BREVI MANU. How not to turn everything into a book...

Andrzej M. Bartczak's oeuvre is situated between representation and abstraction, the impression and the concrete of matter, informel automatism and Dadaist experimentation; and between a creation of the new and the idea of creative metabolism, collecting, preserving and storing. On the thematic level, the artist’s outlook evokes landscape, poetry, literature, music, and the artistic achievements of the Artist’s masters and friends.
The title of the exhibition indicates two important aspects of this versatile and multi-threaded body of work. The main title phrase brevi manu can be translated as ‘right away’, ‘without formalities’, ‘without delay’, or ‘in short’. But essentially, brevi manu refers to the Artist's way of working, which is characterised by its freehand style, and its tactile and mediated touch, which can be understood either literally or metaphorically. In turn, the subtitle How not to turn everything into a book refers to the ten thousand works (and perhaps more) which Bartczak has created, comprising art books, book objects, scrolls, written paintings, and porcelains with texts or quotations: written, painted or carved by hand. Indeed, the auteur himself often describes himself as a “handwritten typographer”.
Most of the works are paper books of various dimensions, sometimes exceeding 50 × 70 cm in size, and usually composed of several dozen cards loosely inserted between the covers, comprising linocuts, drawn monotypes, sketches, drawings, paintings, photocopies and ready-made elements.
Initially, art books were created by way of unique editorial approaches, classic codes and loose-leaf objects, which gave the work the character of a portfolio. Andrzej M. Bartczak would endeavour to find new forms for the book. At the beginning of this century, the intermedial nature of the Artist’s work expanded significantly so as to contend with the titular “everything into a book”. This notion extended to material from which a book is made, which can include any object, technique or technology, including porcelain, to be found in the structure of the work (Porcelanowa Księga “The Porcelain Book”).