Wicker has a beginning, but no end. It takes over the space. That, after all, is the nature of a thicket. It has no boundaries—framing defines them. When we leave it be, the boundaries fade away again. A thicket is a thicket, is a thicket, is a thicket…— Paweł Grunert

Although tables and cabinets also appeared in his studio, seating—chairs, armchairs, and thrones—held a special place from the very beginning. He gave his early works titles such as “The Crown of Thorns”; he defended part of his diploma thesis in 1990 with honors at the Academy of Fine Arts under the guidance of Teresa Kruszewska, a legend of Polish design. Over time, however, he shifted to a more mathematical approach, labeling his subsequent works with the symbol SIE and numbers—so as not to impose any interpretation. He treated seating not only as a personal subject but also as an element of dialogue with previous generations of artists and designers: a showcase for imagination and skill, but above all an archetype of the domestic landscape with which a person forms an intimate relationship.

Wicker held a special place in his practice—it was “unruly,” as he put it. He didn’t learn to weave it; on the contrary, he took pleasure in unraveling it, in setting it free. He wasn’t interested in the weave or in technical precision. It fascinated him as a mass: stored in warehouses, fragrant after boiling, arranged in tall, dense walls, trimmed and pruned like a hedge, bundled into sheaves resembling country brooms. He spoke of its power, but also of its fragility—of how in one moment it is a monolith, and in the next it disperses and cannot be tamed.

He built his objects out of this contradiction. He juxtaposed wicker with steel, which in his language represented the “techno” aesthetic. He encased the soft in hard frames, combined the warm with the cold, the organic with the industrial. He “infused” everything with a perceptual trap and a structural puzzle that drew viewers into his world, performed—and were completed through the user’s interaction.

“After I die, I will return in the form of a chair” is a tribute to a designer who, for years, remained aloof and uncompromisingly consistent, and who brought about a shift in perspective in Polish design: from designing for control to designing for coexistence. The exhibition focuses on furniture—both historical pieces and those created over the past year—but its aim is to show how, in Grunert’s practice, they cease to be objects and become a transitional state: a moment when matter briefly takes shape before it begins to act according to its own rules once again.