In the artist’s book published to coincide with his exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel, Piotr Uklański interviews his fellow Pole Roman Polanski, who recalls his attempts to prevent the 1968 Cannes Film Festival from being canceled despite the student uprisings in Paris. One inevitably connects the filmmaker’s determination to indulge in glamour while expressing support for the revolutionaries with Uklański’s own desire to seek out and communicate beauty while subjecting it to critical analysis. But where does a fascination with the romantic end and irony begin?

This was Uklański’s first major