Why has gold fired artists’ imaginations for millennia? In the next meeting of the “Art on Temptation” series we will trace its history from antiquity to the present. From the Mask of Agamemnon from Mycenae and the chryselephantine sculptures of Phidias, where gold signified divinity, power and immortality, to the medieval mosaics of Ravenna and the luminous revelations and knowledge in Hildegard of Bingen’s illuminations. We will pause at Art Nouveau, where gold returns in Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann as a sensual ornament, linking the sacred with the bodily and high art with utility.
We will see how the golden background of the icon resonates in the avant‑garde of Natalia Goncharova and the projects of Sonia Delaunay. In the 20th century gold loses its innocence — it becomes a body fetish (Alina Szapocznikow), a carrier of memory and bodily experience (Louise Bourgeois). It allows the confrontation of the tradition of the sacred with the fragility of human and animal bodies — as in works by Yves Klein, Kiki Smith or Maia Kitajewska. Complementing this will be the work of Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst and ceramics inspired by the Japanese kintsukuroi technique, where cracks are highlighted with gold. The meeting will tell the story of a continuous “gold rush” — from the sacred to irony, fetish, memory and repair.
Everything you’d like to know about temptation but were afraid to ask — told in the first person by past and contemporary art. These are stories about great feasts and lands of laziness, tavern brawls and gold rushes, and finally about trysts, betrayals and infatuations. From the works of old masters, through film narratives, to stage creations of major pop stars.
offline: auditorium with audience / free admission
online: broadcast on SDK’s Facebook profile
Translation into Polish Sign Language
Illustration: Alina Szapocznikow “Goldfinger”
