RTL Today – Interview: An artist from Luxembourg takes over the Chaumont-sur-Loire estate
Artist Katarzyna Kot-Bach is the first artist based in Luxembourg to be invited to present her works at the Center d’Art et de Nature in the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, France. She tells us about her journey. Maintenance
How do you feel about this opportunity?
Katarzyna Kot-Bach: Of course, I feel extremely lucky because until now there were always very important names that were among the selected international artists. This year, we will celebrate the 15th anniversary, so I am all the more happy to be able to show my work. I admit that it is very difficult to enter this field. As an artist, I compete with galleries and artists from all over the world, so when you’re selected, it’s really a very good opportunity. Even for this year, there are very big names that have come to light, like Miquel Barceló, Quayola who created the virtual gallery, Jaume Plensa who is known all over the world for his monumental achievements, Françoise Vergier… So I am very delighted to be among these artists because it was a very strict selection.
Is it a nice recognition?
I was very delighted because I know the level of requirement, the names that are there, and I consider myself very lucky and it was Mrs. Colleu-Dumont who pointed out that I am the first Luxembourger who has been invited there. I didn’t even realize – I don’t know all the names from the last 15 years, so in that context, I felt elected somewhere and grateful that I was being noticed and there was a following, because that it’s very difficult to leave Luxembourg, since we don’t have any more institutions than that. It is not the same degree as in a big country like France, Germany etc. There are so many American artists that I adore and I didn’t even know that they were going to accompany me and showed in the same setting as me. So I am very satisfied that there is more and more this openness to the outside.
What are we going to see this year at Chaumont?
I had the stable, so a historic space that is extraordinary and interesting to discover in the area. So in 3 spaces, I had the chance to show my work on immigration. It is a very large mandala which constitutes dry leaves. I had already created it once in a small format, but now it exceeds 2 meters in diameter. All the leaves were carefully selected for a long time and the leaf is a Leitmotif in my work. Victor Hugo once wrote: “I cannot look at a leaf without being crushed by the universe” And this sentence touched me a lot. I find that each sheet is very unique and I see it – as indeed Victor Hugo does – as a metaphor for human life, fragile and ephemeral as it is. The structure, too, is special, because I created it in a sort of spiral, which for me is a reference to the perpetual evolution of humanity, starting with the “Big Bag” which is represented by the focal point of the spiral.
The second space houses three wooden pieces that I call “Unity”, so that’s very much in my holistic mind. This piece is about unity, of body, of mind, of potential, the fact that every human being is capable of billions of neural connections and interconnections and it’s about that unity and coherence of that potential that is in each of us and all of us as a whole. So we come back again to this theme of integration of course. This piece was also already visible in Brussels and particularly touched Madame Colleu-Dumont.
Third piece talks about perpetual motion. It is a giant nit that has been braided with branch files from the forests of Luxembourg. The idea is again to show this perpetual movement. We always try to find our place but sometimes we already have it in ourselves. It’s an invitation to return to nature, in a time when we are always stimulated from the outside, by social networks, constant connections,…
So my approach is always a bit holistic but also ecological, and this piece shows it very well.
How would you describe your art?
Reconnection to nature, Symbiosis with nature and then conversation. Basically, we forget where we come from and that we are part of nature. We try to dominate and control her and I consider that a main fault. It may be poetic and metaphorical in my way, but my art is first and foremost a fundamental critique of our destructive attitudes towards nature.
I try to explore ways to reconnect with nature as it is, but I also talk about human nature, our tendencies to generate wars etc. The migration I am referring to therefore also speaks of the migration that is forced by a war such as we have now. In the mandala for example, there are many different species of unique leaves that blend together in a way that becomes uniform, much like our society.
Tell us about your current work?
The pieces on migration for example are very current, even if it was not planned since the pieces were made before the war in Ukraine. I’m worried about everything that’s going on all the time. Of course, this is reflected in my work, even if the plays foreshadowed the dramatic situation, they are very contemporary, because they talk about destruction and we have to change our way of thinking. I’m talking about those disasters that are man-made and how they cause natural disasters on their side. For the moment, I am looking for methods so that artists who have come from Ukraine can work here in Luxembourg. I’m in contact with them and I think it’s important to help each other out, especially in a job like ours, since you don’t just practice a job, you live it. It is fundamental in order to be able to filter everything that we see, hear and experience, so I cannot only say that I work only on natural themes, but also everything that concerns the problems of human nature and the conflicts that go with. My way of perceiving things is a direct call to come back to a balance that we are constantly breaking and which creates similar situations.
What is your way of working?
To begin with, I work with literature, music, cinema and socio-political news. It is a bath for the imagination, a mental soup that allows an idea to be born and, over time, becomes clearer and clearer. So from a first idea, there is this whole process of maturation if I can put it like that. It is something that always arises from a personal and deep conviction, from a construction and structure, also on a mental and emotional level. We come back to the unit I’m talking about: all these aspects are connected and are beginning to take on a visual aspect. Afterwards, there is the technical side that I have mastered for years since I had done my master’s in sculpture and I concentrated on wood, but I tested all possible materials. So I’ve worked in metal, ceramic, glass, and even digital, which I hope will soon show up in my work as well. So all this experience helps me find a more focused language. In a way, it’s the ideas that appear and which are filtered by time and there is the drawing that accompanies it, because I am also a designer at the same time, and afterwards it is an inner necessity. As my pieces are sometimes very ephemeral, like for example the sculpture with the leaves, it requires a whole technique of construction around it, so that we can transport it and all. For me it’s something necessary to create something that seems absolutely obvious to me at some point but it comes from several sources.
How did you create yourself?
I started making sculptures when I was 9 years old, it became obvious that I had to work in wood and afterwards I went to a high school of plastic arts, equivalent to the High School of Arts and Trades here in Luxembourg, so a very advanced high school. Then I went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, in parallel with art education and then to the Ecole Nationale Supérieure in Paris for a year with Giuseppe Penone.
What are your projects ?
I am working on the exhibition for Fellner Galerie, I was invited to exhibit there for the month of May. The opening is May 5. I belong to the artist group „Sixthfloor“ and we will have our annual exhibition. Then I’m going to participate in the “Beautiful decay” exhibition at Koerich and maybe, if the weather allows it, show my work at Artweek, then I’ve been lucky enough to be able to show my work for three editions each time. . And then, there are always new doors that open, also outside of Luxembourg, and I hope that my participation in Chaumont will allow me afterwards to go out a little more and that it will open doors for me a little. internationally.