The exhibition BeginningEnd (początekoniec) now on at the National Museum in Wrocław celebrates the work of world-famous Polish artist Stanisław Dróżdż (1939-2009), whose work straddles the boundary between poetry and visual art.

There are more than 40 works on display, from his earliest outings in 1967 in concrete poetry-poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words plays a part in conveying the intended effect-to his last compositions in 2007. This is the first time that Dróżdż's work has been presented to the public here on such a scale.

Dróżdż, who galvanized the concrete movement in the 1970s and 1980s, spent years working alone in this field. He died March 29 this year and never lived to see the opening of this major exhibition in Wrocław, a city with which he was associated for over 50 years.

The exposition follows the creative development of the artist, beginning with early linguistic verses and ending with large-scale creations like Alea Iacta Est, which Dróżdż put together in Venice. Alea Iacta Est uses over 250,000 dice and presents all the 46,656 possible configurations of six dice. Works that use language and figures as their basic building blocks are on display, as are those which manipulate objects and symbols.

The title BeginningEnd is taken from a 1971 poem by Dróżdż and is meant to convey a fascination with language and the problem of time and space, as well as the elusiveness of their beginning and end, that served as his primary source of inspiration. This is a sadly apposite title in light of the artist's recent death, encapsulating as it does the beginning and end of his work.

Until Dec. 6; National Museum in Wrocław, 5 Powstańców Warszawy Sq