With a,e,i,o,u, 1997, his most recent installation at Galeria Foksal, Miroslaw Balka once again combined a poetic sensibility with a minimalist vocabulary, endowing carefully chosen objects with potent symbolism rooted in memory and personal experience. Balka sealed the doorway to the gallery with a plaster wall, leaving only two oval holes, which he lined with dog-collars. The openings were located approximately a foot from the floor, forcing viewers who wanted to glance inside the gallery to get down on their knees.

One kneeled and peered through the holes, only to see a darkened space. A sense