Recreating archetypal forms that stray from normal function and whose shapes are further distorted while they lose their original meaning, Kaczynski’s work examines the unstable nature of house and home, and the fragility of our perceived status and security. Essential elements of civic and domestic architectural vernacular are distilled and stylized. Would-be defenses, guard rails, signs, and canopied shelters examine our relationship to symbolic objects and all that they promise.
The work is best described by the word unheimlich, which literally means Not Homely; and refers to those things that should offer safety and comfort yet do the opposite. The uncanny is a thread that runs through much of the work and is rooted in Kaczynski’s past. Raised in a community of refugee Holocaust survivors, the work reflects the residue of that history, where permanence and stability were seen as fleeting and not to be trusted.
While observing Kaczynski’s sculptures and accompanying drawings, one can trace the mechanism of distortion to the concept of reverse perspective. The term was popularized at the turn of the 20th century as a way to rationalize and understand the geometry underpinning icon painting and the art of the early Renaissance period. Reverse perspective is generated using multiple points of view, not unlike Cubism. However, unlike Cubism, the reverse perspective goes one step further. It solidifies the resulting shapes, as if bringing divergent viewpoints into a single position. The resulting geometry is imbued with the dynamism of fractured perception, and in effect, the psychological tension is transferred to the viewer, dislodging the observer from the fixed viewing position.
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