reviews

  • View of “Pavilionesque,” 2013. Foreground, from left: Pavilionesque, 2013; Toda-miracle in children’s language, 2013; Chatka, Children’s Imagination, a Box, 2013. Background, from left: Groteska I, 2013; Krajské Bábkové divadlo v Rabce-Zdrój, 2013; The Foyer, Rabcio Puppet Theater, Rabka-Zdrój, Poland, 2013; Shadows Madly Alive I.–V., 2012. Photo: Serge Hasenböhler.

    View of “Pavilionesque,” 2013. Foreground, from left: Pavilionesque, 2013; Toda-miracle in children’s language, 2013; Chatka, Children’s Imagination, a Box, 2013. Background, from left: Groteska I, 2013; Krajské Bábkové divadlo v Rabce-Zdrój, 2013; The Foyer, Rabcio Puppet Theater, Rabka-Zdrój, Poland, 2013; Shadows Madly Alive I.–V., 2012. Photo: Serge Hasenböhler.

    Paulina Olowska

    Kunsthalle Basel

    STYLE NEVER REALLY GOES OUT OF STYLE. Paulina Olowska knows this. She also knows resurrection—its rules and its rust—which she uses as a speculative tool, invoking a litany of historical, elegant forebears, mostly women (finally and thank God). But in order to resurrect something, a stage must be set, a room prepared and fixed. And the rooms in which we make our way and our work—bars, studies, studios, theaters, parlors—have long occupied the Polish artist (or she has occupied them). Take her 2004 exhibition “She Had to Discard the Idea of the House as a Metaphor,” at

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