press review
A GUIDE TO PAINTINGS
Przemysław Jędrowski in a text Sasnal jako ćwiczenie praktyczne (Sasnal as a practical exercise, “ARTeon” issue no. 3/2008) writes from the angle of ‘Lata Walki’ (‘Wilhelm Sasnal. Years of Struggle’) exposition in Zachęta in Warsaw about Sasnal as an international champion, as an art market record holder and as a mass media superstar. In the exposition were 37 canvas and 9 films – works of art which could create coherent view on the artist’s work, ones associated with banal pop group Ładnie. However according to Jędrowski, the exposition did not manage to answer questions ‘why just Sasnal?’
IN THE LABORATORY OF THE REVOLUTION
The editors of “Kronos” magazine decided to approach the scope of issues related to the ‘October 1917’ question from the perspective of a critical reflexion pursued by Russian intellectuals themselves. This strategy proved to be an excellent idea, as the resulting texts are dense, deep and – last but not least – full of passion; they verge on literary interpretation, philosophy, historiosophy and political thought, using the Bolshevik coup and the ensuing events in Russia as a springboard for the analysis of the ‘Russian spirit’, history and the nature of the revolution itself.
ABOVE ALL, TRANSLATION
A good translator knows their trade and that accounts for the fact that Pomorski (“Nowe Książki” issue no. 2/2008) so aptly explains the basics of his workshop. Arduous work on the text and seeing it within various contexts which are created not by the trends prevailing in the epoch contemporary to the translator, but by the text itself, a thorough knowledge of distinct literary traditions that allows the translator to move smoothly within the tangle of references and sensitivity to semantic differences between the language of the original and the language of translation – the whole of a good translation expressed in such a way seems to be almost ideal, simple and functional.