127 x 10 x 10 is a sculpture made of used bars of soap strung on a steel cable hung vertically from the ceiling. The cakes of soap of different dimensions, colours and fragrances are threaded sequentially, like beads on a string, to create a narrow column of soap measuring 127cm long and a maximum of 10cm wide, from which the work’s title is derived. The soaps are eroded to varying degrees – some are so thin, they have almost vanished, and others are virtually whole.
Balka first used soap as a material in an installation he presented in the Polish Pavilion at the XLV Venice Biennale of 1993. The large amount of soap coating the walls of the Polish Pavilion in 1993 emitted a powerfully evocative smell; in a similar way, 127 x 10 x 10 emits an aroma familiar to everyone through the common experience of washing themselves. Balka relates the thinnest slivers of soap in 127 x 10 x 10 to the cells of our skin, which we shed daily. Soap is part of our most intimate of daily rituals, as once was ash, the remnants of a fire in the hearth or under a stove. Balka grew up in Otwock, a former health resort not far from Warsaw that became a Jewish ghetto in 1940; around 15,000 Jews were liquidated there and in the nearby death camp Treblinka in 1942 by the Nazi regime. For him, soap, like ash has a more sinister meaning. He has explained:
Using materials and forms to which serious concepts have accrued, such as ashes for instance, springs from very quotidian needs. Heating the house, for example. These humble actions become very significant at a certain point. Removed from its proper setting, ash from an ash-pan obtains a different meaning, takes on an abstract quality. A broader, historical perspective of interpretation can paradoxically narrow down the idea. In Catholic Poland, for instance, where there is only one operational crematorium, ashes are almost universally associated with incinerating bodies in concentration camps. Soap is automatically associated with making soap out of human fat in the camps. The normal, hygienic use of soap is less apparent.
(Quoted in Mirosław Bałka: Revisión 1986–1997, pp.142–3.
Balka uses height, gravity, distance, and continuous space in order to approach the necessity of understanding remembrance and memory itself. He brings the viewer in to a position of experience and absorption and as less of an observer and more of a witness. Realizing the importance behind sculptures relative to monuments and memorials, embracing fear and crossing thresholds, approaching an infinite search; whether it is to escape, or find the missing pieces/letters in order to reach an understanding. Balka creates a space where it is pertinent to acknowledge what it means to remember.