Excellent!

This story combines intertwined animal-human and domestic-cosmic themes. Objects, sculptures, installations, drawings – big things are juxtaposed with small ones. I have arranged the whole linearly, like a film. A multi-genre film that is a mixture of camp, science fiction, thriller, road cinema, and poetic images in the spirit of Andrei Tarkovsky – things that have shaped my sensibility. In showing you this exhibition, I am sharing a feeling rather than a concrete message. Because I’m unable to concretize anything. I don’t have an opinion. There is too much to give an opinion on right now – in general, there is too much of everything.

But, as my friend Francis says, everything is Excellent!

Welcome to the trip!

Scene One: Exit

When I began envisioning this trip through the Oppenheims’ former residence, the first image that came to my mind was a cage. A cage as I remember it from childhood, from the Wrocław zoo: three meters high, perhaps twelve square meters in size, with a tree branch in the middle and a wooden shelf where a black panther lay. Beautiful, yet utterly meaningless… in that place. A one-room abode of the black panther.

Years later, with the help of many people, we’ve created a similar cage – maybe a bit smaller. It now occupies the first room of the residence. We built it only so that it could be opened, emptied, abandoned. Whatever it once contained, it can now go its own way, free to escape this cramped space.

Only the smell and the sense of presence linger.

Scene Two: Morning

The second room is our exit into the light of morning – because, as the old saying goes, “The morning is wiser than the evening.” The morning brings new strategies and imaginings, encouraging us to take fresh paths and illuminating what was previously hidden in shadow. Here, we feel the joy of newly regained freedom.

Our morning is further lit by a golden chandelier, its form tracing the flight path of a housefly. Watching its acrobatics, I can almost sense its playful spirit. It charts geometric patterns with uncanny precision, making sharp right turns before veering into chaotic flourishes –completely uninhibited. A true flightmistress.

Scene Three: Crossroads

Now we enter a gently darkened room. We see light escaping through the keyhole of a non-existent door, its handle intangible. Perhaps it’s an illusion – or maybe the beginning of a new circumstance, a perspective, a path less traveled…

Scene Four: The Ship’s Cabin

To the left is another room, its entrance blocked by a couch. We must squeeze through to get inside. It contains a possible image of what once inhabited the cage. In my imagination, if I were to give it shape, it would be a lion. Another saying comes to mind: “To rage like a lion in a cage.”

The lion is lying on the couch, licking a frog. This image evokes fairy tales where a prince kisses a frog, metaphorically initiating an acceptance of nature’s laws and an understanding of its guiding forces. This releases the full majesty of the protagonist’s potential, turning the toad into a royal child. The spell of illusion breaks.

This room, with its couch, is essentially the cabin of a ship. It represents the state of being “in one’s own way” – whatever that might mean.

Scene Five: What the Lion Sees

The last room, called the “aquarium,” features an image sent to Earth by Parker’s probe during its journey to the Sun. The probe’s mission still continues, though it will soon end in fire, as its orbit tightens, having passed around the Sun more than twenty times.

I was deeply moved watching YouTube broadcasts of its journey, from a distance of around 160 million kilometers. There it is, traveling at 700,000 kilometers per hour, swept by the solar wind – a plasma of protons, electrons, and alpha particles. Flashes of the Milky Way and “smears” – waves? particles? – appear in front of the lens. I don’t know. Watching it, I felt its loneliness, its severed ties, its determination, and its beauty.

Does the lion feel the same?

Olaf Brzeski

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Ansambl: Łukasz Adamski, Monika Opieka, Daria Pietryka and Francis Thorburn with special participation of Katarzyna Roj
Promotion: Maria Majchrowska
Visual identification: Jurek Mossakowski
Production: Łukasz Bałaciński, Marcin Pecyna
Translation: Karol Waniek, Volkmar Umlauft
Special thanks: Adrianna Duchnicka
Collaboration: Karolina Jara, Weronika Kałuża, Iga Mikuśkiewicz, Valentina Schaiko, Ivan Shpak, Viktoriia Tofan, Agnieszka Wróblewska

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Organizer: OP ENHEIM | VOP
Honorary Patron: WOMAK
Patron: Nedcon Silesia, CHORS
Partners: Raster, KEIM, OPEN-Reklama Oksana Solnik-Krzyżanowska
Media Patrons: Radio Nowy Świat, SZUM Magazine, Mint Magazine, Niezła Sztuka, NN6T, Pismo Artystyczne Format

The project Olaf Brzeski | Excellent! and a series of intermedia activities was financed by the European Union NextGenerationEU and with funds from the Municipality of Wroclaw.