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Jan de Weryha-Wysoczański

Jan de Weryha standing in front of his work “Wooden Panel” (2001). Various types of wood, nails, 412 x 216 x 18 cm. Taken in the de Weryha Collection, Hamburg, 2014

Mediathek Sorted

Media library
  • ill. 1: untitled, 1997 - untitled, 1997. Basswood 299 x 241 x 26 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 2: untitled, 1997 - untitled, 1997. Alder, 104 x 20 x 15 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 3: untitled, 1997 - untitled, 1997. Various types of wood, 228 x 84 x 51 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 4: untitled, 1997 - untitled, 1997. Various types of wood, 119 x 111 x 28 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 5: untitled, 1997 - untitled, 1997. Larch wood, 245 x 164 x 88 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 6: untitled, 1997 - untitled, 1997. Maple, 463 x 125 x 15 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 7: untitled, 1997 - untitled, 1997. Oak, 100 x 38 x 4.5 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 8: untitled, 1998 - untitled, 1998. Various types of wood, 248 x 222 x 14 cm (1st Prize, Prix du Jury, at the Salon de Printemps 98 – European Competition for Contemporary Art –, Luxemburg 1998), de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 9: untitled, 1998 - untitled, 1998. Various types of wood, 450 x 230 x 56 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 10: untitled, 1998 - untitled, 1998. Maple, 90 x 75 x 39 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 11: untitled, 1998 - untitled, 1998. Basswood, 175 x 75 x 18 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 12: untitled, 1999 - untitled, 1999. Basswood, 251 x 140 x 34 cm, National Museum in Stettin/Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie
  • ill. 13: untitled, 1999 - untitled, 1999. Maple, 500 x 190 x 15 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 14: untitled, 1999 - untitled, 1999. Oak, 132 x 115 x 12 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 15: untitled, 1999 - untitled, 1999. Various types of wood, cardboard boxes, 320 x 145 x 27 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 16: untitled, 1999 - untitled, 1999. Various types of wood, 356 x 356 x 14 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 17: untitled, 1999 - untitled, 1999. Larch, 1140 x 120 x 55, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 18a: Neuengamme Memorial, 1999 - Neuengamme Memorial, 1999. 30 roughly hewn granite blocks on a 24 m² area of polished granite slabs, granite gravel path. Commissioned by the Bund der Polen in Deutschland e.V. In memory of the persons deported from the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, Neuengamme
  • ill. 18b: Neuengamme Memorial, 1999 - Neuengamme Memorial, 1999. Commissioned by the Bund der Polen in Deutschland e.V. In memory of the persons deported from the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, Neuengamme concentration camp, Hamburg, Polish memorial plaque
  • ill. 18c: Neuengamme Memorial, 1999 - Neuengamme Memorial, 1999. Commissioned by the Bund der Polen in Deutschland e.V. In memory of the persons deported from the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, Neuengamme concentration camp, Hamburg, German memorial plaque
  • ill. 19: untitled, 2000 - untitled, 2000. Maple, 120 x 120 x 36 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 20: untitled, 2000 - untitled, 2000. Oak, charcoaled, 220 x 60 x 58 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 21: untitled, 2000 - untitled, 2000. Willow, 220 x 58 x 58 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 22: untitled, 2000 - untitled, 2000. Various types of wood, 195 x 195 x 15 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 23: untitled, 2000 - untitled, 2000. Basswood, 97 x 97 x 29 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 24: untitled, 2000 - untitled, 2000. Chestnut, partly with bark, 260 x 140 x 56 cm, Museum of Modern Art, Radom/Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej w Radomiu
  • ill. 25: untitled, 2000 - untitled, 2000. Bark, 90 x 90 x 34 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 26: untitled, 2000 - untitled, 2000. Willow, 90 x 90 x 35 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 27: untitled, 2000 - untitled, 2000. Basswood, 200 x 197 x 55 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 28: Wooden Panel, 2001 - Wooden Panel, 2001. Various types of wood, partially charcoaled, nails, 412 x 220 x 17 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 29: untitled, 2001 - untitled, 2001. Maple, 156 x 156 x 26 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 30: untitled, 2001 - untitled, 2001. Various types of wood, 350 x 106 x 43 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 31: Wooden Panel, 2001 - Wooden Panel, 2001. Various types of wood, nails, 412 x 216 x 18 cm (Detail), de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 32: Wooden Panel, 2001 - Wooden Panel, 2001. Spruce, charcoaled, birch, nails, 470 x 240 x 17 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 33: Wooden Panel, 2002 - Wooden Panel, 2002. Spruce, charcoaled, oak, maple, bark, 404 x 204 x 26 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 34: Wooden Panel, 2002 - Wooden Panel, 2002. Maple, charcoaled, 100 x 100 x 9 cm, Królikowski-Collection, Dąbrówka Wielka/Poland
  • ill. 35: Wooden Panel, 2002 - Wooden Panel, 2002. Spruce, charcoaled, bark, nails, 310 x 100 x 7 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 36: Wooden Panel, 2002 - Wooden Panel, 2002. Spruce, patinated, oak bark, 106 x 106 x 20 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 37: Wooden Panel, 2002 - Wooden Panel, 2002. Spruce, charcoaled, maple, 101 x 101 x 9 cm (Detail), de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 38: Wooden pillar, 2003 - Wooden pillar, 2003. Bark, wood, 285 x 100 x 100 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 39: Wooden Panel, 2003 - Wooden Panel, 2003. Bark, 253 x 200 x 11 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 40: Wooden Cube, 2003 - Wooden Cube, 2003. Various types of wood, 230 x 230 x 230 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 41: untitled, 2003 - untitled, 2003. Various types of wood, 880 x 220 x 16 cm (Detail), de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 42: Wooden Panel, 2003 - Wooden Panel, 2003. Various types of wood, 440 x 220 x 16 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 43: Wooden Panel, 2003 - Wooden Panel, 2003. Spruce, charcoaled, Various types of wood, nails, 150 x 150 x 9 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 44: Wooden Panel, 2003 - Wooden Panel, 2003. Spruce charcoaled, bark, nails, 150 x 150 x 9 cm, Centre for Polish Sculpture, Orońsko/Centrum Rzeźby Polskiej w Orońsku
  • ill. 45: untitled, 2004 - untitled, 2004. Spruce charcoaled, nails, 150 x 150 x 18 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 46: untitled, 2004 - untitled, 2004. Spruce charcoaled, bark, nails, 156 x 156 x 8 cm, Privately owned: Dr. S. Ropohl, Hamburg
  • ill. 47: untitled, 2005 - untitled, 2005. Various types of wood, 284 x 39 x 20 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 48: untitled, 2005 - untitled, 2005. Poplar, 320 x 320 x 40 cm, Owner: Galeria Szyb Wilson, Kattowitz
  • ill. 49: untitled, 2005 - untitled, 2005. Various types of wood, 480 x 280 x 45 cm (Detail). de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 50: Artwork on Architecture, 2005 - Artwork on Architecture, 2005. Robinia, 25 m2, Height 45 cm, Gymnasium Eckhorst, Bargteheide
  • ill. 51: untitled, 2006 - untitled, 2006. Birch, 900 x 240 x 14 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 52: Wooden Panel, 2006 - Wooden Panel, 2006. Various types of wood, 890 x 234 x 15 cm (Detail), de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 53: Orońsko, 2006 - Orońsko, 2006. Birch, 900 x 900 x 50 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 54: Wooden Object, 2006 - Wooden Object, 2006. Branches, 220 x 170 x 40 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 55: Wooden Object, 2006 - Wooden Object, 2006. Branches, 235 x 170 x 43 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 56: Wooden Object, 2006 - Wooden Object, 2006. Various types of wood, 280 x 243 x 55 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 57: Wooden Object, 2006 - Wooden Object, 2006. Birch branches, 310 x 310 x 220 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 58: Wooden Panel, 2007 - Wooden Panel, 2007. Spruce, charcoaled, reeds, 82 x 82 x 9 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 59: untitled, 2007 - untitled, 2007. Spruce, charcoaled, 700 x 200 x 10 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 60: Wooden Object, 2008 - Wooden Object, 2008. Birch, 900 x 900 x 43 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 61: Wooden Object, 2008 - Wooden Object, 2008. Various types of wood, 800 x 800 x 18 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 62: Wooden Panel, 2009 - Wooden Panel, 2009. Spruce, charcoaled, maple, 101 x 101 x 20 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 63: Wooden Panel, 2009 - Wooden Panel, 2009. Spruce, charcoaled, twigs, 101 x 101 x 10 cm (Detail), de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 64: Wooden Panel, 2010 - Wooden Panel, 2010. Oak, nails, 140 x 140 x 11 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 65: untitled, 2010 - untitled, 2010. Bark, 243 x 170 x 53 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 66: Wooden Panel, 2010 - Wooden Panel, 2010. Spruce, charcoaled, wood stems, 25.5 x 25.5 x 8 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 67: Chilehaus five lines, 2011 - Chilehaus five lines, 2011. Birch, 9000 x 230 x 14 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 68: Wooden Panel, 2011 - Wooden Panel, 2011. Spruce, lavender, 34 x 34 x 8.5 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 69: Wooden Panel, 2011 - Wooden Panel, 2011. Poplar, 50 x 50 x 18 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 70: Wooden Panel, 2011 - Wooden Panel, 2011. Spruce, charcoaled, spruce needles, 28 x 28 x 11.5 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 71: Wooden Panel, 2012 - Wooden Panel, 2012. Poplar, 50 x 50 x 8.5 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 72a: Bergedorf Memorial, 2012 - Bergedorf Memorial, 2012. To the memory of the forced labourers of the Nazi rule in Bergedorf, on the initiative of the AG Gedenken, Schleusengraben-Promenade am Kampdeich in Hamburg-Bergedorf, concrete, stainless steel, H=267 cm, W=127 cm, D=98 cm
  • ill. 72b: Bergedorf Memorial, 2012 - Bergedorf Memorial, 2012. To the memory of the forced labourers of the Nazi rule in Bergedorf, on the initiative of the AG Gedenken, Schleusengraben-Promenade am Kampdeich in Hamburg-Bergedorf, concrete, stainless steel, H=267 cm, W=127 cm, D=98 cm
  • ill. 72c: Bergedorf Memorial, 2012 - Bergedorf Memorial, 2012. To the memory of the forced labourers of the Nazi rule in Bergedorf, on the initiative of the AG Gedenken, Schleusengraben-Promenade am Kampdeich in Hamburg-Bergedorf; memorial plaque, bronze, 80 x 80 cm
  • ill. 73: Wooden Panel, 2012 - Wooden Panel, 2012. Poplar, 50 x 50 x 9 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 74: Wooden Panel, 2013 - Wooden Panel, 2013. Spruce, 106 x 102 x 23 cm, Centre for Polish Sculpture, Orońsko/ Centrum Rzeźby Polskiej w Orońsku
  • ill. 75: Wooden Panel, 2013 - Wooden Panel, 2013. Spruce, 104.5 x 104.5 x 12.5 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 76: Wooden Panel, 2013 - Wooden Panel, 2013. Poplar, 50 x 50 x 8.5 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 77: Wooden Panel, 2013 - Wooden Panel, 2013. Cut reeds on wooden board, 50 x 50 x 9.5 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 78: Wooden Panel, 2013 - Wooden Panel, 2013. Spruce, 106 x 104 x 10 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 79: Wooden Panel, 2013 - Wooden Panel, 2013. Spruce, 106 x 104 x 10 cm (Detail), de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 80: Wooden Panel, 2013 - Wooden Panel, 2013. Spruce, broken and cut on wooden board, 120 x 118 x 10.5 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 81: Wooden Object, 2014 - Wooden Object, 2014. Poplar, cut and freely arranged, 400 x 400 x 39 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 82: Wooden Object, 2014 - Wooden Object, 2014. Poplar, cut and broken, wooden dowels, 187 x 187 x 16 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 83: Wooden Object, 2014 - Wooden Object, 2014. Poplar, cut and broken, 119 x 119 x 16 cm, Kunstsammlung Birkel, Hamburg
  • ill. 84: Wooden Object, 2014 - Wooden Object, 2014. Poplar, cut and broken, 119 x 119 x 16 cm (Side view), Kunstsammlung Birkel, Hamburg
  • ill. 85: Wooden Object, 2014 - Wooden Object, 2014. Poplar, cut and broken, 145 x 145 x 10.5 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 86: Wooden Object, 2014 - Wooden Object, 2014. Poplar, cut and broken, 142 x 142 x 21 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 87: Wooden Object, 2015 - Wooden Object, 2015. Spruce, cut and broken, wooden dowels, 135 x 135 x 18 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 88: Wooden Object, 2015 - Wooden Object, 2015. Spruce, cut and broken, wooden dowels, 200 x 200 x 17 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 89: Wooden Object, 2015 - Wooden Object, 2015. Spruce, cut and broken, wooden dowels, 196 x 196 x 10 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 90: Wooden Panel, 2016 - Wooden Panel, 2016. Spruce, cut and broken, 107.5 x 107.5 x 14 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 91: Wooden Panel, 2016 - Wooden Panel, 2016. Spruce, cut and split, 115 x 115 x 8 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 92: Wooden Panel, 2017 - Wooden Panel, 2017. Spruce, cut and split, 115 x 115 x 8 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 93: Wooden Object, 2017 - Wooden Object, 2017. Spruce, cut and broken, wooden dowels, 250 x 198 x 198 cm, de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 94: de Weryha Collection, Hamburg - de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 95: de Weryha Collection, Hamburg - de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 96: de Weryha Collection, Hamburg - de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
  • ill. 97: de Weryha Collection, Hamburg - de Weryha Collection, Hamburg
Jan de Weryha standing in front of his work “Wooden Panel” (2001)
Jan de Weryha standing in front of his work “Wooden Panel” (2001). Various types of wood, nails, 412 x 216 x 18 cm. Taken in the de Weryha Collection, Hamburg, 2014

In 1999 De Weryha completed a memorial "In Memory of the Deportees of the Warsaw Uprising 1944" for the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial (ill. 18a-c), which consists of thirty roughly hewn granite blocks placed in a row on a surface of polished slabs. Although it looks like a freely conceived Land Art work, it is in reality Monument Art. Symbolically, the individual stone blocks allude to the "diversity and distinctiveness" of human individuals, but their regular arrangement points to the "totalitarian, perfectly organized apparatus" of National Socialist tyranny. The footpath to the memorial, lined with granite gravel, embodies the path "that those condemned to death were forced to follow".[11] At best the material in this work is reminiscent of Rückriem. More significant, however, is the fact that in Poland, unlike other socialist countries, abstract Monument Art was already being practiced in the mid-1960s at a similarly troubled location. In 1964 Franciszek Duszenko, Adam Haupt and Franciszek Strynkiewicz erected a field of three thousand irregularly split stone blocks for a Memorial in honour of the victims of the Treblinka extermination camp. The field was intended to evoke thoughts of a "duration [of remembrance] beyond time" and "make tangible the tragic presence of people walking to their death".[12]  

On the occasion of a solo exhibition by de Weryha at the Galeria Szyb Wilson/Shaft Wilson Gallery in Katowice in 2005, Jan Stanisław Wojciechowski, a sculptor and professor of cultural anthropology in Warsaw, pointed out that in the 1970s when de Weryha was a student in Poland, international modern art was aready being widely acknowledged by academies and galleries. Young artists in particular had made no bones about adapting the various tendencies of contemporary art to their own needs. They exploited the best examples of conceptual art, minimal art, performance, and new media and enriched them with personal motifs, integrating them into other political or anthropological contexts, and turning to new materials or to nature: “Jan de Weryha-Wysoczański left Poland with a baggage of European intellectual and artistic values”.[13]  

On the occasion of the exhibition in Katowice, which took place in the engine room of a disused colliery, Wojciechowski suspected that de Weryha's art would take up a "romantic position" by deliberately opposing his insights into nature to the technical world or to "late Modernism, i.e. the world of globalisation, accelerated consumption and algorithms".[14] This in turn places the artist in a relationship with Installation Art, which traditionally reacts to found or deliberately selected spaces. In her master's thesis written in 2011 at the University of Technology in Radom (Politechnika Radomska in Kazimierza Pułaskiego), Aleksandra Warchoł also notes that de Weryha creates "arrangements in space" in addition to his wooden objects.[15]

Although the engine house in Katowice served only as an exhibition space for the artist, other arguments can also be found for the fact that he consciously reacts to specific spaces with individual installations. For example, he has integrated block-like and round wooden segments into doorways or wall niches (ill. 3, 9, 48), deliberately aligned ground works with the architecture (ill. 6, 17, 59), or integrated them into architectural elements (ill. 8, 14). The above-mentioned "wooden objects" in corners, along walls or around pillars (ill. 7, 54, 55, 65) and the "untitled" works (ill. 11, 30) stacked or grouped on wall sections may also be included here. As ephemeral on site installations that refer specifically to architecture are the cruciform floor work of short birch trunks for the exhibition entitled Objawienia w drewnie (Revelations in Wood) in 2006 at the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko (Centrum Rzeźby Polskiej w Orońsku)(ill. 53), and on the occasion of Hamburg Art Week 2011, his ground work entitled "Chilehaus five lines, which consisted of laid birch trunk segments that snaked in five parallel lines through rooms in the Hamburg Chilehaus" (ill. 67). The artist called it a "temporary spatial experience". 

 

[11] De Weryha in an online-interview with Helga König, 2015, http://interviews-mit-autoren.blogspot.de/2015/03/helga-konig-im-gesprach-mit-dem.html

[12] Wojciech Skrodzki, in: Andrzej Osęka/Wojciech Skrodzki: Polnische Bildhauerkunst der Gegenwart, Warschau 1977 (german), p. 33

[13] Jan Stanisław Wojciechowski 2005, p. 4/8 (see further reading; text available online on the website of the artist, polish, page 1/english, page 1)

[14] ibid, page 7/11 (online polish, page 4/english, page 4)

[15] Aleksandra Warchoł 2011, page 10 (see further reading; available online on the website of the artistgerman translation, page 10)