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Tomek Baran. Tiruriru 2026-03-10
Tomek Baran. Tiruriru
Opening: Friday, 13 March, 7.00 pm
Exhibition: 14–26 April
Curator: Ania Batko
Galeria Szara Kamienica
After art for the people created by the people, after the demagogy of art that flatters the masses, perhaps it is time for art created by an individual for themselves alone: ungrateful art, often misunderstood, abrasive even, yet perfectly legible to the only audience truly worth the trouble — the artist. Others, should they wish, may join.
(Roland Topor, Manifesto of the Self-School)
The artist, the writer, the painter — or, as in Bresson, the pickpocket. A rebel, a neurasthenic, a feverish wanderer. Perhaps lost, perhaps searching for inspiration, drowning his sorrows here and there. Drifting aimlessly through the city. Afflicted by insomnia and the ache of existence. Watching passers-by and the shadows retreating behind grimy curtains; studying shop windows; collecting rubbish with the same curiosity as fleeting impressions.
We know this scenario well. We have seen or read these stories before — of flâneurs roaming the city, cigarette in hand, casting sideways glances. Films in which absolutely nothing happens, and yet the air seems to grow thick enough to cut with an axe.
In this exhibition, Tomek Baran presents his latest paintings — works that resemble juxtaposed photographs and snapshots, fragments and torn pieces of reality, along with its unreflectively reproduced copies. The subscription magazine Great Painters from the early 2000s. A glowing dog collar. The label from a cheap bottle of wine bought at a popular supermarket chain, featuring a drawing of a naked fellow, a sun and a horse. A shard of a broken jug that resembles a miniature dildo for dolls. The words “la soupe aux choux” scribbled on a Parisian wall, recalling a film about an alien for whom two elderly men cook his favourite cabbage soup. A rusted saucer found in a picturesque Greek village which, once hung on the wall, becomes — through illusion — a moon. A medieval drawing of two horses grappling, glimpsed once on social media.
Perhaps also, as Roland Topor once wrote, drawings traced on steamed-up windows, arabesques urinated into the snow, signs in soap foam upon the skin, peelings from fruit and vegetables, a stained tablecloth, doodles in a notebook, letters, forms and summons. Paint flaking off a wall in large sheets, installations beneath a rubbish shelter. All this “nothing” that gradually sprouts feathers — acquiring meanings, interpretations, and likes.
Tiruriru may mean everything, or nothing at all. It is an onomatopoeia encoding nonsense and absurdity — something deliberately unserious, playful and light-hearted, yet surprisingly refreshing. As though someone had let the air out of a swollen balloon; or, perhaps, opened the window of a room long kept shut.
In times of social and political crisis, painting — especially painting that speaks about itself and its own helplessness — may appear frivolous, easily reduced to abstract decoration above the sofa. And yet, quietly and almost imperceptibly, it exposes the emptiness of ideological manifestos.
In 8½ by Federico Fellini, there is a scene in which Guido — essentially the director’s alter ego — says:
“I wanted to make a simple, honest film, without complications, a film that would allow us to bury the dead things we carry within us. But the truth is I lack the courage to bury anything. My mind is in complete confusion. I have nothing to say — and yet I still want to speak.” And that is precisely one of those moments when one feels like whistling: tiruriru.