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lokal_30
We Would Like You To Know That We Are Not Them

Whether I’m painting or not, I have this overweening interest in humanity. Even if I’m not working, I’m still analyzing people.
Kasimir Malevich

Creating a video art exhibition that focuses on the artist’s image and intrinsic self-commentary seems to be a very special task. A piece of art appears to be here a vehicle for remarkable, almost direct encounter of the viewer with the artist.

In the exhibition We Would Like You To Know That We Are Not Them, the artists each show the world from a very distinctive outlook; they adopt the roles of an actor, narrator, commentator or collector of the images of reality, which they witness together with the public. Therefore, they enable us to find themselves in the situations/images which they have created for us.

People mostly tend to put an equation sign between the artist and his/her artwork. However, history shows that this relation has evolved in time. Nowadays, the artist rarely has anything in common with the archetype of the romantic creator held by the power of whimsical inspiration. Among the new roles, one can point out a role of a social critic, and even a kind of intermediary who connects philosophy, anthropology and even sciences with the real fabric of the world.  Furthermore, the artist adopts with increasing frequency, managerial responsibilities of production processes. Consequently, masterhood in the arts is getting abandoned; it results in simple amateur camera shots and homemade video sequences. Simple form and documental features win over creativity and artificiality of film craftsmanship.

One of the most important strategies in contemporary art appears to be the strategy of incarnation, i.e. playing roles which are a kind of simulacrum of real acting. As a result of this strategy, artworks of great authenticity and honesty have been created, strict and rigid, when compared to the other areas of arts, where artists often are trying to astonish or charm the viewer. In these cases, the artist does not charm and does not flirt with the public. Instead, they incorporate themselves into the situation and by their very presence emphasise the meaning of the situation.

Additionally, what should be seen in this context is a need of the artist to experience the world that has been given to them - as if it was not enough for the artist to be an artist; as if it was necessary for them to compensate for the vague status of the contemporary artist by playing an identifiable role of being someone else - a she-boxer, or a romantic heroine from a black and white movie.

In this context, the works of artists who use a technique of introducing their image in already existing films seem particularly interesting. An almost literal instance is the work by Anna Baumgart (3). In her video Prawdziwe? (True?) (2001) by applying the ‘found footage’ technique, she becomes a heroine in the movie by Michail Kalatozov The cranes are flying (1957). [Walter Benjamin is worth citing in this context: "illusion of a movie is a second degree illusion - an outcome of editing." (Tworca i Wytworca, Poznan 1975; orig. ed.: Geschichtsphilosophische Thesen)]. Here, the artist takes advantage of movie technology to edit her own image in place of the actress’. The whole video lasts less than three minutes and presents a dramatic quarrel of lovers. They cannot love each other; the man loves the fiancée of his own brother who went to war but she refuses his advances by crying “niet, niet, niet”. Isn’t it an ultimate heyday of girls’ dreams about being adored and desired by men? But, by mere fact of editing her own face into the famous film product, the artist approaches and fulfils her own dreams of fame, beauty and admiration. In her work, Baumgart critically analyzes how the media influence our imagination. It is thanks to imagination and its internal working patterns. She concludes by default that we can escape at least for a while from reality to become a romantic lover and a movie star.

Another artist to explore the theme of dreams of being somebody else appears to be Zuzanna Janin (2). Her work Walka (Fight)/I Love You Too (2001) consists of a video recording of the fight between the artist and the professional heavy-weight boxer.  One of the important stages of this project was to contact the sportsman and convince him to participate. The next stage consisted of long training sessions to get the artist ready for the fight, and ‘become a boxer’. The clash of contrasts seems to be one possible interpretation of this artwork, but, of course, not the only one. It also can be perceived as a metaphorical presentation of day-by-day struggling with the weaknesses of the artist herself, with the reality of the world, and lastly, as a presentation of clash between the artist and the audiences, both in the media and in society. Zuzanna Janin has put herself in her Fight in the ‘leading lady role’ of the ‘media artist’. This artist is not afraid of the confrontation with the audiences, and has no fear before incarnation into the role of unusual devotion and obstinacy. A large curtain is included in the video work to both surround the performance and also act as a screen on which the ‘Fight’ is projected.

Karol Radziszewski (4), a young artist, publisher and editor of the gay artzine DIK Fagazine, has had challenges of a somewhat different kind to overcome. Usually, he invites his family to take part in his projects. By doing so, he creates a twofold image of himself: a young artist after coming out, consistent in his actions with his preferences on the one hand; and on the other, he appears to be a loving son and grandson, having his close relatives always in mind. As an instance, his grandmother, always ready to support him, often takes part as a leading character in his videos. In Chwalcie laki umajone (Praise the Lord, flowered meadows) (2007) Radziszewski appears as a singer to record, together with his grandmother, a video clip of traditional religious chant. To encounter a rebellious youngster with a devout old lady is not only the game and clash of contraries, but also a critical look at tradition, the unnatural adoption of devout patterns of behaviour, and burdensome restrictions imposed on the culture by religious upbringing. Once again, Radziszewski has created a situation of non-obviousness connected with the essence of the relation between himself and the characters of his works.

Only seemingly less complex are the interactions between characters and authors in works by Elodie Pong (6), a Swiss of American origin, and Jasmina Wójcik (5) from Warsaw. In their projects both women take the roles of interviewers/record-keepers; they aim to direct the conversation and to have control of the discussion to be recorded in their para-documentary videos. Looking at the works of Pong and Wojcik, one cannot escape the questions: to what extent do the authors embody their roles?; Did the conversation appear to be a kind of therapy? And if so, for whom? Jasmina Wójcik in her video Samsara (2009) tries to enter the world of a lonely old woman. Asking simple questions, she provokes answers that reveal the woman’s retreat into the banality of everyday life, petty actions and reminiscences from the past. Despite her attempts, the artist is not able to help the woman, who becomes increasingly isolated from society, obsessed with a missing vase or a sum of money, supposedly hidden by ‘him’, a spiteful man of the lonely woman’s imagination. ‘He’ makes her last moments in life unbearably bitter. The movie ends with a shocking confession of the woman: “There is no way. And I’m constantly in this state of despair. I’m worthless now”.

In her video Secrets for Sale (2003-5), Elodie Pong takes a more ambiguous role than Jasmina Wojcik. Pong’s interviewees have to go through a number of stages in her ’system’ which comprises of coming in to the studio, taking a decision to sell a secret of his/her own, signing a contract, revealing the secret in front of the camera, and then selling the secret to the artist/producer/interviewer for the amount offered. In this way, Pong creates an unusual collection of three hundred secrets. These secrets range from dreams of buying elephant skin couches to ones with more sinister undertones of child abuse. Though an  incredibly intimate experience for her subjects, the artist tries to remain coldly professional, and to fulfil all formal conditions so that her ’system’ would work without interruptions.

The situation is quite different for the artists who are taking on the role of narrator. The voice over, giving comment to a movie, is a factor which makes a video work similar to a documentary film. The main difference between these two consists of the lack of certainty: is the artistic video which we are looking at a totally fictional, recorded reality or a kind of conditioned reality?

Józef Robakowski’s (1) film records the view from his kitchen window. From My Window (1978 - 1999) appears seemingly indifferent yet the author’s commentary about the changes which occurred in Poland during the period subject to the narration seems authentic and highly moving. By using simple camera techniques, Robakowski transposes private things into public problems. He convincingly shows how misleading the view that history and politics do not affect private lives is. According to Debord, “history […] arises as something alien to people, as something they never sought and from which they had thought themselves protected.” (Debord G., Society of the Spectacle, Rebel Press, London, 1983, p.75.) Who knows what the actual dimension of an event or political rally or even an everyday activity is? He is an artist who, by looking “through the eyes of the camera”, can attain a standpoint to lead a narration. As Walter Benjamin puts it: “[...] for today’s man, presentation of reality in a movie is much more important, since, thanks to a profound overwhelming by the technical devices, it reflects non-technical aspects of reality; the viewer is authorized to expect this from the piece of art” (Tworca i Wytworca, Poznan, 1975; orig. ed.: Geschichtsphilosophische Thesen).

Tomasz Kozak (7), a video artist, painter and academic teacher. In Lekcja Jogi (Yoga Lesson) (2007) reveals he reveals himself as an erudite artist-narrator. This video, similarly to the rest of the artist’s work, is produced by using ‘found footage’ method. Scenes from the classic entertainment movies have been confronted here with natural history film sequences, as well as with porn movies. Masterfully selected and edited shots have been complemented with music and spoken text taken from the Polish modernist writer Tadeusz Micinski. A controversial notion developed by Micinski is that of ‘Indian Poland’. Kozak comments “The popular Arian mythology of the 19th century was then anthropologically subverted, and politically and ethically compromised. And now, unexpectedly, this set of ideas appears to be only seemingly obsolete! What the Arian mythology has once argued, nowadays can easily be illustrated by the sequences from such super productions like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. In this context, the conclusion of ‘Lekcja Jogi’ sounds somewhat disturbing - that contemporary culture has forgotten the most tragic moments of modern history. Or, even worse, in spite of remembering, it carelessly makes use of this memory to play with the ideas which are responsible for historical disasters”.

Norman Leto (8) also takes on the role of narrator and guide within a virtual reality made by himself. His narrated video Buttes Monteaux (2009) (30 mins) is part of a forthcoming full-length feature film and book to be published. The artist confesses his sickness of reality, fact and tangibility. He guides us through 3D visualizations which look as if they were real. It is not a surreal world of computer games, full of naive kitsch aesthetics and narration. It is a kind of minimalistic documentation of a digital environment, which tiny delegates ‘live’ in; these are entities of artificial intelligence, programmed by Leto, moving along their own routes. Isn’t it, then, a ‘precession of simulacra’, as well as “models of a real without origin or reality: a hyper real” mentioned by Baudrillard as far back as in 1981? (Baudrillard J., Simulacra and Simulation, The University of Michigan Press, Michigan, 1994). Although Leto defies calling his work an animation, and does not need a camera to make record of dimensions created by him, he, nevertheless, should be ranked among the protagonists of the video art and new media.

Warsztat Formy Filmowej (The Workshop of Film Form) in Lodz (1970 - 1977) was a cradle of Polish video art, with Jozef Robakowski as one of founding fathers. This group had a focus on analyzing the medium, making formal experiments, and trying to implement the advances of film technology into the contemporary arts. In the 90’s, video art succeeded in gaining significance on the Polish arts scene because of critical art accomplishments. Today it is getting a predominant place among arts whilst simultaneously, becoming an increasingly more hybrid art form i.e. pure video is vanishing. More often, a video stands for a part of a larger project/installation, a record of action/performance, takes a form of found footage or computer simulation. By taking a curatorial approach to the relation between an artist and his/her artwork, the exhibition We Would Like You To Know That We Are Not Them enables us to have a closer look into different forms and strategies, how to visualize the world through the video art; since this art activity can be seen as an instrument of cognition with respect to both reality and arts.

Agnieszka Rayzacher
lokal_30

The City. Between Architecture and Catastrophe

… should we not build only that which is magnificent enough to be worth destroying.

Jean Baudrillard The Spirit of Terrorism. Requiem for the Twin Towers

zuzanna janin

lokal_30 is an artistic space situated in the centre of Warsaw, on the mythic Foksal street, right next to two symbols of the absurd: the bombastic Stalinist Palace of Culture, and an artificial palm set up at the intersection of two of the city’s major avenues by the contemporary sculptor Joanna Rajkowska. The proximity of these landmarks has helped shape our exhibition programme and select the artists we work with: our chief interest is in  the way contemporary art exists in its present-day surroundings. An important part of our activity are pro_vocations, meetings at which selected works of art are discussed by artists, art critics and intellectuals representing various fields of expertise. A topic of particular interest to us is the city as a metaphor of the modern world. Networks, speedy communication, harsh rules of the game, the constant state of threat, death as media spectacle all make up the Baudrillardian simulacrum in which we live. Our world is stretched between architecture, symbolising the order and harmony of humanist values and technology, and catastrophe: the breakdown of the corporate system at the mercy of a handful of fanatics armed with homemade explosive devices.

anna baumgart

Their “media success” is the subject of works by Anna Baumgart. Her dramatic, formally faultless and realistic sculptures Bombowniczka [Bomberess] (2004) and Veronika A.P. (2006) were inspired by tragic events in the news. Are they about reality or merely the visions of it our minds are fed daily?

tomasz kozak

Mental terror is also the subject of found footage films by Tomasz Kozak such as his 2003 video Inversus Monastery. Roaming through the repository of national symbols and myths, the artist brings to light awkward and unwanted images repressed by the collective memory. The process whereby the medium becomes the message is addressed by the young painter Laura Pawela whose paintings are an attempt at materialising the immaterial, simulated world of the electronic media (Error: colour, 2005, 500 Zloty Budget, 2005). A desperate attempt to find meaning where there is none: on the computer screen or a cell-phone display.

jan mioduszewski

Painter and performer Jan Mioduszewski has found way to “function in the city” – during his performances (Wall. Still performance, 2005) he merges with architecture by donning an outfit that imitates its components. This artistic mimicry allows him cope with the permanent state of threat we are forced to live in.

piotr kopik

Another kind of shelter is sought by painter Piotr Kopik in his installation Jest pewne wyjście [There Is a Certain Way Out] (2005). The artist proposes a new mode of survival: moving into a home/shelter made of garbage, a metaphorical rendering of a psychological and social situation, as well as an expression of the desire for a real, physical and tangible world as opposed to virtual reality.

karolina zdunek

With their excellent technique, the paintings of Karolina Zdunek recall the somewhat forgotten world of Modernist architecture which, along with Socialist Realism and haphazard contemporary architecture, defines the Polish urban landscape. Its idealised facades, immaculate planes, and precise solids make up an impossible architecture  unmarred by human aggression (Wnętrze. [Interior] Blok2, Korytarze [Corridors], 2006).

jozef robakowski

The nestor of Polish video art Józef Robakowski in Widok z mojego okna, [View from my Window] (1975 – 2006) tells a quasi-local story seen through an individual perspective – that of the artist who comments on events taking place outside his window as he films them from inside his flat In his story the Modernist building he lives in becomes conspicuous through its absence – we know it exists, sense its presence, but are unable to see it as, together with the artist, it is on the other side of the lens, which makes it the eye/narrator of Robakowski’s film. “The violence of globalism,” Jean Baudrillard writes, “is also made apparent in architecture, in the effort put into living and working in sarcophagi of glass, steel and concrete. The effort with which one dies in them cannot be distinguished from the effort it takes to live in them.”

zuzanna janin

Works by Zuzanna Janin focus on the in-between of architecture-individual-memory. Her Miasta Cmentarze. Town. Cemetries (2004), she presents maps of the cities where houses and streets are exchange into the white, cleen squers of the prints on which we can only see the land of cemetries of Warsaw, Paris, Berlin, London. In her video installation (Widziałam…/I’ve Seen…) she depicts death as an media event in an urban setting that we remember for as long as the coverage lasts. At the same time Janin tries to simulate absence so as to witness the ceremony of departure played out in the architecture of an urban cemetery – a rite that is hidden, shameful, and dismissed by the present-day cult of youthfulness. She shows the catastrophe of the media’s image of death which occludes its true nature while remarking the potential of the cultural and religious concept of “remembrance” and “surviving” after death.

The sociologist and historian of culture Zygmunt Bauman has observed that all modern life is urban. The city: its aesthetics and lifestyle, the crises and conflicts taking place within its bounds have become our only point of reference. It is here that we create our artificial paradises, this is where we find inspiration, this is where we die. This is also where we create the culture without which our city existence would be restricted to consumption and logistics. For us, culture is a process of dialogue and an escape from intellectual complacency. Culture is a provocation put up against institutionalised global reality.

a.r._lokal_30

Warszwa, 04.2006

lokal_30, Warsaw Take Over
YOU CAN’T COME CLOSER
curated by Agnieszka Rayzacher
Thursday 2nd November 2006 6.30-9.30pm 2006
Live Performance & video installations
3rd November 2006 open 12-6pm
Anna Baumgart • Zuzanna Janin • Anna Janczyszyn • Anna Konik • Laura Pawela • Józef Robakowski • Live performance with Sedzia Glowny (Aleksandra Kubiak&Karolina Wiktor)

Sunday 5th November 12.00-2.00pm Breakfast with lokal_30

‘You Can’t Come Closer’ presents video-works of Polish artists which build intimate narration dealing with various emotional states or social situations. What binds these works together is the revisiting of Poland’s video & film making tradition using the human body as a means of communication. These new video-works will be accompanied by a live performance on the opening night by Sedzia Glowny Group, Aleksandra Kubiak and Karolina Wiktor who have been collaborating with each other for the past 5 years . They explore the borders of physical endurance and possibilities of emotional intimacy between each other. Taking over Cell Project Space lokal_30 will inhabit the gallery for 4 days, recreating the atmosphere of their intriguing and intimate space back in Poland.

jozef robakowski

Poland has built a long tradition of avant-garde filmmaking and video work alongside some of the most extreme examples of performance and actionist works. This form of structuralism is evoked in Jozef Robakowski’s work ‘My Video Masochisms’. Since the 60s Robakowski has used the camera to register actions made on or with his own body. However rather than an impassive documentation, it explores possibilities of transferring physical aspects by interacting with and involving the video camera as a tool.

anna janczyszyn jaros

Another documentation of artistic action is the more recent video work ‘Off the City’ of Anna Janczyszyn, who measures the city by crawling on its pavements. Crawling is a symbol of ‘the debase’ and best describes humiliation, but for Janczyszyn it also functions as a process of catharsis.

zuzanna janin

The pervading faces of three women in Zuzanna Janin’s video ‘In Between’ are a kind of video-confession. Using members of her family, the artist has built a type of saga and a narration without an ending. These ‘talking heads’ are presented on an ordinary TV set in the privacy of a domestic space. The spectator is invited to sit cosily on the sofa and to take part in this family ‘talk-show’.

anna konik

Equally intimate there is a connection with the protagonists of Anna Konik’s video ‘Transparency’. The artist breaks their loneliness by employing the double projection as if to falsifying the situation – the monologue of one elderly character is played simultaneously to create a simulated dialogue. Konik introduces us into the intimate universe of her protagonists and at the same time she makes us the confidants of their memory.

anna bumgart

Anna Baumgart’s video ‘Truth’ is a film-footage from a Russian melodrama ‘Flying Cranes’ (dir. Michail Kaltoziszwili), the winner of ‘The Golden Palm’ at Cannes Festival in 1958. At the moment of a classic scene of a quarrel between two lovers, the protagonist’s face is replaced by the artist’s replacing herself as the romantic heroine. This seamless manipulation of film montage misleads as Anna Baumgart slips in and out of the narrative; an attempt to link the real and fictitious, highlighting the futility of making tangible aspirations of romantic love.

This bridging between the tangible and non-tangible is built by Laura Pawela in ‘My Talent Insurance’. Pawela resolves to visit underwriters of large insurance companies to apply for the possibility of insuring her talent as an artist. The video, which documents this research is realised by a hidden surveillance camera. ‘Its bland matter of fact ness’ reinforces the authenticity of the research.

grupa sedzia glowny

Sedzia Glowny, Aleksandra Kubiak and Karolina Wiktor who collaborate as a performance group will interact with the event and the audience on the opening night.

Agnieszka Rayzacher
Cell Project, London, November 2006

Executed from resources of Minister of Culture and National Heritage
Promotion of Polish Culture Abroad