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Zbigniew Frączkiewicz, „My z XX wieku”, 1999, inauguracja 2001, stal, żeliwo, Berlin, Albert-Einstein-Oberschule, photo Andrzej Pieńkos, 2007
Licencja: CC BY-SA 4.0, Źródło: Instytut Polonika, Warunki licencji
Fotografia przedstawiająca Sculpture \"We of the 20th Century\" by Zbigniew Frączkiewicz in Berlin
Zbigniew Frączkiewicz, „My z XX wieku”, 1999, inauguracja 2001, stal, żeliwo, Berlin, Albert-Einstein-Oberschule, photo Andrzej Pieńkos, 2007
Licencja: CC BY-SA 4.0, Źródło: Instytut Polonika, Warunki licencji
Fotografia przedstawiająca Sculpture \"We of the 20th Century\" by Zbigniew Frączkiewicz in Berlin
Zbigniew Frączkiewicz, „My z XX wieku”, 1999, inauguracja 2001, stal, żeliwo, Berlin, Albert-Einstein-Oberschule, photo Andrzej Pieńkos, 2007
Licencja: CC BY-SA 4.0, Źródło: Instytut Polonika, Warunki licencji
Fotografia przedstawiająca Sculpture \"We of the 20th Century\" by Zbigniew Frączkiewicz in Berlin
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ID: POL-001339-P

Sculpture "We of the 20th Century" by Zbigniew Frączkiewicz in Berlin

ID: POL-001339-P

Sculpture "We of the 20th Century" by Zbigniew Frączkiewicz in Berlin

Variants of the name:
„Wir vom XX. Jahrhundert”

The Albert Einstein High School in the district of Neukölln is distinguished by several spectacular productions of international contemporary art, which, when commissioned or purchased, the school authorities have tried to differentiate so that different trends are present within the institution. In front of the building is a row of columns by Karol Broniatowski, while in the inner courtyard are several works by German artists and a group by Frączkiewicz.

This sculpture was unveiled on 9 May 2001, but was created in 1999 for the town of Greiz in Thuringia. The artist has worked in Germany many times. Three sculptures from his 'Iron Men' series, which he started in 1984, are in Hattingen, while one is in Mainz. Among other things, he also took part in an international sculpture symposium in Durbach, Baden, and has had numerous solo exhibitions at German and Austrian art institutions.

The concept of multiplication was used by the artist in his early works when he created the controversial monument to the victims of the Chocianów camp in 1973. The side-by-side figures of the "Iron Men" also worked expressively through their multiplication, placed at the beginning of the 1990s in the landscape of the Jizera Mountains. The multiplication of a single matrix, which "gave birth" to successive figure-cyborgs, was Frączkiewicz's basic creative method for years, finding its ultimate fulfilment in the Berlin group, also thanks to the symbolically unambiguous title, which emphasises, among other things, the groundbreaking date of the work's creation. 'Iron men' are 'products of industrial technology, extremely renaturalised - even though they take the shape of humans. They are human multiples, multiplied golems. Immobilised on tin platforms, multiplied by the artist's decision. Products. (...) Frączkiewicz's iron sculptures, displayed outside, exposed to rain and wind, rust. And this rust, with all the monumentality of the figures and the almost overwhelming impression (...) makes them closer to us, more human. Frączkiewicz's corroding sculptures are a parabola of reality - our material civilisation, our Iron Era" (K. Stanisławski, "Ludzie Żelaznej Epoki", in: "Zbigniew Frączkiewicz", catalogue of an exhibition at the BWA in Wałbrzych in 1995, Wrocław, n.d., pp. 62-63). The composition 'We of the Twentieth Century' differs from the individual figures of the series, merely placed next to each other, in that the figures are joined together by a heavy iron plate binding them oppressively.

Related persons:
Time of origin:
1999, inauguration 2001
Creator:
Zbigniew Frączkiewicz(preview)
Bibliography:
  • „Zbigniew Frączkiewicz”, katalog wystawy w BWA w Wałbrzychu w 1995 r., Wrocław b.d, s. 62-65.
Keywords:
Author:
prof. Andrzej Pieńkos
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