Private collection
Igor Mitoraj was raised in Poland, without father, in the midst of extreme poverty, but in a loving and protective nest. He managed to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow and subsequently he left for Paris. His wanderings in Mexico and Greece convinced him that the way of expression befitting him best was sculpture. However, the success and financial prosperity he enjoyed following many tough years he came through did not help him to heal his childhood wound.
Mitoraj considered his work as “an aesthetic, plastic expression of suffering, of the lack of communication between people and the difficulty of living”. The bandages, which can take the form of both small pieces of fabric and whole sheets, implement in marble, bronze or terracotta this intentional isolation, this alienation. Mitoraj’s view of humanity can then seem pessimistic, caustic, even cruel. But the deep empathy that enlivens these fragments of human bodies – whether it is indifferently about heads, arms or legs - shows instead that the artist is guided by a hypersensitive humanism and tirelessly seeks to idealise this estrangement making us so fragile and so strong at the same time.
Apart from the size and the number of copies, few differences seem to be perceptible at first between Eclipse and Secret Head. These two completely wrapped heads seem to hide the same secrets, share the same mystery. Nevertheless, Secret Head presents a crucial part that has eluded regular swathing: mouth. Slightly open, it gives a touch of humaneness to the rest of the figure, who seems asleep. As for the Eclipse, it is a subject frequently repeated by the artist, both in marble and bronze. The bandage fold, looser than that of Secret Head, shows Mitoraj’s care for the rendering of the folds, a work requiring precision, diligence and effort.
