An Extension of the Life of Mankind (1974–1976) shows the Earth inscribed within the vitalising space of a pyramid, the latter formed by laser beams emitted by five satellites orbiting geosynchronously with the planet around the Sun.

The Sun Sculpture (1972–1976), in turn, is a blueprint for an installation in the form of a pipe cut along its length. The mirror-lined interior of the sculpture focuses the light of the sun or the glow of the moon, and the refracted rays shine on a translucent sheet inserted into the central part of the structure.

Neither of these two conceptual projects, sketched on graph paper and presented in 1976 as part of the artist’s application for West Berlin’s DAAD grant, has ever been realised.

Decades later, they can be seen as a reaction to other artistic utopias and initiatives aimed at conquering the elements for the purposes of art.

The striving to reach a cosmic dimension, or to act as an advocate of the inexpressible in the arts, is also present in a much later concept, titled Pure Light, Pure Love, Pure Death (1995): the installation allows to immerse one’s senses in infinite depths of the colours white, red, and black, symbolising respectively the light of birth, the heat of love, and the nothingness of death.

Written by Krzysztof Siatka