RAFAŁ BOETTNER-ŁUBOWSKI
Rafał Boettner-Łubowski is a sculptor and visual artist, an art critic and theoretician, doctor of
fine arts. In 1994-2000 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań at the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts and the Department of Art Education. He graduated with honors in the Studio of Sculpture of Professor Józef Petruk. He obtained a Ph.D at the Faculty
of Sculpture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. He creates installations, sculptural works and objects, all maintained in the style of a classical statue. Artistic tradition - antique, modern and the nineteenth century , in its widest understanding, is very often the source of the artist's
inspiration. He tries to correspond and polemicize with it. Rafał Boettner-Łubowski is the author of over hundred texts on art criticism and promotion. As an art theoretician, he devotes to reflection on the aesthetics and history of sculpture. His artistic delibarations were published on the pages of Kwartalnik Rzeźby. Orońsko, (Quarterly of Sculpture. Orońsko). Apart from that, he puts emphasis on the issues of quotation and the practice of creative and artistic imitation in art. Rafał Boettner-Łubowski is the winner of several art scholarships, among others Chapter of the City of Poznań Scholarship for Young Artists (1999), Scholarship of the Ministry of Culture, (2005). His works were exhibited in 20 individual and 40 group exhibitions. He is currently working as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Art Education, University of Arts in Poznań. He is a member of Sculptors Association and the Association of Polish Artists.
Anamnesis?
The notion of quotation becomes one of the most essential elements of the poetics of Rafał Boettner-Łubowski's art. His use of quotation is like moving freely through the maze of characters, to finally emerge into the illuminated road of strong articulations of own ideas. Rafał Boettner-Łubowski chooses the quoted elements of the various art periods and creates new fields of pulsation between the tradition and modernity. Quoted image or sculpture contrasted against contemporary elements broadens the field of our perception. It creates doubled presence of the same requisite but presented in many various ways. And that is why, the artist can open up to new territories of form configurations taken from the history and confronts them with the objects of mass culture. Such confrontation gives the author a new strength of reinterpretation of the quoted signs. It protects him from unambiguity of associations and creates new character of their existence. Multi-aspect confrontations of elements set new boundaries, but this time with a certain openness and tolerance. The artist closes one door to open another, to reach for new arsenal of means of expression.
prof. Ireneusz Domagała
