Irmina Rusicka, Kasper Lecnim

The day after tomorrow it will be all over

Some people say that a better tomorrow was yesterday, others say that tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow evokes the near future, while the day after it – a future more distant. In the present circumstances, it’s hard to look at our prospects with utmost optimism. The future might be just a promise of jam tomorrow. And tomorrow sounds like sorrow, which may suggest that all our plans will come to nothing. In anticipation of how the situation develops, one needs to be braced with patience.

Kasper Lecnim and Irmina Rusicka’s exhibition presents two strategies of anticipation: expecting something or waiting things out. The former entails the agency of the waiting persons, who can indulge visions of a future that is actively shaped by themselves. The latter is a strategy of mimicry towards time and history – specific to those who were given a less significant role in the privilege lottery.

One of the reference points for the exhibition is the figure of a Polish surrealist Marian Bogusz. The exhibits play with spatialised motifs from his paintings: The Joy of New Constructions from 1948 and Honegger’s Symphonie Liturgique from 1955. They serve as a framework for a story about planning the future against all odds, in adverse conditions. Alongside the surrealist idea of object revolution and weak resistance, inconspicuous yet significant gestures come into view. One hand is clenched in a fist, while the other offers the last cig in the pack.

The day after tomorrow it will be all over is an exhibition built of rubble and construction materials – including original concrete blocks from the late 1960s, cast iron, and brick dust. The forms and sculptures created from these materials reveal a ghastly property of the act of constructing – pillaging the ruins of history may be necessary to arrange life anew. “All over” does not equal the end of history or dismissal of the past – it means the conclusion of certain stages, which can be deemed symbolic only in perspective. After all, the first fish that walked on land and decided that it could have a life there had no idea that it would set in motion the most interesting race for a tomorrow in this part of the universe. How could it possibly know that it would lead to the invention of sewage systems, democracy, and art galleries?

Aleksy Wójtowicz

Irmina Rusicka (b. 1990), Kasper Lecnim (b. 1990) – they work together as well as individually. This time together.

The exhibition is part of the Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2022.