Stanisław Dróżdż

Critical text

Stanisław Dróżdż (1939, Sławków – 2009, Wrocław) was a major artist of the Polish 20th-century postwar avant-garde, as well as a remarkable concrete poet who initiated this movement in Poland, where he organized related events and exhibitions. Starting as an academic poet in the late 1950s, he turned to concrete poetry in 1967 by writing his Concept-Shapes manifesto, presenting the main ideas and principles of his artistic vision. The various concrete poems based on Concept-Shapes materialize given concepts into visual typographical and graphic works. His experiments not only refer to linguistics, but also extend to other disciplines like mathematics and logic, using numbers and arithmetic signs as elements of composition. In the early 1970s, Dróżdż expanded his practice to other media, including photographic prints, computer printouts, as well as three-dimensional objects like sculptures or installations. This period coincided with his debut working with the avant-garde art gallery Foksal in Warsaw. Expanding his focus from works on paper to the space of the gallery, his exhibitions were conceived as complete interactive installations, a complex system made of various elements at the crossroads of conceptual art, installation, and concrete poetry.

Text by Balthazar Lovay