Having employed the form of a large plain dot since the seventies (e.g. Album II A, 1972, or Falling Points, 1985), the artist revisited the idea in the extensive series Points of No Return, developed since 1992.

Arrangements of circles of varying sizes, juxtaposed with a handwritten aphorism which frequently occupied a large portion of the work, render the phrase the point of no return.

The series revolves around abstract yet allusive depictions of the stage at which it is impossible to stop an already initiated process, or to prevent or avoid its consequences. Thus a polemical stance has been taken towards the relativity of experiencing and representing reality — or fact versus delusion, for that matter—and a remark has been made, laced with irony, about the logic of the historical development of art.

Points of No Return, akin to other works by Dunikowski-Duniko which aimed at capturing the essence of a specific process in a given time (e.g. Moment Art) or how the intricate rules governing it are created (e.g. New “New” Revolution), share the formula of disinformation through the use of misleading labels: the red series bears the title Blue Points of No Return (1998); the yellow one, Pink Points of No Return (1992); and so forth. The idea has undergone further transformations, and its reiterations made after 1998, constituting the subseries Stories of Points of No Return, exhibit often grotesque anecdotes involving the points themselves.

Written by Krzysztof Siatka