With a playful approach, Siedlecki manipulates the three gallery spaces to display variations of almost identical pieces or works from the same series. This repetition creates a subtle sense of déjà vu, prompting the viewer to reflect on our observation times and the rapid consumption of images in today’s society.The display is sober and precise, with some pieces hung at unusual heights or placed directly on the floor. Some elements are surprising, such as the gas cylinders standing in the middle of the exhibition spaces.
The device connected to one of these cylinders creates solid carbon dioxide at -78.5°C.This deposition process is activated irregularly by a gallery member, and the solid gas block is then placed on a copper pedestal. The solid gradually disappears, returning to gas through sublimation. The disappearance of this gas block, striking in its ephemeral and pristine whiteness, symbolizes the inevitable transience of all matter.
As for the lead bodies displayed throughout the three spaces, these offer a more spiritual reference while still addressing the theme of time. During a trip to Kolkata, India, Siedlecki encountered artisans who create representations of deities for religious ceremonies. These votive sculptures are built with straw skeletons, then coated with clay and paint to become colourful depictions of gods likeVishnu or Ganesh, eventually offered to the river. Siedlecki brought back several of these internal structures (stripped of their heads and other defining features), moulded them, and cast them in lead. The lead itself evokes connections to uranium glass, which is used to create the fluorescent shell displayed in one of the rooms.
Drawn to non-Western cultures and their traditional craftsmanship, as in his work referencing Nepal, the artist continually researches processes or techniques that can transform matter. A striking example is his series of cacti coated in copper through electrolysis. Now protected by metal, they are saved from decay. Beyond the physico-chemical processes underlying his practice, Siedlecki is deeply interested in the notion of transformation and the shifting densities of objects and materials.
This is evident in the two paintings from the Deposizione series and the sculpture Verneuil, both covered with a layer of crystals formed through accelerated calcification. Siedlecki learned about a spring near Saint-Nectaire, France, known for its peculiar ability to petrify any object submerged in it for several months—a unique form of accelerated aging. In addition to two paintings aged by this process (in the rooms to the left and right), the artist has reproduced a machine invented at the beginning of the 20th century for the industrial manufacture of synthetic rubies.
The exhibition touches on an essential question in an artistic practice: when is a work of art truly complete? In each room, visitors encounter silver sculptures that verge on abstraction, standing on concrete pedestals. Over time, without a clear plan for their use, Siedlecki collected unfinished works abandoned by their anonymous creators. Questioning the unresolved and unfinished, Siedlecki moulded and cast these works to give them a new status. These pieces, paying homage to forgotten artists lost in the passage of time, seem to become totems celebrating the act of creation in its broadest sense. One could say that Siedlecki is questioning the very idea of what constitutes a work of art. This concept is further emphasized by his decision to place a kiln at the heart of the exhibition—the very object that inspired its title.
To question time is both the pursuit of physicists and artists alike ...