Impossible Songs consists of a multimedia installation presenting the multiform mythology of the artist Mikołaj Sobczak. The exhibition functions as a translation of the musical The Universal Empire presented at the Mennonite Church in Amsterdam by Rozenstraat - a rose is a rose is a rose in March 2024.
The piece is evoked through film and sound recording, but also through the presence of some of the elements utilized on the day of the performance.
Some of the set pieces (for example the costume worn by the puppet of William Blake/Mercury) have been imbued with the energy and atmosphere of the live show, metaphysically carrying some of its essence into a new visual constellation. The images are screened and the audio is played in the kunsthal, occupying an ideal space as well as a real one and transporting the audience on a stage that is at the same time new and reminiscent of the musical setting. In a composition fluctuating between repetition and novelty, past and future are alternatively melted and solidified.
Jester’s kunsthal is radically transformed by the theatrical set pieces transporting us in seemingly abandoned living spaces with lighting fitting for a crypt. The immersive scenography plunges the viewer into a theater-like catacomb, three shrines to the relentless heretics of history. Several wooden cutouts complete the composition and act as palimpsests on which layers of archival materials, photos, and drawings merge to take the viewer through a narration that spans centuries. The collages employ diverse techniques, like CNC wood cutting, printing, and painting. Adding new layers of paint and meaning, Sobczak transforms installations and enriches the manifold universe of his lore.
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