As part of her intervention, the artist gave the old books new titles and painted new dust jackets. Thus, the former content of the books was invalidated. The gesture is radical, but not final: the dust jackets can be removed so as to return to the original relationship between the dust jacket and the content.
Jadwiga Sawicka is interested in the phenomenon of book collections. Such collections can be a source of interesting observation. When they are coherent, they reveal the interests, education and ambitions of the bibliophile. Random book collections reveal the owner’s aspirations, capricious passions and weakness in the face of market incentives. On the other hand, collections from the communist era demonstrate the range of publications available at the time.
A collection can also be viewed as an ‘independent entity’, in which the neighbouring volumes create a narrative of their own. This is the case with the exhibition The Cover Alien to the Book. Thus its concept confronts the Mieczysław Porębski Library – in a philosophical, artistic and humanist dialogue with the professor’s vision of the history of art.
The exhibition The Cover Alien to the Book is accompanied by a photograph of Helena – a person who perhaps does not exist – who displays her intellectual and emotional personality through the way that books have been placed over her body.
