Walerian Borowczyk: The Listening Eye, ICA

Coinciding with a season of his baroque feature films at the BFI, a selection of paintings, drawings and animations by the Polish avant-garde artist and filmmaker, Walerian Borowczyk, are on show in the Fox Reading Room at the ICA.  Borowyczyk’s dark, erotic oeuvre is substantial, but unfortunately know by very few in the UK, so it is a true triumph that the Polish Cultural Institute in London have managed to bring this eccentric genius to a wider audience.

Borowczyk was one of many Polish film makers to move to Paris in the mid twentieth century – the cosmopolitan refuge of the European avant-garde – in order to escape Soviet censors. There he met experimental electronic composer Bernard Parmegiani, with whom he later collaborated. Parmegiani's music for Borowczyk's animationLes Jeux des Anges (The Games of Angels) is based on an original chant from the Polish concentration camps, and beautifully complements the laconic charm of the film. 

This small but perfectly formed exhibition shows how Borowczyk's training in painting and sculpture informed his later film making, and includes Jeux des Anges alongside rarely seen preliminary artwork. Coupled with the exhibition is a rare opportunity to see Borowczyk's short films in the intimate setting of the ICA cinema on the 24th and 25th of May. Once again, the ICA is offering us a rare chance to learn a little more about an under-appreciated creative mind; we highly recommend that you take up the invitation.