Before material becomes a sculpture, it is first an idea, a drawing, a form and a tool, and at each of these stages something in it changes. It twists and tightens, bends and shrinks as it is worked, settles differently from what was intended and can surprise at an unexpected moment.

Krzysztof Renes works in this gap between idea, tool and material. In making his sculptures he draws on traditional and industrial techniques, where dimensions are given with a tolerance, which is to say that it is admitted in advance that accuracy has its limits. The human figure, around which he has built his practice, is for him a sign in space. Its proportions can be calculated, while its meaning is left to the viewer.

The exhibition’s title refers to a notion that means different things in different fields. In physics and engineering, a measure of uncertainty is a number written beside a result, a margin that can be precisely determined. Since Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, we also know that in the world of particles uncertainty arises from the very nature of things. In the humanities it does not take the form of a number. The historian weighs the reliability of a source and accepts that some documents have been lost or were never written down. The psychologist describes how people make decisions without full knowledge. One name thus covers experiences that in one case can be calculated and in another only described. The same lack of certainty halts one person and sets another in motion.

Life without it would be strangely flat. If we knew in advance how a conversation would end, we would never begin it. Curiosity, courage, and trust in oneself and in others are born of uncertainty.

In art this is especially beautiful. There is practically no exactness in it. No one can calculate precisely what emotions a given work will arouse in its audience, and no one can be one hundred percent sure of the final result. Uncertainty also accompanies the act of creation itself.

The way Krzysztof Renes works on his sculptures, and the way this exhibition came into being, leaves questions open until the last moment. The artist then hands the work over to viewers, who will see in it something he may not have foreseen. Each person brings to the sculptures their own measure: their height, their memory, their way of looking. The result of each measurement will therefore be slightly different.