Radek Czarkowski

halo, halo / deal, dial
mural, object, 2020

In 2007, Zenek produced a piece titled Wielkie mi to HALO [Not a Big DEAL] – a new alphabet – a piece on denying illusory values, on doubts, scepticism, excessive attention seeking, on washiness of attitudes. ...HALO [DEAL] was exhibited on numerous occasions in various configurations, until its deconstruction, despite the fact ...HALO [DEAL] remained Wielkim mi to HALO [Not a Big DEAL]: concealed, hidden, put out with echo, to be repeated, remembered, to caution.

The Doors, the 53rd minute of Oliver Stone's film: Andy Warhol at a next Factory Party addresses Jim Morrison attending the occasion, passing him a phone: “Somebody gave me this telephone. It was Edie, wasn't it? It was Edie and... she said that I could talk to God with it, but I don't have anything to say, here... this is for you, … now you can talk to God.”

Irrespective of its factuality, the scene has been engrained in my memory, not due to a pop cultural character of the meeting of two art-worlds' icons, but its 'atheist metaphysics', an attempt at 'perfecting' communication with God: realism and irrationalism in one. Part Romantic, part both feet on the ground.

Zenek was Romantic in reflection and both-feet-on-the-ground in action. The sacred and profane in one. An anarchist, as he liked to call himself, imagining himself on a bench in Kosobudki as a refined old man, drinking wine and looking towards the sunset: the kind of old age he told me about. Near Kassel, we searched for non-existent aqueducts, we caught trout in the Pliszka, only to effectively exchange three kilograms of fresh tench for a bottle of cheap wine. On the so-called 'tank driveway' (a back-road), we were caught and handcuffed by an anti-terrorist squad, and while playing snooker late into the night, we discussed … art. I am 54 and I have talked through most of those years with Zenek.

It is so simple to talk to God, but what for, when there's nothing to talk about? It is so simple to talk to loved ones, only how..., when there's no way?

I 'nailed together' the two elements: Zenek's Wielkie mi to HALO [Not a Big DEAL] and the movie scene, and came up with halo, halo [deal, dial] not God. But a friend.

Sucha, 07.08.2020