Tabula Rasa 

Like all of Polivka’s work, several key components were installed for maximum theatrical effect. White vinyl lettering on a black wall stated in Latin, “And so on, onto Infinity.” A display of shapes based on Crussel’s instructions had been carved from wood, dusted with white plaster of Paris, and bisected by golden lines. The shapes were wired to an antique film projector showing a film made by physically scratching and gouging the celluloid surface. In this context, the film projector looked like an idol to worship. A double-sided display

hung from the ceiling, covered with symbols related to cosmology, alchemy, mysticism, anarchism, numerology, and metaphysics.

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On the other side of it, a schoolroom blackboard, an allusion to Tadeusz Kantor’s bleak but beloved play, The Dead Class. On the chalkboard — an archetypal topos of childhood — Polivka inscribed what appear to

be notes from a lecture on Divine Harmony, embellished by a chalky diagram from the bowels of Robert Flood’s book on Theosophy and the Kabala. These marks could easily be overlooked, consistent with Polivka’s insistence on showing “that which is barely noticed, and thus not seen.” The casual gallery goer might not realize that the display of empty tea pots sealed with red wax set in a showcase composed an allusion to the Parable of the Ten Virgins; nor could the viewer be expected to follow Polivka’s thinking as he links the blank slate of emptiness to the Hermetic philosophers, navigating their way through an endless maze, uncovering one secret leading to another, until they arrive at a final truth, culminating in Umberto Eco, Arthur Danto and Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box.