Artist: Piotr Łakomy
Exhibition title: Poczekalnia / Waiting Room (2018)
Venue: Stereo, Warsaw, Poland
Date: January 27 – February 10, 2024
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Stereo
Waiting Room (2018) by Piotr Bury Łakomy consists of two tram seats placed in a row and an aluminum door hung on the wall above, integrated with the frame of the carriage handrails. Each element is covered with aluminum sheets of a see-through honeycomb structure. In result, the installation brings to mind an object in process, in motion, fragmentary like only partially recreated recollection. Layers of paint overlap each other, hiding/disclosing previous colors.
This is a unique work in the artist’s oeuvre, who, although he often shapes his works on his own body and deals with issues of transience and memory, this time refers quite directly to his own biography – childhood tram rides through his hometown.
An incomplete figure sits on one of the seats: „Is that me and I can’t recall who I was back then?” – asks Łakomy.
The work is presented in the gallery lobby to emphasize the transient nature of the moment to which it refers to – whether it is a waiting room, a carriage, or a hallway – we are only there for a while, provisionally.
The title and layout of the installation’s elements evoke threads of post-war Polish art, apart from referring to Andrzej Wróblewski’s “Chairing” series, the artist himself points to the works of Magdalena Abakanowicz and the less visible but significant influence of Władysław Hasior, whose extensive collection is located in the Municipal Art Center in Łakomy’s hometown of Gorzów Wielkopolski.
