capitalist time constructs. The legs of one of the oldest objects served the artist as semi-organic forms functioning as stands for church candles. The candle clock, an ancient invention, was one of the early attempts made by man at measuring time. Transformed into a more precise tool, it was embedded with heavy nails, marking time like a timer. As the candle burned down to a set point, the falling nail would signal the end of a specific interval.

While working on the project, Radek took part in several residencies, including Residency Unlimited and ISCP in New York. It was there that he developed some elements of his new works – including detailed photo shoots of damaged, often bizarre or completely non-functioning clocks. Those that Brousil particularly observed were mainly in public spaces – on the clock towers of churches, synagogues, city halls and other symbols of political power. The photographs of clocks later became a starting point for his work on canvas, tools to tell the story of our relationship with the rules of time. Once functional in the city for practical purposes, these clocks today serve more as vestiges of history and decorative elements of old architecture, often being restored anew. The stark contrast between the dizzying pace of life in New York and the almost monastic focus he experienced at the Egon Schiele Art Center in the Czech town of Krumlov had a profound impact on his creative process. As he himself puts it, in Krumlov, he worked like a monk – immersed in a meditative rhythm, gradually uncovering what he truly wanted to express in his paintings. It was there that the foundation was laid for the exhibition spread across two spaces. The featured works are more than just the outcomes of artistic experiments; their process, stages, and movement between different places have become integral to this narrative. Unfolding over time, these two exhibitions move toward ideas with both political, systemic and spiritual dimensions.

Referring to the deconstruction of time, Brousil’s photographic transfers—poetic archives of the subconscious—fuse with the conscious narrative of images that follow a counter clockwise direction. Through subtly employed symbols of fallen regimes, the project brings us closer to fleeting occurrences and reflections on the consequences of human behavior, such as hidden racism, escapism, or the pressure to conform to the universal cycles of life in a patriarchal society. Jute bags for preserving, ropes and clocks for measuring, and architectural elements for subconsciously tracking traces of human history and power.

                                                         
                                                                                                                                                                                            text: Natalia Barczyńska

***

Radek Brousil is a Czech artist based in Prague. He works with textiles, alongside ceramics, film, photography and video. His themes address social testimony, presenting an activist expression on an uncertain future. Brousil defines social, cultural and environmental problems using unexpected interpretations and terminology, and chooses rather to look at these issues on a symbolic, personal and emotional level.

The burden of affirmation unfolds as a layered narrative, where the boundaries between the living and the artificial are blurred. This story explores intimacy, corporeality, and the tension between organic materials and man-made constructs. Anna Maria Zuzela’s works delve into themes of resilience and fragility through tactile forms. The artist addresses the themes of the body with remarkable sensitivity in response to contemporary dilemmas and the oppression faced by bodies—especially those culturally alienated and stigmatized.

The layered lines simulate the sensation of skin, a surface that absorbs, resists, and transforms. Zuzela often combines performative approaches with her artistic process, using materials such as ceramics, metal, or textiles to push the boundaries between the organic and the industrial, the ephemeral and the enduring, the human and the non-human.

This interweaving of forms proposes attentiveness in traversing the terrain of desire, vulnerability, and transformation, and an alternative view of time in which past and present collapse into a single, shifting narrative. Through Zuzela’s paintings and sculptural installations, the artist seeks to explore themes of materiality and transformation, using both controlled craftsmanship and the unpredictable nature of manual techniques to create a dynamic, tactile installation that bridges the organic and the industrial. These works pose critical questions about the nature of intimacy and the ways in which bodies, objects, and images occupy space and memory.

On the closing day of “The Ark” group exhibition, Krupa London presents four sound, voice, and movement performances hosted by one of participating artists Natalia Januła. Engaging bodies, space, and sonic landscapes, the event extends the artist’s interest in organic transformation and interconnected systems.

Hollie Miller & Craig Scott will explore the interplay of bodily movement and sound, using fetal motion sensors to activate an evolving sonic environment. Karolina Łebek will present an experimental composition intertwining folk instrumentation with digital soundscapes. Aprigoat & David will create a semi-improvisational performance merging modular synthesis and sample manipulation into surreal sonic narratives. Agnieszka Szczotka will perform a spoken word piece bridging memory, language, and presence.

Join us for activation of “The Ark”, where shifting forms and resonant bodies bring the exhibition into live motion.

THE ARK – closing event & performance programme 

Agnieszka Szczotka

Hollie Miller & Craig Scott

Aprigoat and David

Karolina Łebek

hosted by Natalia Janula