**Kama Zboralska -** "I would like to understand the world as a song about love." It's incredibly romantic, especially in today's times...

**Łukasz Krupski -** Just because I want to understand the world that way doesn't mean the world is actually like that. I have no illusions that the world is filled with pointless suffering and brutal violence. I also have no illusions about human nature. But our thoughts, our will, they matter, and love, which is the good that arises in relationships, is the light in this world. Maximizing this good, which is never against anyone, is the purpose of life. We are talking about sculpture, but life itself—will, interpretation of reality, human thought—is the foundation and prototype of art when a work of art is created. "A Song About Love" is a commentary on the sculpture "Song of Songs" and refers to two cultural patterns. To me, "Song of Songs," one of the most beautiful erotic poems in literature, is a foundational source in our Judeo-Christian culture. There is also a beautiful description of creation in the Hindu Vedic tradition, which says that the world is sung into being. Interestingly, in rock or pop music, most songs by bands like The Beatles, Presley, or Queen are about love and falling in love, whereas sculpture is more often used to convey other themes. This is probably because, for millennia, sculpture had its functions dictated by patrons, religious or state institutions, which had stories to tell society that did not have much to do with falling in love. I think there are many more sculptures on the theme of love waiting for me, many sculptures waiting to be sculpted, to emerge from nothingness...

**- You say that your decisions are final and irreversible. Does this apply to life matters or mainly to the creative process itself?**

Sculpture in stone teaches this hard truth about the irreversibility of time. We know that mistakes from the past can be corrected, but the past is brutally final, and it can never be undone. Sometimes I am tempted to improve old sculptures, but I try not to do it, as they are traces etched in matter, traces of thoughts, feelings that often no longer exist outside the sculpture in which they were enshrined. This is the great power of sculpture—looking at a statue of a Greek goddess from several millennia ago, we can glimpse a piece of the author's soul from times long gone.

**- Until a certain point, you focused on sacred sculpture. How important is religion to you?**

Sacred sculpture obviously has its place in the culture, which, nomen omen, derives from cult, and this is where sacred art has its place. I deeply regret that in contemporary art discourse, it is often impossible to connect sacred art with contemporary art. It is often separated in places of worship. Meanwhile, despite secularization and the crisis of religious institutions in Poland and around the world, the sacred remains a fundamental point of reference for me. And this sacred extends beyond the confines of any single religion. I cannot find meaning in the world by closing myself off only to the material dimension and seek that meaning in the spiritual domain, which is also the domain of art. The "Empty Pietas" cycle, which relates to religious themes, was created when I was in my greatest religious and spiritual void. A work of art, both when I view it as a spectator and when I create it, has this powerful use of generating a reality that I spiritually need. This reality generated in the realm of art has the strength to save life, the meaning of life, and that seems to have been the case for me. The ancient Greeks called this function "catharsis," meaning purification. Sacred literally means m y s t e r y, and here lies a problem with religion (any religion)—it proposes a story, a version of the mystery. Meanwhile, the mystery fundamentally means it is unknown. I mentioned love as an important element of creativity, and this is the second most important. Discovering, struggling for the shape of the mystery is the most important goal of my life and creativity. Unfortunately, it is often a struggle full of pain, emptiness, loneliness, similar to the struggle of Sisyphus, constantly pushing his stone only to undertake the same effort again soon after.

**- Does the dress you bought in Jerusalem, which you wear to work, have a symbolic dimension? Do you believe in its power?**

I do not believe in its power, but I believe in the power of stories. It is my personal story, my assigning meanings to objects. One could say it is a professional quirk because ultimately, sculpting is about creating objects and giving them meanings. I like to create my own private myths. Being in the Holy Land, if I remember correctly, on the Mount of the Beatitudes, I found a simple wooden ring on the ground. It is quite likely that an angel brought it there and that it was a ring connecting me with sculpture, with the world of art. After losing a competition for a monument, I angrily threw it against the wall, and the ring split in two. I am still waiting for the right moment to glue it back together. Giving meanings has significance...
In the Warsaw Cathedral, while working on the Stations of the Cross, I did not want to directly, visibly, show my suffering related to the Smolensk catastrophe, in which my father died. But on one of the plaques, from the inside, I included a branch that I broke off from a shattered birch at the crash site.

**- Another version was “The Birth of Venus,” a rather erotic sculpture... Earthly life can bring pleasure and joy, but shouldn’t we primarily think about ultimate matters?**

This is one of the greatest misunderstandings of Western culture. The separation of spirit and body. This division is very visible in Christian culture but has older sources. St. Paul the Apostle, one of the most important interpreters of Jesus' teachings, and St. John the Evangelist were significantly influenced by Greek thought. It is in Plato that the body is first strongly separated from the spirit. It is then that the tragedy of Eros being expelled from the threshold of the sacred begins. This is, of course, a simplification, but we do not have time here for an in-depth discussion. I disagree with this expulsion of Eros from the threshold of spirituality and express it in my sculpture. An even stronger representation than "The Birth of Venus" is "The Sacred Body." It is my own manifesto in sculpture, an attempt to connect body and spirit. It is a specific sculpture, but I think that this is generally the nature of sculpture, it is a great attempt to combine these two seemingly contradictory realities.

**- Each of your works is surrounded by a metaphysical aura of spirituality. “Enlightenment” has a crack along the entire figure; it is not a "regular" emptiness. It is a mystery, an invitation to reflect on what is important?**

It is one of the attempts to show this spirituality in matter. In sculpture, this is the greatest art because sculpture is the most material of all art forms. It is very difficult because it contains a paradox—how can lumps of clay tell, "sing," how can they express this metaphysical space. For me, the answer is the human being, whose nature expresses precisely this dualistic reality. And this is why sculpture is a challenging but, in my opinion, the closest medium to humans that can serve this reflection, asking questions about one's own nature.

**- According to Buddhism, everything begins with emptiness, which is the beginning of everything... "Cathedral" also draws you into its intriguing interior—the soul exists before our birth and after our earthly death...**

This is true in Buddhism, Hinduism, and many other traditions of spirituality, which over millennia have expressed the human need, our drive to make sense of the reality in which we exist. A good illustration is the figure of Oedipus, which I sculpted in Belgium. Oedipus is a Greek hero, symbolizing the wisest of humans, who, upon learning the truth about his fate, which caught up with him despite fleeing it his whole life, blinded himself at the end of his journey. Similarly, Faust from Goethe's drama, who "stood at the peak of life" blind. Similarly Osiris and Thoth, gods of Egyptian mythology, Odin and Hodur from Norse mythology, Saul, better known to us as St. Paul the Apostle, one of the greatest saints of Christianity, Hindu Dhritarashtra, Buddhist hero, Zen master Huangbo, and many others. Yet all tell the same truth about the necessity of insight into oneself with "inner eyes," the "eyes of the soul." Many of these traditions could not have had contact with each other and often arose independently. There is such a dimension of truth, covered by various stories and myths, that is universal. Today, when almost everything can be explained in scientific terms—love with chemical formulas, human attachment to the sacred with psychosocial conditions—I believe we need a culture and art that reminds us through immortal cultural codes that man and the world itself are "deeper" than they appear. That "the most important things are invisible to the eyes" and that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy."

**- According to Buddhism, wabi-sabi is the feeling of sad beauty evoked by the sight of a decayed, ruined bench, a collapsing column. Does such beauty speak to you?**

But isn't the Venus de Milo, with her missing limbs, more beautiful than when she stood new, polished, in one of the Greek temples? Architecture as a symbol of destruction and resurrection was a leading motif in the Stations of the Cross, which I sculpted in Warsaw Cathedral. Beauty contained in destruction is also brilliantly expressed in Buddhism in the philosophy of zen, which we know in the symbol of the Tao. Life and death, light and darkness, soul and body coexist, arise from each other, are necessary for each other.

**- How do you know if someone's soul is beautiful?**

That's a very difficult question, and the simplest answer is that I don't know. Despite the greatest philosophers contemplating the nature of the soul—Plato wrote about it, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas—I think we cannot fully determine it. We can get close to it, but again we are dealing with the great mystery of man. I believe the spiritual element is indivisible and immortal, and that it is a reality prior to our biological life. Every soul is originally beautiful because it is a being, it exists, but life destroys this nature. I don't want to excuse evil, but all evil comes from somewhere; it results from experienced evil, and it happens that at some point, a soul ceases to be beautiful. Though I want to believe it is never completely so...

**- The canons of beauty change, but can we say that something is objectively beautiful?**

Remember that beauty is an idea. We live in a time when there is not only no consensus on canons of beauty in life and art. There is no longer any agreement that objective principles of beauty can exist, but beauty as a value has been questioned as something art should achieve. Remember also that aesthetic beauty, prettiness, the pleasure of experiencing pleasing aesthetics to the viewer, is one thing, but beauty as an idea, described by Plato as an expression, an image, the embodiment of good, is another concept. Plato's philosophy of ideas tells us about our reality as an imperfect reflection of perfect ideas. Therefore, beauty is unattainable and not fully objectively expressible by humans unless one were a god. I am not, so I cannot objectively present it in sculpture. But I also mention Norwid's philosophy, who in the brilliant poem "Promethidion" contemplates the possibility of reaching beauty and ultimately expresses it in the famous "beauty is the shape of love." Translating Plato, I would say that beauty is the shape of good and truth. Even if it is the peak of Sisyphus' mountain, it is worth dedicating one's creative efforts to struggle for it, reaching for it. It may be the faith of a fool, but I believe it is worth dedicating one's life to this perhaps futile Sisyphian journey.

**- Apparently, "beautiful is not what pleases, but what should please." But who is to decide that?**

You pointed to, in my opinion, the weakest point of Norwid's thought because these are his words. Nowadays, very often the evaluation of art or other cultural values is solved using democratic mechanisms—the majority decides what is beautiful. And I don't know if it's worse when a hundred laypeople or a hundred experts gather to decide this. I have the comfort, as long as I create, that in my world of sculpture, I have absolute "aesthetic judgment power." Of course, it is limited when dealing with a commissioner. But when it is brutally taken from me, as Herbert writes in "The Power of Taste," I turn on my heel and leave.

**- You create very personal portraits of the most important artists and poets for you. You sculpt the faces of Rodin, Michelangelo, Miłosz, Herbert, Norwid... They inspire with their work but also with their personality?**

Not only artists, but also philosophers, or people I know. All these persons inspire and influence various elements of my creativity. A portrait is a form of meeting. The artists you mentioned, I have the opportunity to meet in their works, I have the opportunity to be inspired formally or borrow themes from their works in my sculpture. Sculpting them reminds me that I am a link in a larger whole, a continuity. An exceptional way of meeting is a portrait. In the philosophy of phenomenology, there is a very interesting area called the philosophy of meeting, whose author is Emmanuel Levinas. His thought is better known in Poland through the philosophy of drama by Fr. Józef Tischner. Levinas speaks of meeting "the other" and that the meeting occurs through the face of "the other." It is the face (countenance) that is, at the boundary of physics and metaphysics, the area of meeting. It is in some sense transcendent. Again, I repeat like a mantra that sculpture can have immense power. In sculpture, a portrait allows for several different forms of meeting. I can meet people who have passed away, bring back their presence. Sculpture is a sign of presence and meeting.

**- Your self-portrait is the most moving...**

It's a very difficult meeting, and I think a lifetime is not enough to finally reach oneself, to be able to meet oneself. Every sculpture should, to some extent, be a self-portrait, a meeting with oneself. This self-portrait was created when I was in a very difficult life situation and is a trace of the old me, those feelings.

**- Not only poetry is a source of spiritual feast for you, but philosophy also fascinates you. Immanuel Kant wrote a famous line that you incorporated into one of your sculptures: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” How do you interpret that?**

Kant derives from this "moral law" existing in man a proof of the existence of the absolute. But I actually don't agree with him on this; the formation of our conscience can be explained by social conditions. However, in this most famous line of his philosophy, one can read several truths with which I identify. Firstly, wonder is the beginning not only of seeking truth in philosophy, but for me, it is the first step of the creative process. This brings me closer to the world of philosophy. "The starry heavens above me and the moral law (metaphysical reality) within me" are realities we are discussing, realities I try to bring together in sculpture.
Philosophy has fundamental importance for me from the perspective of sculpture. Sculpture is a kind of mirror of reality, and thus, understanding reality as it is, as it seems to be, as I wish it to be, is the source of sculpture for me. Referring again to Plato, I believe that beauty is necessary for truth and goodness but is also derived from and dependent on them.

**- For you the sheer contact with material, stone, is a mystical experience. A certain magic, creating in a piece of rock torn from nature, hundreds of millions of years ago, which witnessed the "birth of the earth"... You say: "stone teaches humility." A painting can always be repainted. The process of creating a sculpture is extremely labor-intensive, emotional, requiring many sacrifices. Talent alone is not enough; experience, intuition, sensitivity, and countless hours spent in solitude are needed...**

There is a drama written in the creative process that is difficult to understand from the outside because it is a very personal drama and very complex at that. The creative process resembles the process of life viewed a bit through a lens, more intensively. And life is also dying, as in Zen philosophy. And in Christianity, dying is resurrection. I have this feeling, not only in working with stone, that creating is "grinding, burning away." I give my health, my nerves, my deepest emotions to the sculpture. And after such an intense several-month process, I am like a squeezed orange. As if I have given something irretrievably to that piece of matter. I have great respect for that piece of matter, which is in some sense my "sister." My biological matter formed with it, we are both children of a star; our elements formed as a result of the "big bang." And one day I will return my matter to the earth. The hardest part, however, is not the physical but the spiritual, psychological, and social struggle. It is a struggle for "life and death." You will probably accuse me of romanticism again, but believe me, touching one's limits has nothing romantic about it.

**- Sculpture as the only medium of art allows involving the sense of touch. Touching, we think about the artist who struggled with the matter, with themselves. Its uniqueness is evidenced by the fact that a human thought encased in stone might be read by another person. Perhaps it will transfer into the future values more lasting than its own? Is that your dream?**

Preservation lies in the nature of sculpture understood traditionally. But today, in the age of "liquid modernity," as Zygmunt Bauman called it, art should express momentariness, impermanence, and even the fleetingness of values. I am aware that my sculpture is linked to the search for what is lasting. I am aware that sometimes this is a Don Quixote battle with windmills. So if you ask whether it is my dream to discover in sculpture signs more lasting than itself, the answer is both yes and no. It is my deep need to share these discoveries in sculpture with others, but with the caveat that I do not consider my philosophy to be the only true one and rather treat these sculptures as questions than answers. Besides, if sculpture can carry some good, preserve it, and do so beyond the bounds of my biological life, then yes, I dream of such art. And this is yet another almost magical property not just of sculpture but of art in general. Creating a sculpture today alone, I can engage in dialogue and propose a meeting not only with those who are no longer here but with a future human who has not yet existed. Isn't that amazing?

**- Some of your sculptures are blue. According to poet Johann Goethe, the author of the famous "Theory of Colors," this color gives an impression of coldness... it somewhat resembles a shadow.**

I am very much connected to the European painting tradition. Recently, the work of Jerzy Nowosielski has deeply resonated with me. Color is a very important carrier of artistic expression in sculpture, but it is usually the natural color of the material, dependent on the form and natural light. Color added by me, especially the imitation of light on the surface of the sculpture that frees the sculpture's form from natural light, is an art within art that I am continually discovering. I see that this color impacts my emotions and plays a significant role in "directing" the emotions I want the sculpture to evoke, which is why I am exploring this area more and more. Blue, as you say, is indeed somewhat like a neutral shadow, but it depends on the shade. Above all, for me, it is a carrier of a metaphysical aura. Thus, it is again an area of searching for the immaterial within the material.

**- And what color would you describe yourself as?**

Probably navy blue, sapphire, the color of a starry sky. I prefer azure; it is more pleasant, but unfortunately, my color is darker.

**- Sculpture used to be much more appreciated and certainly more popular. Now it is experiencing a crisis, especially the one depicting the human figure. In urban spaces, objects and architectural constructions are now appearing. Is no one willing to take on such challenges?**

Today, traditional sculptors coexist with those expressing themselves through modern means, ready-mades, minimalist installations, and even performances categorized as sculpture today. I have no problem with the use of new means of expression, with contemporary artists seeking a language of art to express the very complicated reality and condition of contemporary humans. If we look at the development of artistic styles throughout history from a higher perspective, we will see that art mirrors man, that we can see what was important and beautiful to people of each epoch at different stages in history. And it seems to me, although our "late grandchildren" will truly judge from a distance, that this contemporary art, so diverse, seeming a mess, sometimes gibberish, shouting, scandalous, is a deep and true reflection of contemporary life. Another thing is that very often, though not always, the art I see in contemporary galleries is simply weak, easy, and is rehashing old ideas. I rarely encounter minimalist sculpture that rivals its prototypes like Brancusi's work; I am rarely impressed by objects that have no inherent aesthetic value, which 50 or 100 years ago had a similar resonance in Duchamp's or Beuys' work. And I certainly consider it impoverishing that alongside these modern means, the galleries do not show work more strongly connected to tradition, also being an expression of contemporary human exploration.

**- It's becoming increasingly difficult to definitively state what is sculpture. Where do the boundaries lie that determine the acceptance of a form as belonging to this field of art?**

Sculpture has become a special area of exploring its boundaries. We face a problem similar to the question of beauty—who today would define "ex cathedra" where its boundaries lie? Sculpture has been pushed to these boundaries by new media, new fields of art, technologies that push its area from within and from without. The functions of sculpture, which defined its area of application, and the institutions that used it, have undergone profound changes. For example, monument sculpture, patronized by the state, had to be transformed after its intense use by totalitarian Germany or communist Russia. In Poland, we are witnessing a continuation of this crisis in new forms. There is no way that the massive and tragic level of commemorating Pope John Paul II or, recently, the victims of the Smolensk Disaster will not lead to a further niche in traditional forms of sculpture practice.

**- Does using sculpture in a computer program and then printing it on a 3D printer take away its authenticity? What about the energy, emotions conveyed in direct contact?**

I think it is crucial here to understand the creative process. And it is primarily a mental process—this is the key. If a tool is used in the technical process to make the work of man more efficient, beyond technological advancement, there is no difference between a 3D printer and the chisels used by the Egyptians 5,000 years ago. Of course, the technology of making a sculpture has a very significant impact on the final effect, its artistic expression, but it is up to the maturity of the artist to use the tools consciously so that the final effect aligns with the intention. We are witnessing a time when technical possibilities can cross the boundary of human authorship of a work of art. I am referring, of course, to artificial intelligence, which touches on that crucial moment of the creative act. We are most likely witnessing the greatest challenges for the art world in the entire history of culture. Will we witness a program replacing the artist, a human defeat in this confrontation, as was the case with the famous chess duel between grandmaster Kasparov and the computer? Well, please keep your fingers crossed for the artists.

**- What is sculpture for you?**

My sculpture? It's me... I cannot separate my life from my sculpture, although sometimes I would very much like to.