Stefan Ficner

A Letter to Zenek object, 2020

Untitled intervention, 2020

We come and we go
Very lightly, on our toes
We brush and we wipe
Our shoes, our faces
So we leave no trace
So no trace is left...*

The list of absences is much longer: Marek Kijewski, Tomek Psuja, Leszek Knaflewski, Wojtek Kujawski... they all left, Zenek is one of them. The mind echoes with the likes of: exegi monumentum or non omnis moriar...

Our remains are scraps of memories, forgotten objects or anecdotes, recalled from time to time, and humorous situations.

Scene I

Some place in the woods, in Magda and Zenek's house. I went there twice. A post-German brick house with WWII writings on the walls. I and Zenek are standing, stripped to the waist, changing the course of the stream running next to the building. I don't know why, perhaps in order to wake butterflies in the Amazon jungle.

It's hot, beer bottles are cooling in the stream.

Scene II

Late 1990s. A corridor of the Institute in Zielona Góra (probably Wiśniowa street) shot-through with sunlight, between the reception and the lithography studio. I'm talking to Zenek, who's standing in his characteristic posture: his left hand in his pocket, head gently tilted, smiling. He's listening,

but I know that he's waiting to express his opinion. I already know how the day will end.

Scene III

Poznań, Wielka19 Gallery, second half of the 1980s. A day before Zenek's solo exhibition opening. Never before had I seen him gesturing so much and speak about his works. Like a mill, a peculiar spectacle. Good exhibition.

Scene IV

Poznań, Ostroroga street. A new flat. For a week, I've been looking for Zenek's piece I received from him in the '90s. A small aluminium object (ca 20 x 10cm). I look through all the boxes for a hundredth time. I remember precisely how I packed the piece.

Zenek has de-materialised...

Scene V

One of the first New Art Biennale. Bustle, mess, unending grudges, as happens in such situations: every artist is the VIP. Zenek, in hiding, makes his piece at the Museum. In silence, he nails another board to a structure on the wall. Great composition. I come out onto a walkway, everyone's looking for Zenek.

Writing this text, I did not adhere to any chronology, I'm mixing times (past, present, future), since, similarly to Zenek, I do not always accept the reality in which I happen to be living. Ang I'm always hoping that we'll meet with Zenek at the “U sąsiada”. 

— Stefan Ficner

^{* The Piwnica pod Baranami (literary cabaret) anthem, lyrics: Janusz Jęczmyk, music: Zygmunt Konieczny}