Introduction

The exhibition XXL is the second exhibition of Tomasz Kręcicki's works under this title. It had its premiere last September at the BWA in Tarnow. At the Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola - the institution co-producing XXL - the exhibition was scheduled to open in July this year. However, the situation has changed, making the Stalowa Wola version of the exhibition significantly different from the Tarnów one. This is not just about the different context in which the second installment of the exhibition takes place. This is because the Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola has gathered paintings, only some of which were previously shown in Tarnów. However, the theme and subject matter of Tomasz Kręcicki's paintings have not changed fundamentally. XXL is therefore an exhibition about size, understood literally and figuratively, and focuses on the characteristic motifs of the artist's work and the problems and issues he continues to work through, the most important of which are: scale, realism, wit, masculinity, as well as the aesthetics of American road movies, Ed Ruscha's paintings and shoegaze music.

The exhibition is accompanied by the first - published by the Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola and BWA in Tarnow - monograph of the artist tautologically titled The Book. It contains essays interpreting Tomasz Kręcicki's work, statements about his painting by artists befriending him, as well as a short story by Lukasz Zawada.