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Paweł Althamer

Myśliciel (The Thinker), 2016

The sculpture with the title Myśliciel (The Thinker) a life size representation of a naked man lost in thought, is presumably a self-portrait. The sculpture reflects the artist's interest in the mythology and cosmology of the Dogon people, an indigenous ethnic group he encountered during his travels to Mali beginning in 1991 and again in 2009. The creation of The Thinker was a result of a long-term collaboration with local sculptor Youssoufa Dara, who made the Dogon wooden figures defined by pronounced angles that seems to emerge from the muddy mass. The body is made from cow dung; closer examination reveals small, wooden, carved figures, reminiscent of African art, on the arms, legs and backbone.

The transposition of this utterly Western motif, which was popularized by Auguste Rodin, into an African language of forms in combination with the non-presence of the organ needed for thought, appears to question the Western concept of thinking and hence of our perception of the world around us.