PIMArT (2026) Jan Cisek
PIMArT is an idiosyncratic appropriation. A cloth printed with ten red dots, originally devised by Ryszard Olszak in 1991, is reframed as a limited-edition artwork. By adding a single letter to rename it PIMArT, veiling the inventor’s name, and editioning the piece, Cisek performs a Duchampian act of designation: the object becomes art through declaration and recontextualisation rather than manufacture. The intervention aligns with Marina Abramović’s explorations of energetic-affective presence, where attention, belief, and invisible exchange become artistic material. Within the Royal Academy, the ten red dots acquire additional resonance, echoing the stickers that mark sold works throughout the Summer Exhibition. PIMArT stages the conditions under which ordinary objects cross into art and value circulates through context.
Everything/Nothing (2026) Jan Cisek
A small portrait of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan priest who gave his life for a stranger at Auschwitz in 1941, is mounted over a field of repeated gold text. The words, written by hand across the background, come from the Advaita teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj: “Love says: ‘I am everything’. Wisdom says: ‘I am nothing’.” This mantra-like repetition surrounds the Christian martyr with Hindu non-dual wisdom, creating a cross-cultural dialogue about self-transcendence. Both traditions point toward the dissolution of separate self, whether through sacrificial love or contemplative recognition. The gold script echoes illuminated manuscripts whilst the layered structure places particular devotion within universal teaching. Everything contains nothing; nothing contains everything.