Because I’m pretty when I cry exhibition at Labirynt Gallery, 2025
curated & text by Mateusz Włodarek
picture by Szymon Sokołowski
Mixed emotions and conflicting desires – fear intertwined with desire, hope interwoven with despair – become a starting point for Kacper Tomaszewski’s reflection on tears as a catalyst for experience.
Tears? Fleeting droplets of chaos, emerging from the depths of our being, flowing down the face like a material record of emotion.
Jack Katz, author of How Emotions Work, notes that crying – though widespread – remains a surprisingly unexplored area. This gap inspires Tomaszewski, who, in his latest works, examines how people come to terms with this uncontrolled act. Tears become, for him, a key to understanding the internal tensions and contrasting feelings present in our everyday lives.
Drawing on his personal experiences of working with grief, and borrowing the title of the exhibition from a song by Lana Del Rey, the artist sees tears as magical streams. Spontaneous and independent of will, they resemble a primal ritual of nature. Transparent, almost invisible, yet full of brilliance – when juxtaposed with raw steel – cold, hard, unyielding – used in Tomaszewski’s latest works, they take on a new meaning. They become symbols of tension and its release, of delicacy and strength, of fragility and perseverance. As Lana sings: Because I’m pretty when I cry.
The exhibition features drawings made with black, silver, and purple pencil. Purple – a symbol of magic and spirituality – gives the tears an additional dimension. The quotes from pop culture that appear in the works are an attempt to tame sadness and difficult emotions, which are an inseparable part of our experience. Alongside the drawings are steel plates with engravings, acting like mirrors – reflecting both emotions and the ways they are expressed in public space. Tomaszewski poses the question of where privacy ends and the need to share one’s tears with others begins.
Among the presented works is also an installation composed of heavy, organic forms inspired by stones and cold steel, interpenetrating one another. It is a fountain of emotions, referencing the words of Ovid: Hades is full of tears.
The exhibition is accompanied by a soundscape composed by Staś Czekalski.