Stanczyk (Jester), 2O04

Solo Exhibition, Centrum Szuki Galeria EL, Elblag Poland, 2004

Exhibited in the autumn of 2004—against the backdrop of Poland’s recent accession to the European Union—Stanczyk (Jester) was a multimedia installation that combined drawing, painting, printmaking, video projection, sound, and surveillance. The exhibition took place in Galeria EL, a contemporary art centre housed in a former Gothic church in Elbląg, known for its postwar transformation into a space for experimental art.

At the centre of the installation stood the figure of Stańczyk—the jester from Jan Matejko’s 1862 painting, who appears slumped in thought while a royal ball continues behind him. Matejko famously inserted his own face into the jester’s, using the fool as a political surrogate. Mytych revisits this figure not as a fixed symbol, but as something collectively constructed.

Crowd drawings in the exhibition explore how visual meaning is formed through accumulation. From a distance, they present recognisable scenes—landscapes, portraits, icons. Only upon closer inspection does the viewer discover these images are composed of thousands of tiny human figures, engaged in mass movement or protest. The image collapses into multitude. The multitude becomes the image.

In Stanczyk (Jester), the figure of the fool emerges from the crowd—not imposed, but made. Meaning is neither singular nor stable; it is negotiated, layered, and watched. A live CCTV camera looped viewers into the system, blurring the line between observer and observed, symbol and participant.