Tomek Sikora, Centre Pompidou
Simply to say where Willy Ponce has exposed his works is to say far too little. He is an artist who exhibits the world over. Barring here, I hear people complain. And they will have a point. For WP has exhibited in places of which most of our artist can but dream.
Thus, today we have the right to ask: how is it that the artist continues to elude most critics of ours, as well as the majority of our cognoscenti? Today, when WP has travelled the world… When folks recall his displays in such galleries as New York’s MOMA, the Parisian Centre Pompidou and the Louvre, or Syndey National Museum (but also, which is well worth mentioning, our native Zachęta); when memory of him still reverberates amid Vatican’s marble halls, in Africa’s sun-scorched Tunis and in the cradle of European culture that is the eternal Acropolis. In all these places Willy Ponce’s displays have met with an animated response, while he himself, sporting a time-worn leather raincoat, and wearing a mysterious Aboriginal smile, left no member of the audience indifferent. Even those who, let’s face it, have grown apathetic and tired of art—the guards, watchmen and custodians, the front line in service to Art who have witnessed displays aplenty—even they did not remain inert in the face of the artist—one of ours, let us again stress—and his works. It sufficed that he opened his trapper’s coat to reveal what he had brought with him this time round, and the reaction was predictable: he was shown outside. Always out of doors, always to the people.
It is difficult to qualify his oeuvre in a few words. But asked what constitutes the artist’s strength, what enables him to exhibit in places of such renown, I can only respond that it is courage. Uninhibited bouts with the best, Ponce’s inveterate desire for confrontation, always picking up the gauntlet. There is no need for abstruse jargon, no -isms, -asms, -ations or -otions.
The world’s galleries have become the artist’s abode. Therefore, it is hardly astonishing that that’s where he exhibits. Perhaps one day he will pay us too a visit. I harbour hopes that this exhibiton will spur a vogue for Willy. Let’s show him whenever he exhibits anything. Let’s show him outside, even in blustering wind and freezing cold. Let him exhibit here, boldly and without inhibitions, as always.
Milosz Skarga – MichalskiOtofoto.art.pl
