Untitled (cut out)

The work consists of two elements: a vertical black board with the word WYCIĘTE (“cut out”) written in white letters and a horizontal white board (placed on plywood) with the word WYCIĘTE written in black letters; the white board is covered with a glass pane. The letters are cut out of the vertical board made of black paper placed on a white background, revealing their shape as white. The cut-out black letters are placed on the white horizontal board. The meaning of the work is based on tautology (the word wycięte is itself cut out) and on the ambiguity of the word wycięte, which may denote both the empty space left after something has been cut out and the removed fragment itself. In Polish, there is no separate word to distinguish between these two situations, so one term describes something that both “is” and “is not,” which opens a field for metaphysical reflection.