2003
video
duration: 5 min. 3 sec.
cinematography: Michał Januszaniec
work in the collections of the National Museum in Gdańsk, Arsenał Gallery in Białystok, and private collections
A spider is both something frightening (after all, how many people experience a physical fear of spiders!), but it can also be an object of fascination. As in Bogna Burska’s work Arachne (2003), which became the inspiration for writing this text. It was an installation depicting an elegant boudoir: in the middle, a large bed covered with pink satin bedding; beside it, two bedside tables with a lamp, books, a cup, and flowers; next to it, an elegant dressing table with a mirror, and on the dressing table – cosmetics, jewellery, flowers. There were flowers everywhere – lilies, orchids and azaleas. The space was pleasant and cosy, perhaps slightly too affected, associated with affluence and pleasure.
And yet it was not safe – it was a space inhabited by tarantulas. The work was first presented in the exhibition White Mazur at Neue Berliner Kunstverein (2003). According to the artist’s intention, the boudoir was to be enclosed by glass walls, which would simultaneously serve as a terrarium for the tarantulas. However, the gallery did not agree to the risky display of live tarantulas. An installation with dead specimens was therefore created, accompanied by a film showing live spiders. And yet, even when looking at the photographic documentation of this boudoir, one still gets chills down the spine.
It seems as though these large, hairy tarantulas are crawling through a private space – through a bedroom clothed in pink tones, climbing onto the dressing table, frolicking among the jewellery and cosmetics. Their hairy bodies are reflected in the mirror. The hairy bodies of the tarantulas contrast with the smoothness of pearls, the mirror, and the surfaces of the furniture. They crawl out from under the bed, from beneath the clean bedding that would seem almost fragrant. They emerge, then, from the sphere of fantasy, from the realm of warmth and comfort. The place where we find peace, rest and pleasure – that is, the bed – becomes here a contaminated, threatening, even terrifying space.
excerpt from the text Agoraphobia, Arachnophobia and Other Fears. Metaphors of Confinement and Restriction in Women’s Art by Izabela Kowalczyk, Artmix, 2007
