Flying Object I

own techniques
270 x 140 x 80 cm
2011, Orońsko, Poland

Flying Object II

300 x 300 x 300 cm
own techniques
2018, London, UK

Both iterations were produced within environments that professionally make, present, or sanction sculpture, yet neither was commissioned, selected, or authorised by them.

The first object was made during a Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts plein-air programme at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko. Constructed from material available on site, it was installed without prior agreement, suspended between trees within the grounds of the Centre. It was not part of the programme or the exhibition. It was placed there and left.

The second was made several years later at Bronze Age Foundry in London — a foundry specialising in the production of sculpture and operating its own exhibition space. Built after working hours, again without prior agreement, it was later moved by forklift onto a disused section of DLR infrastructure, suspended from a steel cable, and left there with no defined duration of display.

In both cases, the sculpture appeared exactly where sculpture was supposed to be, although no place had been assigned to it.

Neither object entered these spaces as a proposal. Neither awaited a decision. Their presence preceded permission.

The form was reduced to a large black volume, stripped of function, inscription, or legible reference. Its scale signals intention, yet the site offers no explanation of what it is for or why it is there. In Orońsko, a rectangular mass hovers among the trees. In London, a wedge hangs over disused infrastructure, immediately beside a functioning transport system. Everything around it has a designated purpose. The object does not.

Suspension removes the support that might otherwise absorb the volume into the logic of monument, architecture, or outdoor sculpture. It does not stand in the site. It has been arrested within it.

The title does not identify the object. It describes its status. Flying Object has no clear point of entry into the order of the site.

Orońsko is a place in which sculpture becomes visible as art. Bronze Age is a place in which sculpture is professionally produced and can be exhibited. Both iterations therefore emerged within structures dedicated to sculpture, but outside the procedures through which sculpture is ordinarily assigned a place.

The work separates the presence of sculpture from permission for that presence.

In Orońsko, the difference between presence and authorisation quickly became material. The object, having appeared outside the institution’s programme, was dismantled by the institution. Its form, scale, and location had not changed. Only the status of its presence had.

In London, the object remained. Over time, the structure deteriorated and fragments were left on the overgrown site; part of its form is still recognisable in later satellite images of the location. There was no moment at which its presence was formally brought to an end.

The work ceased to be complete before it ceased to be present.

It was not taken down.

It was consumed by the place to which it had never formally belonged.