Introduction of the artist:

Jadwiga SAWICKA (Poland)

Born in 1959, Przemy.l, Poland. Lives and works in Przemy.l. Selected individual exhibitions: 2010 Delikatesy Gallery, Krakow, Poland / 2006 Force fatale, CSW Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw / 2005 Attracts and Repels, Atlas Sztuki, .od. / 2001 Foksal Gallery, Warsaw / 1999 Pliability of materials, Zach.ta, Warsaw / Selected group exhibitions: 2011 Labour&Leisure, Alternativa, Wyspa Institue of Art, Gda.sk, Poland / 2010 3x Yes, The Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw / 2006 Polish Painting of the 21st Century, Zach.ta, Warsaw / 2004 Beyond the Red Horizon, CSW
Bialy Mazur-Kunstlerinnen aus Polen, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin / 2003 Architectures of Gender- Contemporary Women's Art in Poland, Sculpture Center, New York.

Introduction of works:

Never Happened, installation (books in wrapping paper), variable size, 2005

Once in a While, text installation, variable size, 2008

Zapomnij (Forget), banner, 2010

Art Is an Excellent Opium, strips, 2009

Módl Si (Pray), installation (with sound by Andrzej Juszczyk) ,
variable size, 2011

A picture of the past will never be objective. It is distorted under the influence not only of time and different deologies, but also individual visions of history. It is drawn from the traces of historical events, such as the documents and other recollections of people who cannot forget their personal prejudices. Therefore history does not present objective truth, but is as subjective, constructed and fictitious as any narrative. Historical events do not exist or matter until they are recalled - otherwise they stay forgotten, forever.

Never Happened by Jadwiga Sawicka is a visual comment on different versions of history. It consists of a pile of old, unwanted books in pink covers inscribed with the words "Never Happened". Such a title implies that they are history books, but after closer investigation the impossibility to decipher their contents becomes clear as they are written in a wide range of different languages. We are simply not able to read the contents entirely, and so the artist puts forward the possibility that history might not matter anymore, doomed to be lost in translation.

The phrase ‘never happened’ is often used in everyday English as a metaphor to express that even though we all know something happened, we would prefer to forget t and act as if it never happened. It is a dismissal of the past, and this is of particular interest to the artist, who in her native Polish, used the expression, ‘dawno  nieprawda’. In the Chinese version of this work, made especially for the Triennial, the phrase ‘cha wu ci shi' s used. These four characters are a Chinese idiom, which literally means ‘there is no such a thing/story after investigation’. It was derived from 'cha wu ci ren', a popular figure of speech which means that there is no such a person after investigation.