In the ideal world, going to school would be a pure joy. Finishing school we wouldn’t instantly forget our entire knowledge but would enjoy it once forever fixed in our minds. What needs to be done to make us closer to this utopia? You can hardly believe how little it requires. You’d just need to make Tomasz Broda the author of some school course books. This simple but powerful truth dawned on me suddenly as I was attending the meeting with the Artist at Ring Gallery.
Having second thoughts on that, I recon he could create (or has actually already created) quite a few. History – for sure. Literature – nobody will forget who’s close to Tolstoy and who Keret is. Geography? I might try Paweł Pawlak in that case, as he’s started some works in that area. But on the other hand, Broda’s Wrocław topography… And then goes Mathematics, Zoology, Architecture… and surely the History of Art. One could conclude that having such a peculiar talent thanks to which the old slogan “Educate with smile” is not a fossil any longer or stops to be an empty phrase, generates a constant influx of orders. Everyone seems to wish their “branch” popularized in that way. And forming an order is needless in many cases as the Artist helps himself with the remaining topics in his further cycles. He does it altruistically, as a hobby and completely by the way. Only as time and means allow. Not to please the thoughtful patrons but as if against all the difficulties. You can hardly believe it…
In the ideal world we’d tell without any memorizing the difference between Hals and Holbein, we’d know every detail of Baroque drapery art, we’d recognize El Greco’s plays of light and shade, and we’d easily remember how many red berets Picasso painted. Thanks to Tomasz Broda, we ALREADY HAVE it. You can easily reach for it just carefully looking at this exhibition. But in the ideal world, we’d not only know prince Urbino’s slightly de-modelled nose and genially shortened captain Frans Cocq’s hand – without fatigue, we’d also know all his best mates from the night watch. Not much needs to be done – just give Tomasz Broda space, conditions and time…
Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
