Duration: 30.12.2024 – 08.03.2025.
The residency is open to visitors during the gallery’s opening hours.
The words “Hasior” and “Hasiok” at first glance appear to be the same word. What separates them is a minor error in a graphic sign – in the final letter, in its upper fragment. An unfinished “R” or an overwritten “K” results in either Hasior or Hasiok. This marginal mistake in writing, however, has significant consequences in reality, as the two notions begin to exist in parallel. Each carries a distinct meaning – very narrow and elitist, requiring specialized knowledge to decipher what lies behind a particular configuration of signs. What does Hasior mean, and what does Hasiok mean? Is it possible for Hasior to exist without Hasiok, and vice versa? Does similarity in sound imply similarity in meaning? During the six-week residency at the Władysław Hasior Gallery, a branch of the Tatra Museum, we will attempt to address these (and other) questions by contemplating and reconstructing the meanings of a small error / slip of the tongue / inaccuracy within reality – here symbolized by a tiny fragment of a graphic sign, an objective message functioning in contemporary civilization. The British-American philosopher Catherine Wilson suggested in her discourse that different realities (worlds) are not isolated from one another; an example is the real world and the world of fiction. In everyday life these two realms seamlessly interpenetrate and influence each other, even creating logical dependencies necessary for civilization to exist. One such example is the famous logical rule Modus Tollens, which states that if X implies Y, then if Y is false, X must also be false. When writing these words, was Wilson thinking of Hasior and Hasiok? This free inspiration drawn from Catherine Wilson’s reflections stems from a quiet hope that Hasior and Hasiok also interpenetrate one another, and that a subtle error of writing / reading creates relations between them akin to Modus Tollens, Modus Tollendo, or any other Modus known and unknown in this or another reality.
Text: Przemysław Jeżmirski.
Hasior – a Polish artist
Hasiok – a rubbish bin in one of the regional varieties of the Polish language.
