Jarosław Kozłowski. Quotation Marks

edited by bożena czubak texts by rené block bożena czubak sabine folie cristina freire alicja kępińska ewa mikina luiza nader piotr piotrowski russell radzinski szymon wróbel

JAROSŁAW KOZŁOWSKI Quotation Marks

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introduction bożena czubak 171

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quotation marks jarosław kozłowski in conversation with bożena czubak continuum

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exercises in sovereignty on the works by jarosław kozłowski from the sixties and seventies luiza nader 1967–1977

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les mots et les choses sabine folie books

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drawing in the spaces of the mind alicja kępińska drawings

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the conceptual impulse ewa mikina sketches

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the show rené block mythologies of art mythologies of reality

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either thinking or art szymon wróbel time declensions

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on the dismissal of the signified piotr piotrowski objects

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man thinking russell radzinski the use of painting

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recycled news bożena czubak non-truths / non-lies

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INTRODUCTION Bożena Czubak

Quotation Marks is an attempt to talk about Jarosław Kozłowski’s artistic practice, to talk about it with the voices of ten authors — art historians and critics, scholars of contemporary culture and international curators. The essays collected in this volume have been written from various research perspectives and give insight into different aspects of the artist’s practice. Regarded as a leading figure of the conceptual art movement, Jarosław Kozłowski is an author of artistic books, initiator of many significant events, co-author of the international artistic exchange NET, founder of the Akumulatory 2 Gallery in Poznań, curator of exhibitions, professor at numerous universities and, above all, an artist whose work has become an important point of reference for a younger generation of artists inspired by conceptualism. Some of the myths regarding this tradition are debunked by the authors of this volume in their reinterpretations of Kozłowski’s practice, especially in their analyses of themes abandoned or never taken up due to affiliations with the axioms of the ‘conceptual paragraphs’. The Quotation Marks are a polyphony of voices, situating Kozłowski’s art at the points of contact of various artistic and historical discourses. Essays written from the viewpoint of different cultural experiences enable us to look at his art from a broader perspective and in the context of an artistic geography constructed outside the hierarchy of universal canons.

Cristina Freire locates Kozłowski’s work within an alternative cartography, revoking the hierarchic relations of the dominant art history. Her point of departure are the artist’s ‘underground’ practices, as they function outside canonical narratives and beyond the centre-peripheries dichotomy.

Luiza Nader investigates the critical functions of Kozłowski’s conceptual practice beyond the cliché of ‘linguistic purity’. Analysing his projects from the late 1960s and 1970s, she identifies previously unacknowledged connections between self-referentiality and direct action, between language and the body. The linguistic experience, the testing of the limitations and transgressions of language, becomes, through the specific interpretation given to them by the artist, an exercise in sovereignty.

For Sabine Folie, the experience of language becomes a central category for interpreting Jarosław Kozłowski’s early works. Finding analogies to the linguistic procedures employed by Marcel Broodthaers, the author brings out other similarities between the two conceptual artists, both of whose subversive poetics were a critique of conceptual orthodoxy.

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For Alicja Kępińska, the point of departure is drawing, which in Kozłowski’s practice goes firmly beyond the discipline’s traditional bounds. In her interpretation, drawing offers an insight into the artist’s modus operandi, an intellectual inquiry pertaining to both art and reality, explored through a wide range of images, texts and objects, through their nature and denomination.

Evoking the ‘complex archaeology of the figure of the artist’, Ewa Mikina defines Kozłowski’s artistic position as that of a ‘heterotopic academician’, a norm-defying idealist who realises the utopian dimension of art in heterotopic projects.

René Block, who has collaborated with Kozłowski on various projects, remembers one of his key realisations — the three-part project The Show / The Exhibition / The Auction at the daadgalerie Berlin in 1985.

While writing about Kozłowski from the position of academic friendship, Szymon Wróbel avoids academic tropes in his interpretations of his friend’s art. He arrives at a conclusion about the art of intellectually turning the world inside out by departing from the concept of pleasure.

Describing an evolution in Kozłowski’s art — from the idea to its materialisation, from an interest in the autonomy of the work to questions from the field of political criticism — Piotr Piotrowski stresses continuity in the artist’s approach to art as a field of critical analyses.

Against a background of philosophical references, Russell Radzinski emphasises the processual aspect of Kozłowski’s work, the way he engages viewers to actively participate in the experience of art and strives to transgress the boundaries of visual perception.

In the final essay, the undersigned attempts to define the relationship between the aesthetic and the political in Kozłowski’s art. Using the example of his most recent works, I describe the ways in which he reconciles autonomy with politicality.

The artist himself speaks too: the book opens with a long interview in which he talks about the background of many projects, his links with Fluxus, his academic experiences and about verifying his own practice.

Accompanying the analyses contained in this volume are comprehensive documentations of Kozłowski’s projects. Each essay is followed by a selection of illustrations referring to a particular aspect of his art.

Some of these materials — especially the sketches, designs and documentations of early works — are being published for the first time.

The picture of Kozłowski’s art that emerges from this book is far from systematic or conclusive. The themes discussed in the essays certainly do not exhaust the complexity of the issues raised across the extremely vast range of Jarosław Kozłowski’s artistic practice.

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QUOTATION MARKS Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Bożena Czubak

bożena czubak You are an artist whose reception has changed greatly over time, especially during the last decade. In the eighties, when I was studying art history, your practice was perceived as a key example of conceptual, analytical reflection, the dominant vision of you as an artist being that of a ‘detached analyst of the logical structures of language’. Today, the interpretation of your works, even those from the sixties and seventies, focuses on that which was earlier marginalised, if it was acknowledged at all. jarosław kozłowski Treating my artistic practice as a sort of game, I very often contradict myself and use my successive works to challenge what I said in the previous ones. Those works have, generally, been highly varied and can be interpreted in a number of ways. The certain intellectual discipline of the works from the seventies was necessary, because I was interested at the time in the logical paradox, that is, that which escaped the Aristotelian principles underlying the structure of language or its references to reality. It seems to me, however, that even the most theoretically sophisticated statements of the era were not, contrary to what it might seem, devoid of humour because, after all, a paradox is always a contradiction of a rule and sometimes reveals its absurdity. bc This stereotype of you as an analyst of linguistic structures was maintained to a large extent by your books. Those were a dozen or so titles in the seventies: their language seemed hermetic and later it was difficult to verify that because most of those low-print run titles were no longer available. jk I don’t think the language I used was overly hermetic. It sometimes required a logical vocabulary as otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible to question apparent regularities rooted in our thinking.

Let’s take, for example, a simple sentence like, ‘This is a table,’ and let us refer it to reality, that is, to the object at which we are sitting now. A simple logical analysis will show that the individual components of this sentence — ‘this’, ‘is’ and ‘a table’ — raise many questions, that the logicality of linguistic structures is highly conventional and that, as a matter of fact, it is based on provisional rules that, when challenged, will cause something that seemed clear and obvious to appear in completely different light. bc It is in the context of tautological linguistic analysis that critics interpreted your drawings, measured by the weight of the graphite (Weight Drawings), or sometimes their executions (Time Drawings).

Today, in the analysis of these linguistic games we are inclined to highlight the issue of subjectivity, to discover traces of the author’s ‘absent presence’ behind that wall of tautology. For me, an absolutely amazing work is Set (1970–71), where the constructions and deconstructions of a square with a diagonal reached a total of 8,281 combinations. Looking at this work — the methodicalness of the drawings on sheets of paper 36 metres long in all — one cannot help thinking about the author for a year and a half drawing the variations of the simple figure. jk It was a crazy idea that today would be solved quickly with a computer. But I don’t think I would have used a computer. It was something to live through — the drawing, plotting, making mistakes. It was in that dimension that the work’s existential aspect revealed itself, although at the time it wasn’t

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the academy Matt’s Gallery London, 1986

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really important. You are right that even in constructions devoid of an emotional or autobiographical element there is still an aspect of privacy, intimacy. It doesn’t have to be transparent, doesn’t have to be expressed with your own handwriting style, which I try to change all the time to avoid form, the Gombrowiczian ‘pupa’ that keeps chasing us. At the same time, there always exist private reasons related to a reaction to something, to fixing your gaze on something, which may become the beginning of a statement that is neither autobiographic, nor a confession, profession or any kind of psychological vivisection.

You questioned your own presence in the series of ten drawings from 1970, in each of which you wrote the word ‘present’ in a different handwriting style.

I’ve always tried to avoid psychological aspects in my work, everything that would be determined by my personal characteristics. The same applies to didacticism, which I don’t like either, including in academic work. I’m for teaching based on dialogue, conversation, mutual provocation and negotiations, not speaking ex cathedra. I’m particularly irritated by didacticism in art and I’ve never aspired to practice the ‘engineering of the human soul’. I think it was Stalin who used the phrase to address the writer’s role in society.

So the references to the author in your early works, such as the x-ray images of the skull, recordings of your voice, the shadowy outline of your silhouette in The Arrangement (1967), were therefore a way of questioning the author’s claim to presence in the work, a claim quite strongly emphasised at the time . . .

Then towards exhibitionism in art, an excess of psychologism, towards art as a self-therapy, and today towards an eruption of narcissism, self-biographism, megalomania. And the fact that I would use, say, a photographic image of my own eye or ear, or a recording of my voice, stemmed from a simple reason: I’ve always been embarrassed to ask anyone to model for me. I had a problem with this even during my studies: I felt embarrassed I’d be depriving that person of something, taking something from them and using it for my own purposes.

You actually appeared in front of an audience, playing yourself in The Show, the first part of your three-part project at the DAAD Berlin (1985).

In The Show, I used my own person to perform the caricature of an artist, a jester, very seriously playing the violin in front of the Berlin audience, although I had never held a violin in my hands before. The Academy (1986) at Matt’s Gallery, where I played the harp for the first time in my life, was a similar case. It turned out that at first I played it from the wrong side. Someone asked whether I was doing this on purpose, but of course it was out of ignorance. What was important

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for me was that I was doing something for the first time, with all the risk of buffoonery and lack of professionalism that comes with it. Playing the guitar, violin or harp allowed me to not be a professional and the purpose of that was to break the rules.

Then you recorded an album documenting your unprofessional violin playing.

The Golden Violin, a vinyl LP. The A-side features a solo fragment of the ‘Berlin concert’ and the B-side contains superimposed recordings from seven consecutive days because I played for a week, an hour every day. That record became a substitute for a publication that never happened and which was supposed to be the fourth and final part of the DAAD project, a sort of recapitulation of the former three. Particularly of The Auction where Emmett Williams auctioned off photographs from the preceding Exhibition. The publication was to feature lists of the works sold in the auction, accompanied by reproductions of the banknotes they were paid for with. Each work sold for the same amount of money, albeit in different currencies, each photograph having been assigned a different currency — from Italian liras to British pounds.

The DAAD project was part of the Mythologies of Art series in which you debunked, in a rather unceremonious manner at that, various false beliefs or myths about art.

Because I often feel embarrassed by art that is exhibitionistic, pretentious, overly commercial or ideological, which sometimes means one and the same thing. The Mythologies comment, in the most obvious way, on the discomfort of being an artist.

That series was clearly rooted in the context of the eighties and in some works, e.g. The Academy, there were quite direct references to what was happening in art at the time.

The Mythologies dealt both with current aspects of the art scene and with long-entrenched stereotypes. I referred to clichéd forms of artistic behaviour, as well as to the behaviour of specific artists. I felt less constrained because I was moving in an area familiar to me and had often situated myself in the context of the myths I was criticising.

You refer to the various art-related standards with a great deal of humour. Already in Arrangement (1967) you ridiculed various conventions. Your early drawing works were given titles that ironically referred to various artistic contexts: The Cavalryman and the Girl (1978) to the tradition of Polish art history, Leda with the Swan (1978) to the history of European art, Mona Lisa in the Fourth Dimension (1979) to the context of world art, and Here and Now (1980) to the most recent art.

I’ve always believed that humour and irony are useful tools of critical rhetorics. Both my early drawing works as well as Arrangement referred to a large extent to the various artistic conventions or styles of the era. They pastiched them and, at the same time, served as a means of my distancing away from them. In Arrangement, in one of the rooms I used an object utterly out of tune with the iconic representations displayed in the glass cabinets on the walls. It was a bandaged vacuum cleaner, turned on, which was supposed to suck in all that dust of informel, object art, realitycommenting art, of the mythologies evoked by the torn Van Gogh self-portrait. The irritating smell of ether hung in the air and in the last room resounded my monotonous voice repeating the word ‘present’. A sense of humour is necessary because it allows you to maintain a distance. It is an effective antidote for all sorts of dogmatism, ideological clichés, pompousness, institutionalism, mythomania. It was precisely the anarchic use of humour that I found so appealing in Fluxus.

At the turn of the sixties and seventies, there were two movements that I felt attracted to, Fluxus and conceptual reflection. Seemingly incompatible, using completely different ways to challenge formalistic art, modernism and commercialism. Conceptualism undermined those standards in an analytical manner whereas Fluxus did the same in an anarchistic fashion, using humour as a weapon against art’s bombastic solemnity.

Your connections with Fluxus go back a long way, to the early seventies. You not only participated in many Fluxus events, but also initiated the movement’s presentation in Poland. What were the beginnings of the collaboration that resulted in, among other things, the Fluxus Festival you organised in 1977 at Poznań’s Akumulatory 2 Gallery that you founded and ran?

Fluxus helped me to discover the value of laughter as a means of distancing yourself from excessive seriousness and all kinds of demagogies. My first contacts with the Fluxus artists occurred via the

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NET — contacts and a reconnaissance of the different attitudes because it was not a homogeneous movement. Wolf Vostell had his own vision of Fluxus, so did George Brecht, and so did Emmett Williams. Through the NET, I came into touch with George Maciunas, regarded as the ‘pope’ of Fluxus, who asked me to send him a ‘clean’ postcard from Poznań, which after some time he sent back to me with text on the reverse, asking me to put a stamp on it and send it to someone, I don’t remember who it was, I think a collector, an affluent dentist. It turned out that Maciunas had asked a dozen people from all over the world for the same favour, which was to prove that he had been in all those different places at the same time. I found this kind of game very appealing and as a result of our contact, the idea of the Fluxus Festival was born. In response to my invitation, Maciunas sent me some excellent materials and scenarios of Fluxus events. I was deeply into conceptual art at the time and had been showing many conceptual artists at the Akumulatory, as a result of which the gallery had started to be perceived in a highly serious, somewhat pompous way. And the scenarios we realised as part of the Festival were anything but serious: they were actually provocative, triggering off completely different aspects of a sense of freedom and had this ‘refreshing’ effect, including in terms of thinking about the Akumulatory. My further dealings with Fluxus consisted in developing individual contacts with different artists. In Hamburg, where for two weeks I lectured at the invitation of the Hochschule für bildende Künste, I by chance at a Japanese restaurant met Emmett Williams who, chance had it, was also lecturing at the time at the Hamburg school. It was then that we struck up a friendship that continued until his death and was highly rewarding, both intellectually and artistically. I participated in various Fluxus events without, however, ever considering myself a member of the movement. Still, participating in those activities and using laughter to deconstruct all kinds of stereotypes was really great fun.

To what extent was that Fluxus laughter infectious in Poland, where in the seventies conceptual art was surrounded by an aura of very serious intellectualism?

By the first half of the seventies, that serious intellectual aura had already become a barrier, and was also something of a hype. Besides, in Poland at the time, with all its paradoxes, Fluxus-style practices were often indistinguishable from everyday social praxis. If someone proudly paraded down a New York street wearing a necklace of toilet paper rolls on a string, this could be perceived in terms of practices similar to what Fluxus did. In Poland, however, this was normal, no one laughed at it, as a result of which some of the Fluxus actions could be hard to understand as artistic statements because they simply blended into the absurdities of our daily experience that contradicted a rational way of functioning in, and thinking about, the world. But perhaps thanks to that, the more sophisticated Fluxus ideas, once they were recognised as artistic provocations, met with a favourable response, at least at Akumulatory 2 Gallery.

Browsing through the press reviews of your exhibitions in Poland and abroad in the eighties and nineties, I noticed a difference between your perception here — as an artist faithful to the principle of art’s autonomy — and the reception of your works in the West, where they were viewed in the political context. Paradoxically for an artist who himself often stressed his distance towards that context, you were perceived as a political artist.

The paradox was that I was interested in art’s autonomy, but that autonomy was interpreted from the political point of view. Interpretations situating me in the geopolitical context, sometimes quite amusingly, were above of all a projection of the dominant clichés. Sometimes I consciously played with a potential politicality, which, in a certain context, could be ascribed to anything, of course.

In Poland, when in 1982 I showed the Green Wall Beyond Any Political Context, it was received as a statement inconsistent with the era’s standard of imbuing everything with political meaning. In that same year, in Germany, Green Surfaces were interpreted in the context of the Green Party. No less absurd was the interpretation of the Grey Wall Beyond Any Political Context in New York in 1990: it was interpreted as an artistic reflection on the grey and dreary world behind the Iron Curtain.

Such comments were a projection of the dominant, rather stereotypical notions and views. Myself, I’ve seldom used any obvious political references. Except several more direct statements, I’ve tried to avoid commentarism. Politicality is coded in my works, not necessarily visible at first reading.

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green wall, its picture, its illusion and its image Akumulatory 2 Gallery Poznań, 1982

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started to be read ‘according to politics’, you very often stressed its autonomy, almost ostentatiously distancing yourself from any political intentions.

That was, among other things, due to the surfeit of art that commented on political issues using a journalistic, banalised language, due to the surfeit of demagogical contestation that was often nothing but empty gesticulation. I believe politics to be a game on a different level, a negotiation, an exchange of arguments, and that has little in common with the obviousness of declarative statements. I think one of my most political works is Counting-Out Rhyme (2005), and it doesn’t manifest its politicality in any way. Quite the contrary, it is a collection of watercolour forms that in themselves don’t carry any political meaning. It was only a brief accompanying text that lent the work a political meaning. In the context of the relation between art and politics, I’d cite Jacques Rancière’s concept concerning the rather perverse way in which art deals with politics and defining the nature of the relations between the sphere of art and of politics, where ostentation is not an argument because it is too blatant and becomes propaganda.

Your concept of the third circle was to be precisely such an intermediate area, neither reality, nor art.

For me, the idea of the third circle remains valid. A recent attempt to verify it was the exhibition NonTruths/Non-Lies at the Bunkier Sztuki, starting with the title itself, through the choice of the works, to their mutual configuration and arrangement in the exhibition space. Also the Screen shown last year at the Profile Foundation (exhibition Screens, Warsaw, 2009), referred to an equal degree to the conventions of art — painting in this case — and the conventions of reality. In both cases, it screens something from view, while revealing that which is intentionally hidden. From the viewpoint of art, it is a criticism of so-called ‘reality’; from the viewpoint of reality, it is a criticism of so-called ‘art’, regardless of how we characterise ‘art’ and how we characterise ‘reality’. In the context of the third circle, I think it’s important to put ‘art’ and ‘reality’ in quotation marks, to emphasise the fact that they are borrowings, nothing more. It is hard for me to offer a theoretical definition of the ‘third circle’ but, to return to politics, it certainly also concerns the interface between the political and the aesthetic.

It’s like the Rancièrean paradox of ‘art which is art as long as it’s also non-art’, but the ‘is and is not’ allows us to define politicality differently, or at least beyond simple, binary choices.

Because politicality is not a matter of simple correlations. I’d say the Akumulatory 2 Gallery was political because it functioned as an alternative to the official art scene and institutional structure that was obligatory in Poland at the time. Even if we didn’t present evidently political shows, which,

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Fluxus Festival poster Akumulatory 2 Gallery Poznań, 1977

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if we had, might have actually caused the censors to close the place down, the very fact that it existed and functioned independently in a context that made political neutrality impossible meant that the gallery was political.

Akumulatory 2 Gallery was, to an extent, a consequence of the NET, which was a very radical alternative.

An alternative to institutions, and the concepts of institutionality and politicality are closely related.

The structure of the institution, any institution, is a priori political.

But that alternative to institutionality eventually gave rise to an institution.

A semi-institution that tried at all times to elude institutionality, in which the political context was actually very helpful. There was no affiliation to a place because, in a situation where we weren’t always given the keys to the space that we used as gallery, we often had to change it. There were no fees and no opening galas. There were no programmatic guidelines that would define the area of our interests or preferences. The program changed relative to the changes taking place in art.

If we invited an artist, it meant he or she took over the place we happened to be using, for the duration of their exhibition, and any interference in what they did was out of the question.

The Akumulatory 2 Gallery opened in 1972. A year earlier, together with Andrzej Kostołowski, you formulated the NET manifesto. It said that the ‘NET is non-institutional, has no focal point, no coordination, and can be used and duplicated in any manner possible’. Given the political context of the time, this sounds like instigating a revolt, pure anarchy.

The NET challenged the political status quo, especially in this part of Europe. But our manifesto wasn’t motivated solely by the desire to cross the Iron Curtain because it also referred to the Western

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art scene. We sought contact with artists who questioned the West’s market-dominated art scene, which was also institutionalised, albeit in a different manner than in Poland.

The NET included several hundred addressees from all over the world.

In all, it was over 350 addresses from Eastern and Western Europe, the US and Canada, South America, Asia and, of course, Poland, the latter representing some 10 percent of the total. At first, those were addresses found in various publications, then addresses recommended by those who had already joined. The address list was growing and, at some point, I lost control over it. The NET began to function independently of us, started living its own life.

In accordance with the original premise that it wouldn’t be supervised by its initiators.

It was very important not to create any coordination centre so that the NET could become dispersed and start functioning outside any control, the latter being one of the fundamental features of the institutional system.

You said the NET’s anti-institutional character didn’t refer solely to the Polish or Eastern European political context.

You know, we were aware of what was going on in the West. Our problem was the ideologisation of culture and theirs — the free market and its laws. We didn’t want just to manifest our attitude towards the Eastern political model, but rather to create a non-controlled system of artistic references that would apply to both models.

The secret police, or Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB), contributed to the NET’s political contextualisation by interrupting and closing down the first presentation of the NET documentation.

The authorities thought the NET carried a subversive political message, which was a trivialisation of an idea that, regardless of geography, was anti-systemic.

Later the NET came to be associated with the Internet.

I think it was László Beke who, on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition 2000+ Arteast Collection in Ljubljana, pointed out to me that if we had copyrighted the name ‘NET’, we’d be extremely rich now.

With the Internet, the initial enthusiasm of the belief that an alternative communication space had been found was soon replaced by scepticism towards what was recognised as yet another communication utopia. When you were launching the NET almost forty years ago, didn’t it seem a utopian idea to you?

At first, enthusiasm dominated, the joy caused by the fact that something had started happening outside the well-known and controlled structures. Besides, at the beginning, the NET included people who shared a sense of co-responsibility for its functioning. Later, there followed reactions on various intellectual and artistic levels, processes that also occurred in the Internet. But I think it’s a natural mechanism, a risk entailed by a lack of selection. And it doesn’t belittle the idea at all.

Anarchic thinking was present in your early projects even before the NET manifesto. In The Expedition (1969), plotting could take place in any direction, without restrictions, anywhere, at any time and by anyone.

Anyone could be a participant, anyone could plot, just like in Measuring anyone could measure.

That, of course, was an utopian idea, but it was supposed to be fulfilled in the imagination rather than in physical reality. The essence was to transgress a certain order on the imaginary level.

Expedition (Drafting), which you initiated in Poznań in 1969 by drawing a line with a piece of chalk on the pavement, was interrupted by the police. How did it look with Measuring?

At first it was just for fun. Together with a fellow student we took a piece of rope and started measuring a building (the offices of the District Board of the Polish Student Association at Fredry Street in Poznań), then the area around it, and then we ended the action. The measurements were purely theoretical because the rope had no scale on it. And then a text was written that changed the meaning of the whole thing.

In Imagination Zone, at a plein-air in Osieki in 1970, you again proposed an open scenario ‘for everyone’. This time, however, the project was more ambiguous towards the surroundings, the space, in which you placed signs saying ‘Imagination Zone’, installing them in the streets, on the

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imagination zone Poznań, 1970

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beach, in a meadow. You took art out of the enclave of the plein-air in order to set up artistic enclaves in reality. In fact, the project’s very title was ambiguous, combining imagination, usually associated with freedom, and zone, an area of separation, isolation, restriction.

It would be difficult to imagine a signposted zone of the imagination. In Osieki and Koszalin, those signs remained in place for some time, but when installing them in Poznań a couple of weeks later, I realised I was being followed by a team that removed and confiscated them. That was actually more telling than the irony present in the work itself, irony towards the utopia of freedom, of imagination, because in the streets that freedom was simply suppressed right away.

In all those projects you situated yourself outside the institutional framework; the NET was a fundamentally anti-institutional idea. In your subsequent projects, your thinking about the institution unfolds in the institutional area, it is also more ambiguous and maintains the ambiguity of institutional mechanisms; put shortly, you replace the earlier contestation with deconstruction.

Contestation, as it has turned out many times, tends to institutionalise, especially when it has achieved its goals. The NET was an idea that realised itself spontaneously and couldn’t be contained, unlike the institution, which usually has its location, space, functions and hierarchies. And when all this is in place, there is no turning back, you begin to celebrate your own institutionality, with all the negative implications of the process. Hence the constant need of critical self-reflection and of going beyond values that may be attractive, but are only temporarily valid because soon they have to be challenged and verified. This is necessary to avoid slipping into pleasant lethargy, a state of complacency that results in stagnation. This applies both to art, where stabilisation means exhaustion, and to, for instance, the academy, where the consecration of your own past makes creative development impossible.

Between 1980–88, you served two terms as rector of the Poznań Academy of Fine Arts. In one interview you spoke about the Academy’s need to oscillate ‘between a smoothly functioning system and a hotbed, so to speak, of anarchy’.

Anarchy means transgressing limitations, undermining the status quo. The institution of the art school is a particularly paradoxical case because in order to function it needs a structure, has to follow certain rules, has to observe criteria imposed by the educational system. At the same time, in order to avoid fossilisation, it has to constantly revise the dominant values, transgress the dominant orders, has to anarchise.

The Poznań academy enjoys today the reputation of being the best art school in Poland and this is largely contributed to by the reforms you initiated.

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jk Upon coming into office, I succeeded, in cooperation with the academy’s Senate, in reforming both its structure and its curriculum. We got rid of courses whose purpose was to indoctrinate and introduced those that aid independent thinking. Above all, however, we introduced the principle that the student can freely choose the studios they attend and then change them, not necessarily choosing those compatible with their course of study. Subjectivising the student, treating them in the educational process as a partner who should have as much say over the academy as its faculty and management, was extremely important, promoting a sense of co-responsibility. As a fundamental element of the teaching praxis, we introduced the principle of inviting visiting professors/artists, also from abroad. All those reforms were designed within a short time. In keeping with the procedure, we submitted the proposed changes to the Ministry of Culture for acceptance but, without waiting for official approval, which due to red tape was slow in coming, we began to implement them. And, paradoxically, the introduction of martial law effectively sanctioned them because its authors issued a special ordinance under which the status quo at institutions was frozen. Those changes that had been introduced were to be maintained. In ordinary circumstances, they’d have surely been questioned and rejected by the ministry, so we owed it to martial law’s restrictions that they remained in place. The reforms, which we introduced in 1981, were revolutionary for its time, but after several years, the need arose for another shake-up.

I found it particularly important for young lecturers to be able to involve themselves more actively in the teaching process, so that the assistant lecturer’s role wasn’t just auxiliary but perceived as an alternative to that of the studio’s head lecturer, the more experienced pedagogue. In keeping with the changes taking place in art, it was necessary to scrap the division into departments (painting, sculpture, graphic design or new media) that imposed rigid and artificial boundaries. Equally problematic for me became the idea of the studio, which was a continuation of the classic teaching model, with its hierarchic master-disciple division. I envisaged scrapping the studio on behalf of professors meeting individually with students, who would have the whole space of the academy, without a division into any enclaves, for their use. The idea was to overcome the anachronistic concept of the student’s affiliation and identification with the studio and its master, so that, instead of the essentially fragmentary education fulfilled in the obligation to follow the curricula of a dozen or so studios and earn credits from them, students would be given the possibility of confronting themselves with various points of view. I presented the project when seeking re-election, but it met with vehement opposition from many pedagogues who found it a threat to their privileged position based on the French master-disciple tradition.

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recycled news ii Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Cracow, 2009

bc It was during your term that the Poznań academy started to publish its own periodical, probably the only periodical in Poland at the time published by an art school.

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regular publication. Due to this, in order to circumvent the regulations, instead of numbering the successive issues with numerals we used a visual system of dots, one more for each next issue. That way each issue could be presented as an occasional publication.

As rector, you decided to extend the academy’s patronage to several galleries.

At the moment when martial law was introduced, several independent galleries operated in Poznań under the auspices of the Polish Student Association (ZSP): Akumulatory, ON, Wielka 19, AT. With the introduction of martial law, the ZSP withdrew its patronage, so we decided to grant them ours, which was necessary if only for the purpose of securing the censors’ permission for printing exhibition invitations.

From what I remember, you exhibited at those galleries yourself.

Such places were the only ones where I could show and wanted to show my work; it was a deliberate choice. For over twenty years, until 1990, with one exception, I never showed my work at any official institution in Poland.

The issue of institutionalisation present in your works concerned the ideological and philosophical, but also the political aspects of the institution. In the first version of Personal Files (1983), realised at the former state archive in The Hague in 1993, you raised the issue of the archive itself, an issue that would later become the subject of a wave of critical discussions.

I was invited to use the space of a former archive that for some time then had been in use by The Hague-based artists. The ambivalence of the place was that it had previously functioned as the official archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The building hadn’t changed since then. In the filing cabinets that were still there, files had been kept pertaining to the country’s foreign affairs, and thus also those pertaining to its colonies. I had long been interested in colonialism, in how powerful kingdoms, sometimes very small states in geographical terms, annexed large swathes of the world, such as, precisely, the Netherlands, which was a very expansive colonial state. This was the main reason why I decided to use alarm clocks from all over the world. I asked friends from different continents to send me their used alarm clocks. I also posted a newspaper ad asking The Hague residents to participate in the project. As a result, I received some 350 alarm clocks, exactly the number of the filing shelves at the former archive. Some of the clocks were dead but most were alive and ticking. The space of the former archive was thus

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filled with highly personal objects, previously used by different people, objects that used to control their daily time and regulate the rhythm of their lives. A space filled with a special kind of political and social memory was activated with the ticking of hundreds of alarm clocks. In the four-storey, barrel-shaped interior, the sound dominated, filling the air like the swoosh of the rain, completely changing the space’s institutional feel. As if the memory of the archive had been erased.

The work can be interpreted in the context of the ambiguity of the archive as a place where memory is stored and, at the same time, erased. The ticking of the clocks deafened the place’s extant memory, filling it with a memory that had been erased from it. The second, museum, version of Personal Files (1997), in turn, played with the ambiguity of the museum as a space of reification and possible reanimations.

Fetishisation, in the first place. Realising Personal Files at the National Museum in Poznań, due to the space’s character and architectural layout, I had to design for the alarm clocks special metal cabinets, in which they stood behind wire-mesh doors. Placed on shelves, subjected to the pressure of the museum space, they became exhibits. Wherever I showed the work, I confronted the different personal times of the clocks with the ‘objective’ measurement of digital clocks showing the time of several different geographical zones. Both versions of Personal Files, the archive one and the museum one, share the common aspect of ‘trophy hunting’. Part of the strategy of artistic institutions, of museums of all kinds, is to collect ‘curiosities’, which is often tantamount to cultural colonialism, examples of which we know from the history of culture: the artistic colonisation of Africa, Asia, South America.

Your approach to the problem of institutionalisation as appropriation reminds me of Marcel Broodthaers’s fictional museums. Similarly the subject of colonialism or imperialism, which in his case was reflected in the power trophies at his Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles in Brussels.

What I remember from my visit to Brussels is, above all, one incredible museum, fascinating and terrifying at the same time, the Royal Museum for Central Africa, with its huge collections of trophies from the Belgian colonies in Africa. One image in particular has stuck in my mind, a very poorly done one, in fact. A small 19th-century picture titled The Lesson of Civilisation, showing a white soldier hitting an African man trying to get up from the ground.

The problem of colonialism, or of the division into the centre and peripheries, was, to a certain extent, experienced also by Central Europe. In this context, the NET project was a rather unique enterprise, allowing contacts with artists from Latin America, Asia or East Europe to slip from under the dominance of the West, the main artistic point of reference at the time.

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x steps 1968 (project) – An oblong room, windowless or with the windows tightly curtained, with a low ceiling.

– the walls dark grey or black – a lockable door, inside matching the colour of the walls – lighting: bare bulb 15–25 W – on the floor (raw concrete if possible), a narrow rectangle 1.5 m wide, made in white paint, corresponding with the room’s oblong shape: a) two shorter sides adjoining the room’s two opposite facing walls b) divided into fields (numbered from I to X and from X to I), each the length of the average human step – the walk’s participants move through the rectangle – an instruction on the inside of the door: Enter one by one Duration of walk: 9 minutes Door opens after this time – at the door, an usher who lets the participants in and out according to the schedule: one participant goes in, after exactly 9 minutes he or she is let out, another one goes in, and so on – door locked after each participant, opened after the prescribed time – upon leaving the room, each participant receives a piece of paper and a self-addressed envelope and is asked to describe what HAPPENED during the walk – the descriptions form the documentation of x steps

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arrangement odNowa Gallery Poznań, 1967

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the East-West dichotomy, and now the North-South one. Deeply embedded colonialism is something I experienced when running art workshops for autodidacts in Lusaka, Zambia, a country that regained independence only in 1964. I was there for the first time in the late nineties. My visit was part of a program of cultural aid for Africa organised by a Norwegian NGO that invited me to run workshops at the, initiated for the purpose, Academy Without Walls. There was no art school there and no knowledge of contemporary art whatsoever. What was referred to as art was an area utterly dominated by the standards of post-Victorian culture, expressed in a pseudo-impressionist style imposed by the tastes of the British colonial bourgeoisie. That’s why during the workshops, besides art-related issues, I also discussed colonial and artistic colonialism. It was an incredible experience to watch how during the workshops, where I mainly used music, rhythm, which for the Africans remains an important means of expression, the participants’ notion of what art can be was being completely transformed.

Africa was a special experience for me, one to which I’ve decided to return only now in the work African Standards. The Post-Colonial Version, where I’ll use images from Zambia.

Were the earlier versions of the Standards also related to your travels?

No, not really, rather they stemmed from a reflection on the ‘here and now’. For a long time I tried to avoid direct references to political situations, but at some point I arrived at the conclusion that sticking to that principle meant confining myself to a limiting formula. Besides, sometimes maintaining restraint or critical distance borders on the conformist, so in the late nineties I did some works that commented on reality in a more direct manner. Still, I hope I managed to avoid them being just declarative. Adopting linguistic forms typical for the rhetorics of ideological systems or political movements, you fall into the trap of speaking from the position of the knower and adopting forms of persuasion not much different from that which you wanted to criticise.

Your works are very often marked by a certain ambiguity, you leave a lot of room for interpretation in them.

I hate telling people how my works should be read. It’s like with books, everyone reads them from the perspective of their own lived experience, their knowledge, references, imagination. One book circulating among a thousand readers is like a thousand books. It’s the same with history, which we read and create anew each time, using a different set of instruments. There is no single universal history, no single canonical history of art.

Such an ironic commentary on canonical thinking was, I suppose, the scenario of the 1972 project called Cognition.

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of a photographic image of a small stretch of land. The scenario was created in response to an invitation to participate in the exhibition Espace Situation ʼ72, organised by the Galerie Impact in Lausanne. I couldn’t go there because after the first presentation of the NET documentation I was refused a passport for several years, so I drew up and submitted a scenario that could be executed without my participation. I asked the organisers to photograph a stretch of land near the gallery and then show the picture to several philosophers representing different schools of thought (Thomist, existentialist, Marxist, analytical, phenomenological), asking them to comment on it. Alas, I never got to read their comments. The gallery sent me a list of the philosophers it had contacted, but the next letter, with the actual comments, got confiscated by the censorship office, which apparently found some ‘harmful’ content in it. Some years later the gallery ceased to exist and there was no one to ask for a copy anymore. But I think the work fulfils itself in the form in which it has survived, that is, the picture and a list of names. I guess that image of a stretch of land served as basis for some very diverse philosophical investigations.

From the same year as Cognition hails Apparatus, which dealt with the multitude, or actually multiplicity, of ways of perceiving and depicting the world.

A total of 1,296 photographs documenting the possibilities of a selected photo camera: contact prints on 27 boards and a list of the technical details, exposure, aperture, for each photo. But it was the title that was to become key to the work’s interpretation. In connection with the publication of a catalogue by the Foksal Gallery, where Apparatus was shown, Wiesław Borowski, the manager of Foksal, had to explain to the censors what kind of apparatus was meant here, because in the era’s newspeak the term was commonly associated with the so-called ‘party apparatus’. Because of the censors, the exhibition was shown under the title of Camera.

In your early works, such as Expedition, Imagination Zone, or Correspondences, in which, for instance, you sent out grains of sand for counting or a paper airplane model to be assembled, you proposed rather open scenarios to the viewers to then subject them, the viewers, to various pressures, set traps for them.

Those works provided for the possibility of the viewer continuing them, or even taking the initiative.

Then were various kinds of games, some of which required a certain background, the knowledge of a code, although it also happened that life verified them in unexpected ways. A salutary experience was the confiscation of the several dozen copies of A–B, a 1971 book that raised no political issues whatsoever, it was just a purely logical game about relativism, and yet the censors obviously found some ‘subversive’ content coded in it.

In several installations in the eighties you intensified sensory experience, subjecting the viewer to aggressive colours, sounds, light.

After the Mythologies of Art, where I tried to debunk artistic myths, the art-related myths present in the field of art, I focused on the myths of reality. It was like playing with the so-called ‘public reception’ of art, with the ways in which art functions in society. The point of reference here were the expectations towards art, towards the artist, nurtured by society, which is why in several cases I allowed myself to be rather brutal towards the viewer, with all the demands that they enter the gallery with, and I subjected them to certain kinds of visual or physical (temperature-related) oppressions, putting them in uncomfortable positions. In Sleep Well, for instance (Kunstverein Giannozzo, Berlin 1990), when the viewer entered the gallery, the particularly unpleasant, shrill sound of the school bell would be activated. In In Yellow (1990), a whole room at Matt’s Gallery had been painted in a very sharp, yellow colour and halogen lights aimed at those entering made it difficult for them to view the tomographic scans of my brain projected on the walls.

In your works from recent years, in which you again make use of painterly techniques, these games become even more perverse. In Curtains (2006), you play with the ambiguity of covering/ uncovering.

Painting is always about covering something, making something absent, by putting layers of paint on the canvas or any other surface. From this point of view, painting is an act of turning attention away

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from that which exists. This indicates a sort of hypocrisy on the part of the painting, this ‘window to the world’, which in fact obscures that world. Curtains refer to this property of painting already in the title, they cover large parts of the walls while, at the same time, showing the illusoriness of this covering because the layer of paint on the paper is transparent so it covers, uncovering. At the same time, Curtains refer to various human vices, with each of them being supposed to shield us from something, from stupidity, arrogance, aggression and so on.

In your large-format watercolours framed in glass or plexi, with their shiny surfaces in which the viewer’s images multiply, you force the viewers to look at themselves, to notice their own presence, pulling them into a game with their own reflection.

The idea is to pull them into the trap of co-creating the situation that not only realises itself in the space of the gallery, but also deals with an outside context, references to which are present in the work.

Recycled News deals with the media, in both versions of the work it’s hundreds of newspaper pages that you stubbornly paint over.

Recycled News are an attempt to resist the infiltration of the media, which have become an instrument of all kinds of indoctrination, not only political. Much of what we know about the world comes from the media, and that knowledge is determined by the way the news are presented. The grammatical structure of every sentence we hear or read determines how we experience its subject, what we think about it. We identify these ‘second-hand’ experiences with our own, although usually these are just prepared clichés imposed on us by the rhetoric of media language. Recycled News are an attempt to gain a distance towards those manipulations, to ridicule them, to question the importance and quality of the information we are fed by the media. The first series of Recycled News refers also to art, to the various painting conventions and styles, which are similarly clichés of thinking about and perceiving the world. The newspapers I used were first degraded, serving as a ground for flowing paint, to then, picked up from the floor and subjected to various aestheticising procedures, obtain the status of works of art. The second series of Recycled News is more uncompromising, devoid of painterly coquetry, the newspaper pages simply painted over flatly with various colours. Still, when showing this work, I arrange the sheets of paper in a harmonious colour composition, which is an ironic gesture because it concerns something that is mute, devoid of any meaning. I treated daily newspapers differently, but equally ironically in several versions of Soft Protection, where they helped to balance capsizing furniture pieces, serving as a ‘stability guarantee’. I used local daily newspapers representing different political options. Only in the case of Soft Protection. Museum Version in Bonn was the stability of the furniture pieces guaranteed by current art periodicals.

You belong to a generation for which reading newspapers is a daily ritual.

And a rather perverse one, something verging on the masochistic. Especially as I also watch TV news rather regularly.

A dozen or so years ago, we talked about a project about television, it was to be a wall of TV monitors, all playing commercials, but at that time you couldn’t go through with the project.

I carried it out in a cut-down version in Oldenburg as New Acquisitions, but it was only a partial realisation of the original project, which provided for using some 150 monitors playing commercials collected from TV channels from all over the world.

Many of your projects never went beyond the concept stage. A year ago, in your exhibition at Cracow’s Bunkier Sztuki, you showed for the first time your sketches, or rather a selection from a much larger collection of sketches for various installations and projects, starting from 1967, among them for projects that were never realised. Among the latter was a sketch for a 1968 project called X Steps, which envisaged shutting the viewer inside a long corridor.

The viewer would actually shut themselves in. It was a Beckettian concept, ensuing from something I had once experienced myself. I made many project scenarios at the time that, like this one, never went beyond sketch level, due to their unfeasibility at the time. But I don’t rule out the possibility of realising some of them today. It’d be interesting to find out how something that you came up with forty years ago functions today, in a completely different context. That was the case with Territory,

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27 alarm clocks from the drawing activity continuum Profile Foundation Warsaw, 2009

a project that was to be carried out during a symposium organised by Jerzy Ludwiński in Opolno in 1971, but for which there were neither the conditions nor the climate at the time. I returned to the project more than thirty years later, in Regensburg, adding to the originally conceived situation its mirror image. Instead of one territory, I built two, one surrounded by a chicken-wire fence, with a restrictive ‘no trespassing’ sign in five languages at the entrance, the other surrounded by a modern, user-friendly fence, with a friendly sign — in five languages — inviting you to enter.

You’ve been returning not only to projects, but also to earlier-rejected ideas. That was the case with the, abandoned and then re-embraced, theme of painting, and with the reworking of the modernist tradition.

I’m attracted to the idea of reinterpreting the already established and well recognised. In this sense, it’s also interesting to try and verify your own views, to return to certain themes, which earlier I rejected. Modernism and postmodernism remain contestable, but I think that, in the artistic context, they are categories that only cause confusion. I’m not convinced about their adequacy and whether they mean anything for art. Perhaps the prefixes ‘post-’ or ‘neo-’ are useful in reflecting the temporal sequence, but certainly they have nothing to do with axiology.

Let’s take Arrangement and Rhetorical Figures, there is between them a gap of almost forty years and a difference in their approach to the modernist tradition — first firm rejection, then a creative return to it.

In Rhetorical Figures, my thinking about the revision of modernism was far less radical than in Arrangement. Today I’d be wondering whether it’s at all possible to totally reject modernist values,

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deposit 2000

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whether such a categoricalness wouldn’t entail abandoning art altogether and, as a result, deleting the term from the vocabulary.

That rejection met with an equally categorical reaction in the shape of the public’s destroying the work.

Rejection in itself turns out to be a provisional measure. The value of the anarchy of Fluxus and of analytic verifications of conceptual reflection was that they debunked canons deeply entrenched in art. But very soon they were replaced by the promotion of new models, formulas, paradigms. It’s disturbing that whenever we overthrow a system, another one soon emerges to organise the new situation. Is this regularity necessary? Is it necessary to replace one system with another, which is outdated at the very start because it refers to the past? The views of most postmodern philosophers show that even the most radical theoreticians today feel a sort of nostalgia for the ‘one truth’ of which, of course, they are the only legitimate possessors. I am much more in favour of something that Jerzy Ludwiński once postulated, namely deconstructing the hierarchical model of art, breaking it down into different monads, serving as their own centres and references.

The relativisation of various truths has been a recurring theme in your work. In pieces such as Gravity Room (Oslo, 1995) or Room Negative (Poznań, 1997), you not only turn everything upside down, but also invalidate the possibility of any points of reference.

I think this philosophy is present in many of my works. I avoid ascribing any permanent meanings to them, I don’t grow attached to meanings, and I avoid defining anything at all in ultimate terms.

You don’t grow attached to your works either, as they often exist only for the duration of the exhibition, as in the Nomadic Versions or in Temporary Objects.

Those works dealt with the temporality of the so-called work of art. I asked the galleries I happened to be working in to borrow various everyday articles. Without any selection or special key, I built aesthetically attractive structures with them, which then soaked up meanings like sponges. After the exhibition, all the objects returned to whence they came.

You also did other short-term things of which only documentation remained.

Very many drawings directly on walls, which were then painted over, like Easy Drawings (1992) at Matt’s Gallery in London and Piwna 20/26 Gallery in Warsaw, or Fata Morgana (1986) in Bremen.

I usually painted them over myself, because the idea was that they would last only as long as the show, their function became exhausted with its end. The matter of their physical preservation was absolutely insignificant for me.

The Continuum-series drawing actions have left a collection of alarm clocks, as of today it’s 29 smashed alarm clocks.

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formula. In defiance of the view that ideas become outdated, that your work has to be progressive, I’ve been realising the same scenario in Continuum for over twenty years. Every time I repeat the same gestures: drawing on a board, wiping it clean, smashing an alarm clock against it. The structure of Continuum doesn’t change, it’s the places and the public that do. Besides, I myself change: I grow older, my physicality is different each time (next month I’ll be doing it in Oslo for the thirtieth time), I get more and more angry trying to overcome weariness and the body’s resistance in order to reach the time-arresting climax when I shatter the alarm clock.

Alarm clocks, watches, temporal manipulations — that’s a frequent motif in your practice. You used watches for the first time as gadgets in Situation (1968).

Then they returned in the eighties when I started smashing alarm clocks in Continuum. It’s funny because often I don’t even realise that I’ve used an object before. The x-ray scan, which I used in Arrangement, returned years later in other works. The vacuum cleaner, which collected dust in the same piece, returned in a multiplied form in the installation 1993.

Everyday objects, blankets, furniture pieces, carpets, are the material of many of your works. You don’t reach for the visual rhetoric of the language that art shares with pop culture.

It seems to me that this language has become terribly banal and infantile, that it’s extremely trivial, lacking any power of persuasion. I use objects taken from the daily context, trying to free them, if only for a moment, from that aggressive explicitness.

These are used objects, sometimes heavily worn.

Yes, these are always used objects, objects with individual histories. But taken out of context and juxtaposed with other objects, they lose their rootedness in those histories, just like furniture pieces, which retain only their function. I once tried to part with those objects and did a work called Deposit.

I put them all in a single room and wrapped them up in silver tape like no longer used props, but it’s turned out that some of them return anyway. august 2010 Translated from Polish by Marcin Wawrzyńczak

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individual mythologies Akumulatory 2 Gallery Poznań, 1980

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continuum i BWA Gallery Zielona Gรณra, 1988

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continuum ii Concordia University Montreal, 1989

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continuum vi The University of New South Wales Sydney, 1990

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continuum x Statens Kunstakademi Oslo, 1994

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continuum xviii National Gallery Prague, 2000

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continuum xxi Forum des Cordeliers Toulouse, 2004

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continuum xxix Profile Foundation Warsaw, 2009

2.

UTOPIA AS A GESTURE Cristina Freire

For a collective exhibition in São Paulo, in 1974, Jarosław Kozłowski sent the book Grammar / Gramatyka (1973) by post from Poznań. The postal service was, in the seventies, an important instrument of exchange among artists and, at that time, became a privileged medium in providing the necessary support for a shared, at times, activist conception of artistic practice. It was a medium in which it was not so important to identify each artist, as to track the flows of communication within the net. The figure of the isolated creator was frequently diluted and production was quite often collective or anonymous and composed of the entirety of a set of messages sent and received by the postal service. Many publications by artists were created collectively and circulated by means of this net.

The effect of this was to reassert the primacy of circulation over form, of the network over the isolated artist, of the alternative over the instituted, of the margins over the centre. It is not by chance that Latin America and the countries of Eastern Europe are relevant in this open circuit, especially in the seventies.

The opening up of this net for its inherent capacity of circumventing obstacles is inversely proportional to the political and ideological closure of these countries.

The exchanges within the postal net, at that time, document underground and decentralised artistic practices capable of placing values, prestigious names and representations of a dominant art history in suspension. The artistic body built by such a kind of net is international and, within this collective ethos, aggregation is much more valued than competition, and solidarity and the multiplication of information much more than copyright.

The capacity to pierce the blockades imposed by totalitarian regimes was capable of joining artists separated by geography, culture, language and, above all, by the interference of totalitarian political regimes, whether left-wing as in Poland or right-wing as in the case of Brazil, which at that point in time was going through struggles with a military dictatorship that would last for twenty years (1964–84).

The book Grammar, in Brazil is thus a testimony and living example of the NET manifesto written and sent in 1971 by Andrzej Kostołowski and Jarosław Kozłowski to hundreds of artists all over the world proposing a more ample and generous net of artistic exchanges beyond the limitations imposed by political or economic restrictions. A few topics of the NET manifesto are clarified thus: — Points of NET are anywhere — All points of NET are in contact among themselves and exchange concepts, propositions, projects and other forms of articulation

In this manifesto is announced an alternative cartography capable of drawing nearer to one another artists from places in many ways distant, like Poland and Brazil, within a regime of artistic exchanges that found new territories through a proximity of purpose and a stakeholding in a kind of collective ideal that was also a result of a specific Zeitgeist.

These are artists that in the words of Kozłowski come together . . . on the fringes of the official scene, outside institutional circulation, in semi-shadow, there were other artists at work, artists who were not interested in careers, commercial success, popularity or recognition:

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Angelo de Aquino dedication 1973

artists who devoted more attention to the issue of their own artistic, and therefore ethical, stance than to their position in the rankings, whether the ranking in question was based on the highest listing on the market, or the highest level of approval from the authorities. These artists professed other values, and other goals led them onward, they were focused on art, conceived as the realm of cognitive freedom and creative discourse . . .1

This definition clarifies the meaning of the artist’s own artistic practice and personal ethics.

With such a project shared on the net, the artist is not defined by the kind of object that he creates, which we call ‘a work of art’, but principally by the nature of the creative intervention that he is capable of performing in society. The net as a principle of open exchange is involved in cultural dynamics: it closes distances, redefines and redistributes roles. In this measure, the solidarity for elective affinities becomes the principal function, operating beyond the privileged circles and social distinction allowed by the system of art.

In the book Grammar, the verb ‘to be’ is conjugated in all its variations. The declensions of the verb suggest a reflection on the meaning that one may give to words and actions. The simplicity in the making of the crafted, quasi-precarious, book is revealing. Published by the Akumulatory 2 Gallery in Poznań, the quasi-Utopian character of the production of 99 printed copies is evident. The conjugation of the verb ‘to be’ is extended throughout the 68 pages of the book as a result of the action of the artist to conjugate the verb ‘to be’ within a three-month period during the year of 1973. The action expresses, to the limit, the performative character of language. It becomes a gesture that is expanded within the communication circuit of the mail art net and is completed upon being read by its addressees.

Upon being sent by the postal service to Brazil, the book strengthens the efficiency of other more open, extra-institutional, circulation channels for art, capable of welcoming, from beyond economical or political imperatives, other declensions of significance. In the same year that Kozłowski brought forth his enunciative catalogue of the verb ‘to be’, the Brazilian artist, Angelo de Aquino (1945–2007), circulated his Declaration through the mail art net. A postcard signed by Aquino reads ‘I am Jarosław Kozłowski,’ together with the printed stamp that belies the true nature of this statement: ‘lie’. Perhaps 1

Jarosław Kozłowski, ‘Art between the Red and the Golden Frames’, in Curating with Light Luggage, ed. Liam Gillick and Maria Lindt (Munich: Kunstverein München; Frankfurt am Main: Revolver Books, 2005), p. 44.

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grammar / gramatyka published by Galeria Akumulatory 2 Poznań, 1978

this project was inspired by the exhibition of the artist’s work organised by Kozłowski in that same year at the Akumulatory 2 Gallery in Poznań.

The Akumulatory 2 Gallery is the result of a process on the net: in other words it is the product of the possibility of an exchanging relation among artists beyond pre-established axes and institutional structures. The precariousness of the means, allied with the urgency of communicating beyond the limited, exclusionary channels related, at that point and time, to totalitarian political regimes identifies many of the works that circulated within this net.

What one sees here are intersections of relations that question the limitations of a circuit dominated by the hegemonic axis of the USA and Western Europe. Beyond the canonical narratives of art, these exchanges denote a path of artistic relations between Brazil and Poland in those trying years, and express the multiple and most improbable manifestations of the verb ‘to be’ in the field of art. This outlines an underground history that scorns the hegemonic circuits of London, Paris, Berlin, New York, etc., suggesting a horizontal history of art2, where the notion of transnationality enables less hierarchic or centralising relations.

Kozłowski constantly places in suspension values and representations associated to language in its relation with ideologies, as well as conventions related to the perception of time and space. Clocks, for example, upon being taken in their geographic relativity, provoke a denaturalisation of the senses and are capable of making the usual, uncanny. This optical dialectics, which sees the quotidian as impervious and full of significance, permeates the artist’s work.

As an antidote to the dominating ideology, Jarosław Kozłowski frequently provokes with his works the unfamiliarity and uncanniness, the, albeit temporary, suspension of values and representations that has occurred in other projects seen in Brazil more recently (27th São Paulo Art Biennial, 2006).

In Gravity Room, for example, the visitor, upon entering the space of the installation, encounters a completely upside-down, soberly furnished dining room. On stepping upon what would be the ceiling, the floor hovers above visitors’ astounded heads. The vertigo provoked in visitors was proportional to the uncanniness provoked by the unusual situation. This sensation of momentarily losing spatial references, within the context of the São Paulo Art Biennial, is revealing. The feeling of being out-of-place and the 2

About this subject: Piotr Piotrowski, ‘On the Spatial Turn, or Horizontal Art History’, Uměni / Art (Prague), no. 5, 2008, pp. 378–83.

united world utopian version 27th S達o Paulo Art Biennal S達o Paulo, 2006 gravity room 27th S達o Paulo Art Biennal S達o Paulo, 2006

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fear of losing spatial orientation seem to coincide with what the visitor experiences in walking about this immense pavilion. The project by the Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer, was originally conceived and constructed in the fifties as a home for industrial expos. In an irony fate, it has served, since its beginning, as the venue of the São Paulo Art Biennial. The troubled perception, at large exhibitions like the Biennials, exposes a certain paradox inherent in the system of contemporary art. That is: the spectacular promotion of art within the circuit of international exhibitions. Kozłowski’s Gravity Room makes palpable the warning of Guy Debord : ʻDans le monde réellement renversé, le vrai est un moment du fauxʼ 3 [In a truly inverted world the truth is but a moment of what is false]. Unlike the easy, absent-minded perception that the public spectacle of large contemporary art exhibitions stimulates, the disorientation provoked by the Gravity Room at the Biennial arose as an appeal to the senses, transforming the anesthesia of easy absent-mindedness into vertigo.

In the same exhibition, Gravity Room was flanked by another piece, the installation United World.

Utopian Version (2006). There, an extensive dinner table was laid out with bread rolls, identified with the flags of different countries, located in each of the places set around the table. This work belongs to a series begun years before in which domestic objects are utilised as a poetic resource. Once again, uncanniness hovers around familiar objects and situations. If the previous versions of the same series, in which the artist uses domestic furnishing were more sarcastic and even pessimistic, the Utopian Version for São Paulo seems, quite optimistically, more positive. At least, as the artist explains4, it expresses some hope.

We know that Utopia is the name of an island in the classic work of the English humanist, Thomas More, written in the 16th century. Although its etymological meaning indicates non-existence, Utopia (from Greek, oú — ‘not’, and τόπος — ‘place’: non-place) is geographically situated in America, in the new world, more precisely as More wrote, ‘. . . a bit less than twenty-five kilometers off the coast of Latin America’. Even though uncompromising reality belies Renaissancist imagery, one of the merits of Thomas More’s book was to displace paradise to the real world. The possibility of displacing the mobile territory of utopia to a palpable, concrete gesture forms one of the axes of Jarosław Kozłowski’s artistic work, and expresses the profile of his ethics centred in an unshakable belief in liberty and in a necessary and precise conception of art.

3

Guy Debord, La Société du spectacle (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), p. 6.

4

Como viver junto / How to Live Together. 27a Bienal de São Paulo Guia / Guide, ed. Lisette Lagnado and Adriano Pedrosa, exh. cat. (São Paulo: Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, 2006), p. 106.

net

net manifesto, 1971

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appendix i to the list of persons invited to participate in net, 1972

the first show of net private apartment of Jarosław Kozłowski Poznań, 1972

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the second show of net ZPAP Poznań, 1972

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3.

EXERCISES IN SOVEREIGNTY on the works by jarosław kozłowski from the sixties and seventies Luiza Nader

The critical functions of conceptual art in Poland can be reconstructed ex post by its artistic historical context — notes Piotr Piotrowski in his text Art after Politics, the title of which is a reference to the famous work by Joseph Kosuth, Art after Philosophy, from the late sixties.

As Piotrowski later observes, however, a formulation which would explicitly criticise the prevailing political reality or the state’s cultural policy was never pronounced explicitly, nor was it even really appreciated by most artists, going far beyond the discourse available to the creators then associated with conceptualism in Poland. Analysing Jarosław Kozłowski’s oeuvre from the seventies onwards, Piotr Piotrowski points to a significant shift which apparently took place in the artist’s work. He claims that the artist moved from ‘tautology, the self-definition of an autonomous work of art’, typical of his conceptual endeavours, towards an ‘engagement and direct formulation of a critical criticism of his surroundings’. This shift, according to Piotrowski, was a gradual process which began after 1989.1 In other words, the transformation of Kozłowski’s artistic practice could be represented by a passage of sorts: from art after philosophy to art after politics.

On the other hand, when commenting on Kozłowski’s art from the perspective of the nineties, Urszula Czartoryska warned against its hasty pigeonholing as conceptualism, pointing to the proximity of Kozłowski’s art with the reflection of Hannah Arendt.2 The latter intuition seems more than relevant. At the same time, the need to draw a distinction between Kozłowski’s art and what Czartoryska recognised as conceptualism (in line with the critical practice of the seventies) seems to be symptomatic.3 However, if we were to refute a certainty of definition of conceptual art and recognise, following Michel de Certeau, that knowledge about historical phenomena is never a closed project but one which is in motion, then we would realise that it is not the separation but the combination of procedures of criticising visuality and, at the same time, the disconcerting tropes of the disassembling of the instances of the author or the subject according to Arendt’s reflection on thinking that can contribute to redefining and reconsidering the functions, roles, and effects of conceptual practices in Poland.

In the present text, which is limited to the second half of the sixties and the decade of the seventies, I would like to somewhat complicate the image of the modulation of Kozłowski’s artistic practice 1

Piotr Piotrowski, ʻSztuka według politykiʼ, in idem, Sztuka według polityki. Od Melancholii do Pasji (Cracow: Universitas, 2007).

First published as ʻSztuka według polityki / Art after Politicsʼ, in Negocjatorzy sztuki. Wobec rzeczywistości / Negotiators of Art. Facing Reality, ed. Bożena Czubak, exh. cat. (Gdańsk: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia, 2000).

2

Urszula Czartoryska, ʻJarosław Kozłowski’s Gamesʼ, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, exh. cat. (Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994), p. 33.

3

Czartoryska writes, ‘Alicja Kępińska was right of course, when she included him among the artists of this [conceptual] orientation in the seventies on the basis of his purely linguistic [emphasis mine], cerebral works. In these works, Kozłowski attempted to defi ne the process of thinking, the relationship between language and objects, the logical aspect of such arbitrary systems as grammar; sometimes he attempted to fi nd a code number for an object . . . . ’ Ibid., pp. 31–32.

provided by Piotr Piotrowski, and reformulate opinions about the idiom of conceptualism as created by the artist. I intend to present selected phenomena from the artist’s work of the time, the intertwining of which were the points of analysis of an individual vis-à-vis the system. It was also here that the artist performed his inquisitive study of the language of authority. I do not wish to focus on the mythologised cliché of ‘linguistic purity’ or practices of ‘purifying the means of understanding and associating,’ but on language as entangled with the body, and the relations of self-referentiality to direct action. I further ask the question not about the meaning of autonomy, but about the notion of the sovereignty of the artistic field in Poland — both back in the seventies and now.

The works I wish to discuss can be divided into two partially overlapping categories. The first group contains pieces whose origins are close to the Fluxus verbal events, where the category of authorship acquires a transitive form. The second consists of structurally expansive realisations which engage the body and which expose-demonstrate the author/subject in a form which has been translocated.

1.

In the second half of the sixties, Jarosław Kozlowski was completing his studies at the State School of Visual Arts in Poznań (in the studio of Stanisław Teisseyre, the well-known colourist painter) and assisted Andrzej Matuszewski at the local odNowa Gallery. The venue was known for its crushing criticism of the pictorial tradition of painting, understood as representation, an aesthetics of reception, and categories in which visual experience is seen as key to the perception of art. The Gallery was also a vehement critic of the didactic process to which most students of Polish art schools were subjected. In the years between 1964 and 1969, the increasing criticism of painting led to a minimising of the role of the object in artistic endeavours, thus moving from a critique of representation and illusion towards actions resembling environment art and happenings. At approximately the same time, Kozłowski abandons painting in which, as the artist later claimed, he had started feeling overly comfortable.4 From 1967 onwards, Kozłowski busies himself in creating expansive environments, which he always relates to text (Arrangement, 1967; Situation, 1968). At roughly the same time, he anonymously sends out envelopes containing different instructions of actions. One such shipment is of a pouch filled with sand and the command: ‘count’. Another one containsa model of a paper airplane with the request to the addressee: ‘Fold, write name and surname, open window’.5 In 1969, still on the wave of the antiintelligentsia and anti-Semitic campaign, the whole administration of odNowa Gallery is replaced. The same year Kozłowski performs his Expedition (Drafting), which he proposed in text form the following year at the Symposium Wrocław ’70: Place: Room apartment house street quarter city suburb motorway field road forest and further . . .

Time: from the beginning A day or two, a week or a month, a year, many years . . .

Description: An unlimited number of people can participate in the Expedition. Beginning with the first participant, the Expedition becomes a fact.

You can start the Expedition at any time, simultaneously with others or not, individually or in a group, and you can take a break at any time and then continue again.

Your participation in the Expedition does not require you to do anything except performing the Fundamental Task.

The Expedition’s Fundamental Task is the activity of DRAFTING. DRAFTING is done in any direction and is not restricted in any way, being determined solely by the participant’s individual trajectory of movement.

Depending on the surface, the DRAFTING instrument is white chalk or a stick, the mark — a continuous line.

Regardless of the form it assumes, the activity of DRAFTING is the most active way of participating in the Expedition.

4

Jarosław Kozłowski, Jerzy Ludwiński, ʻConversationʼ, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, p. 94.

5

Jarosław Kozłowski recalls these mails in an interview with myself, as does Alicja Kępińska, Nowa sztuka. Sztuka polska 1945– 1978 (Warsaw: WAiF, Auriga, 1981), pp. 219–20. Włodzimierz Borowski, in an interview with myself, confi rmed to have been sent a parcel with sand and the instruction to ‘count’.

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Expedition documentation: Individual or collective impressions, experiences, thoughts, journals, recordings, photographs, videos and so on . . . 6

Another proposal of the artist from the same period, Territory (1970), involved fencing a defined area with a net, and placing a ‘No Entry’ sign on it. The drawing (design of the fence with the sign) was accompanied by a text: A 4 x 4 m square field delineated by means of the wire net fence, 1.5 m in height, supported on six metal pillars A 1 m entrance on one of the sides of the squares At the entrance a sign with the words ‘NO ENTRY’ in 5 languages (Polish, English, German, Russian, French)7

Though unlike the other proposals mentioned, this particular work remained at the design stage, it also seems to be representative of the direction in which Kozłowski’s linguistic events modulated.

Before I start tracing differences and vectors of change in Kozłowski’s work, however, I would like to focus on the following question: what exactly are these texts/works? Their determining factor is first and foremost an uncertainty of status. Is a drawing with a ‘No Entry’ sign merely a design? Do we read Expedition for the mere information it contains?

It seems that the origins of actions such as Expedition and the different instructions sent through the mail, or the Territory project for that matter, can be traced to the Fluxus verbal events, such as Exit (1961)

by George Brecht or Composition #10 ‘Draw a straight line and follow it’ by La Monte Young (1960). In the case of Brecht’s Exit, the execution of the idea could be limited to opening the door, exiting, reading out the above word, and contemplating the ‘Exit’ sign or its photographic documentation. When it comes to La Monte Young, on the other hand, it was the viewer’s inventiveness that determined the way a straight line was to be made (the best known interpretation of Young’s composition, and also an autonomous event is considered to be Zen for Head by Nam June Paik from 1962). Liz Kotz writes that in the case of the events proposed by Fluxus artists, it was their simple structure which led to the production of different executions, at the same time maintaining the internal integrity and assuring the unified nature of the different compositions (most often in the form of music scores) intact. It was possible for anybody to repeat the event. The borders between the author, the performer, the translator or interpreter were distorted.8 Kozłowski’s proposals could also be seen as open scores for a performance or an environment. The objects were simultaneously visual and textual. As in the case of the Fluxus works, they can be described as écriture: they are characterised by a linguistic transcription, by an iterative nature, by an absence of references, a temporal and spatial dissonance between inscription and its reading/execution. The modest Fluxus works did reach Central Europe as early as the sixties. In 1963 and 1964, selected compositions

by La Monte Young, Dick Higgins and Eric Andersen were performed in Warsaw.9 There are no reasons to conclude, however, that Kozłowski knew these works in the latter half of the sixties. The analogies are, in all probability, mostly incidental. It could cautiously be presumed that the affiliation is more the result of the proximity of certain assumed principles, whose genealogy originates in a fascination with music. Fluxus verbal events stem from the definition of music as expanded by John Cage (to encompass shimmering and silence, as well as elements traditionally deemed extra-musical). Kozłowski’s works are left to the free interpretation of the recipient/performer, and their structure is the result of the artist’s fascination as much with jazz, as with contemporary music. The repetitions distributed in time, which systematically recur just like motifs in a jazz piece, are intended to be played out — but each time inevitably differently. This difference, or otherness, is hence each time reconstituted anew.

6

Jarosław Kozłowski, Expedition, description of the project from artist’s archive, trans. by Marcin Wawrzyńczak.

7

Description of the project in Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, p. 18.

8

Liz Kotz, Words to Be Looked At. Language in 1960s Art (Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press, 2007), p. 87.

9

See: ʻOverall Survey of Fluxus Events in Central Eastern Europe (1962–1989)ʼ, in Fluxus East. Fluxus Networks in Central Eastern Europe, ed. Petra Stegman (Berlin: Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2007), p. 199.

The nature of Kozłowski’s proposals here mentioned is thus determined by heteronomy and polysemy, as well as the possibility of constant transplantation, a dissemination beyond the instance and the authority of the author. Following the observations made by Liz Kotz, it could be said that in the case of Kozłowski, the simple actions of drawing or simply imagining the actions of making a line, counting grains of sand, folding a paper plane, or perceiving a sign of prohibition or command, did not require any particular skills. They were repeatable and feasible — both in terms of possible execution or just their conceptualisation. They were accessible to all. It was the recipient who was each time offered the possibility of performing the action, even if he/she was not willing to succumb to the instructions provided. The works mentioned are devoid of any medium. They apply the language of impersonal information. The time of their execution is made equal with the time of their duration, even with the time of their reading.

The differences between the actions of the American artists and those of Kozłowski are determined both by language, and the contextual framework in which these actions took place. The humorous works of the Fluxus artists are targeted both at the modernist categories of mastery, the specificity of the medium, the optical experience, the fetishisation of artistic technique, as well as at the commoditisation of art, a phenomenon which was beginning to appear then in the context of American and Western European art. By concentrating on unspectacular and ephemeral events located in a quotidian reality, as well as on the visuality of text, sound, and aspects of musical performance, they operated on the verges of media and on the margins of capitalist culture. Such subversive tactics proposed by many of the Fluxus artists included slapstick or ridicule. In the conditions of a totalitarian state, any action in the public sphere, however minute, which touches on even the most modest elements of reality (as the chalk-drawing exercise in Expedition), seemed suspicious to the authorities — the laughter too seemed ambiguous. The language of instructions seemed to mock the official bans and commands filling the public sphere. The nonsense attacked with the ferocity of a virus, destroying the structures of the one and only sense.

There are also fundamental differences among Kozłowski’s works themselves. The modest request to ‘count’, which assumed an action which is minimal and absurd at the same time, is a sort of interpellation engaging the audience by the (ab)use of its authority. The charming nonsense and selfless nature of the exercise of counting sand grains may be alluring to the addressee. The anonymity of the instruction, however, disciplines and places its recipients in an already lost position, as linguistic authority has already been constituted — an authority that can either be succumbed to or opposed. In the case of the instruction to construct a paper airplane, sign it, and then open a window, the artist’s request introduces a blind spot. It is a meaningful omission which is not very explicit at first sight. Though the command is as authoritative as in the case of the sand action, it seems to bear certain traits of an elliptic expression. It is up to the condition of the subject interpellated whether the window is opened and the plane is placed on, say, the window sill, or whether the delicate paper construction is thrown out of the window so as to contemplate its slow gliding. Another possible interpretation may be that the addressee sees a disconcerting command in the language of the instruction — this blind spot (‘open the window’) — and may not only just open the window, but also climb onto the window sill or jump out, following the paper plane. Kozłowski was thus subtly testing the power of resistance of subjects to authoritarian requests, playing with the absurd, but at the same time constructing figures of threat. And thus he unmasked the impersonal linguistic structures of the ubiquitous bans, commands, instructions, requests, as being inscribed in a discourse of authority which disciplines, appropriates, and can be truly destructive.

Expedition, however, has nothing to do with such drilling exercises. On the contrary, the exercise may be performed, but it does not have to be. Its execution is possible anywhere, even only in the mind. Kozłowski himself was one of the executors of Expedition. This simple exercise in the absurd and purposeless, however, an activity so ‘innocent’ and simple but at the same time imbued with the history of the formal experiences of the avant-garde, still turned out to be subversive. The modest action of the artist drawing a chalk line on the pavement in the city of Poznań in 1969 was stopped by militia officers. The line disappeared the following day. One could risk saying that the ephemeral line in chalk infringed the safe enclosure of the public sphere in the totalitarian state. According to Claude Lefort, totalitarianism was an attempt to escape from a fundamental lack of closure, the impossibility of

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public space, a repression of the anxiety, conflict, and antagonism which articulate the social system.10 The totalitarian take on space was entirely conceived in positive categories: continuity and organic unity, internal coherence of all entities entering the space and the universal needs of the individuals inhabiting it. The line, drawn freely by the artist, became a crack, a division, a moment of a dangerous clash in which the phantasm of a homogenous and unified space suddenly collapsed. Anybody could (and can) draw lines — anywhere, bearing no responsibility and intending no purpose. Expedition thus became a simple exercise in regaining the space of a sovereign existence, something taken away after the political events of 1968.

Territory is a project which can be treated as a reconstruction of a situation filled with the invisible bans and commands encountered every day, and thus having an inevitable impact on the condition of the individual. The work has never been performed in spatial terms. Though, as in the case of Expedition, it seems that there was never a need for the text to actually be performed. As an artistic proposition, Territory works not only as an environment created by the artist, but also as an option which can be played out by the audience (as was the case with the other works discussed here). This performance could entail the reading of the project, or a deliberation on the different bans that fill urban space and the persuasive power they transmit. On the other hand, the ‘no entry’ ban is a linguistic fact — a performative utterance from the category of instructions. It reveals the power contained in language: in this case, it is not language which reflects reality — it is linguistic representation which disciplines the behaviour of individuals in the sphere of ‘reference’.

Imagination Zone is a project which can be treated as a spatial negative of the situation outlined in Territory. The work was carried out in the same year, during the famous conceptual 8th Meeting of Artists and Art Theoreticians in Osieki.

The action was initiated by the placing of 21 signs proclaiming ‘IMAGINATION ZONE’ in Osieki, within a 4 km radius of the village, as well as in Koszalin.

Technical description: sign-board made of a plastic or metal sheet, white, standard dimensions of 25 x 30 cm, typical black lettering.

Application: ‘IMAGINATION ZONE’ sign-boards are used for marking everything. ‘IMAGINATION ZONE’ signboards should be placed everywhere: in apartments, in institutions, offices, on railway station buildings, on private and public buildings, on industrial premises, on walls, fences, bill-posts, on cobblestone, in trams, railway carriages and other means of transport, in streets, squares, at crossings, on roads, dirt roads, bridges, in parks, in fields, meadows, forests, by river-sides and lake-sides, on the sea, on the land, in the sky, etc.

‘IMAGINATION ZONE’ is recommended for mass production and universal distribution! Persons interested are hereby obliged to launch the ‘IMAGINATION ZONE’ action without delay.11

Kozłowski’s action can be seen as a direct criticism of the context of symposia where the ‘order of imagination’ (the requirement to perform formal experiments while remaining completely indifferent politically) imposed on avant-garde artists by the authorities led in fact to the destruction of imagination (by releasing self-censorship). Kozłowski’s work violated this status quo, and defined the space of the meeting as an aporetic zone, a controlled area of ‘free’ actions and sanctioned imagination. It further revealed the disciplining character of such artistic meetings, as well as their ideological hidden agenda.

The command or ban was anonymously installed ‘everywhere’: in the town, in more secluded places or those which are completely inaccessible (on lamp posts, in garbage collection sites, on fences, walls of buildings, on the beach, in a private room, in the forest, etc.). Kozłowski took his action beyond the reserve zone and entered the public area. The order of imagination thus became not so much a grotesque action, 10

Claude Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986).

11

Quoted after Refl eksja konceptualna w sztuce polskiej. Doświadczenia dyskursu: 1965–1975 / Conceptual Refl ection in Polish Art. Experiences of Discourse: 1965–1975, ed. Paweł Polit and Piotr Woźniakiewicz, exh. cat. (Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, 2000), p. 111.

as a dangerous one. The work not only melted into its own context, at the same time as focusing on it, but the area of imagination thus acquired different meanings by being located in different places. The signs entwined the city like a web. They attacked viewers, drawing their attention to the hidden mechanisms producing meanings. A sign in the form of a command, but referring to imagination created a situation of an internal aporia, of discomfort and irritation. It referred neither to the public sphere of human behaviour nor to what is private — it decoupled the binary opposition between these spheres, revealing their mutual connections and the pressure of authority imposed on the condition of individuals by the language of power. The contradictoriness is worth stressing here, as is the double-edged character of Kozłowski’s sign. The ‘zone’ suggests that the space is limited — separated, isolated and supervised.

There is a notion of separating areas which are hazardous or which call for special protection. While imagination, in the colloquial understanding of the word, is seen as the ‘freest’ ability of the human mind. The ‘Imagination Zone’ signs resemble, by dint of their standard form and typography, typical administrative bans or commands, thus simultaneously suggesting isolation and protection, as well as the fragility of the protected value. Perhaps they also evoked the feeling of a lurking ‘danger’ for those who dare to enter the sphere of the imagination. The territory marked as a ‘Imagination Zone’ can be read as a defiant challenge posed by conceptual art — a call to think about the impossible, or a response to the appeal by American conceptual artists to ‘live in your head’. The authoritative instruction, however, can also be seen as a provocation to come to an awareness that imagination should not be followed, but exceeded. As Slavoj Žižek says, fantasy only teaches us what it is we should desire, and how.12 It is therefore not certain whether the audience should protect themselves against the imagination, or rather whether this protection should also be afforded to the imagination, as a supposedly rarely used part of the mind. Or perhaps the sphere of imagination should be accessed, or even exceeded. This ambiguity seems to be consciously inscribed in Kozłowski’s work. The decision about which position to choose lies in the ‘execution’ by the audience. As in Expedition, they are encouraged to freely and independently engage in similar actions.

The above works (both in the noun and verb sense of the word) all have the common denominator of performativity. As John L. Austin claimed, performative utterances are those which are at the same time the performance of a given activity. Austin proposed three groups of performative utterances: locutionary acts (bearing meaning), illocutionary acts (bearing a certain power), and perlocutionary acts (achieving certain results by the very act of saying something).13 The works described here belong to the two latter groups. For we are dealing here both with the application of a language of a certain conventional power (informing, requesting, warning, promising), as well as of attaining certain goals by means of language (persuading, surprising). A zone of imagination is proclaimed and grains of sand are counted or dispersed due to the power of language. Entry is forbidden. Any form of performing Expedition is encouraged. However, there are no mimetic functions played by language. On the contrary — it is the linguistic action which leaves traces in reality. Quoting Shoshana Felman, we could say that both in the case of Austin’s performative utterances, as well as in the case of Kozłowski’s events/actions, the language and its reference (i.e. reality) are not in opposition to each other, but are identical. Felman claims that the scandal of Austin’s performative utterance lies in the discovery that language is part of what it refers to.14 In other words, the use of language as a performative utterance makes it one of the constitutive elements of reality. In this sense, the language of a performative utterance is self-referential: it refers to itself, instilling itself in reality. But ‘reality’ itself — a notion which is usually undefined and used as self-explanatory — ceases to be something which can be taken for granted. In such an 12

Slavoj Žižek, Przekleństwo fantazji (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2001), pp. 45–47. English edition: Slavoj Žižek, The Plague of Fantasies (London: Verso, 1997).

13

John L. Austin, Jak działać słowami, in idem, Mówienie i poznawanie. Rozprawy i wykłady filozofi czne, trans. Bogdan Chwedończuk (Warsaw: PWN, 1993), p. 666. English edition: John L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975).

14

Shoshana Felman, The Scandal of the Speaking Body. Don Juan with J. L. Austin or Seduction in Two Languages (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), p. 51.

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untitled 1968 from the collages series

understanding of language, the sense of reality as a pre-existing substance vanishes, and what appears is its interpretation as a dynamic motion of change.15 2.

By studying the issue of the uses and abuses of language in the late sixties, Kozłowski was scraping off its surface, revealing the effects which self-referential linguistic actions inscribe in reality: both in individuals, as well as in space. By undermining the author as the guarantor of truth, meaning and sense, he also pointed to the question of the Self which emerges from linguistic and graphic structures — the question of the individual vis-à-vis systems and structures.

Collages from 1968 was the artist’s first work to happen in the space of a page, a mixture of ‘immobilised linguistic stereotypes.’16 Kozłowski’s text treated the Odra magazine pages as a place of artistic intervention, an action in a gallery space, redefining the prolongation of the action in the space of the page.17 The text is mainly built from quotations which are collated like a collage from the title.

The work begins and ends with the same question/quote from Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, ‘What time is it?’. The texts quoted by Kozłowski include a definition of a mirror, a description of the functioning of a clock, a newspaper clipping which is a story of a scientist from Boston who had invented a machine for making people happy, which can make even the ‘most depressed’ individual reach a mood of ‘delicate euphoria [in which] the world seems bearable and the future joyous’. Another piece was taken from the book Chats about Nature and Industry18, and includes a number of rhetorical questions: ‘Does the work of a shoemaker seem easy to you? Would you like to be a shoemaker? Is the craft of shoemaking useful for people?’ The text ends with a triple repetition of a sentence from the story about the machine to make people happy, ‘Just turn it on and you are really happy!’ And the question, ‘What time is it?’ — which was also in the opening of the text. Constituent elements of language serve as intermezzos separating 15

Ibid.

16

I have borrowed this term from Herman Lang, cf. Herman Lang, Language and the Unconscious: Lacan’s Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis (Amherst: Humanity Books, 1997).

17

Jarosław Kozłowski, ‘Collages’, Odra, no. 12, 1968. Between 1967 and 1971 the columns in Odra became a space for texts, manifestos, statements and actions by artist and critics from the milieu of Jerzy Ludwiński and the Pod Moną Lizą Gallery.

18

Mieczysław Brzeziński, Pogadanki z dziedziny przyrody i przemysłu (Warsaw, 1921).

the different quotes: sequences of the alphabet (going forward or backward), as well as rising or falling orders of numbers from 1 to 9 — the material of the measured time units. There are also questions accompanying the different Polish declension cases: [nominative] ‘Who? What?’, [genitive] ‘Whose?’, [dative] ‘To/for whom? To/for what?’, etc.

The quotes appropriated by Kozłowski from the different newspaper clips, manuals and guidebooks are there to indicate superficial discourses about time and being. These discourses run in parallel in different fields and at different levels of reality: that of science (definitions), colloquialism and propaganda (the daily press, texts from a calendar), and resemble to an extent the lines said by Willie from Beckett’s Happy Days. The juxtaposition of quotes presents reality as a knot of intertwining discourses, which apply the fossilised language of banalities to metaphysical truths. The circular structure of the text is at the same time an experience of temporality — of a time which returns, which is homogenous and eternally ‘the same’.

The notion of illusion (the mirror), fiction (a machine producing appearances of happiness), time (the clock, the measurement of time), existence and being (clocks, the declination questions), usefulness (the story of the ‘shoemaker’s craft’) which emerge from the text, all have corresponding photographs accompanying the text of Collages. The reproductions displaying a collection of shabby shoes and broken alarm clocks, ‘gutted’ clocks suspended on chains, mirrors and/or a shadow (the author’s?) in the background, reflecting the worn out shoes and alarm clocks, all served as a metonymic reference to the Collages. At the same time, they heralded the environment which was not yet present, but which was later to constitute itself in the Pod Moną Lizą Gallery.

untitled 1968 from the collages series

062

063

Whilst the text published in Odra magazine confronted the fossilised languages of convention with metaphysical questions, the environment of the Pod Moną Lizą Gallery (Situation, 1968) contrasted the impersonalised objects with private ones bearing traces of personal histories. Three rows of panels were hung on walls, presenting impersonal silhouettes. Similar figures appear at approximately the same time in Kozłowski’s assemblages. They are sometimes divided by mirrors which, on the one hand, optically multiply them in number and, on the other, place each viewer reflected in the mirror in the impersonal row. Cheap imitations of watches — mock-ups of time — are chained to some of the panels. The numbers placed in the outlines of the silhouettes make the figures look like shooting targets. The space of the floor is evenly divided into fields delineated by chalk lines. Some of the fields are numbered. Old shabby shoes, brought to the gallery by their users, are placed in selected areas. The fields look a bit like hopscotch, and a bit like cages. Bright spotlights are targeted at the audience entering the environment.

And within it (the event is taking place in December 1968) emphasis is put on those elements associated with the oppressive nature of an abstract system, the power of which deprives individuals of their personalities. The worn out shoes can be interpreted as a metonymy of privacy, of private memory and history. But they also bring to mind a formlessness which is dangerous to any system, a deviation from the norms hinted at within the environment by chains as well as the anonymous silhouettes and the fields in which the shoes had been placed. The numbered silhouettes correspond to the number of fields, but otherwise bear no personal traits. It is the objects that paradoxically bring out whatever individuality is left in them. Each pair of those shoes could be seen as a metonymy of the differences recorded by the experience of the body and of memory. When juxtaposed with the old abandoned shoes, the figures resembling shooting targets can for many Polish intellectuals evoke associations with the events of 1968 — the student protests, the anti-Semitic and anti-intelligentsia campaign, the wave of forced emigration of Polish Jews. They can serve as a reference to those who left as a result of the violent attacks, as well as to those who stayed as an anonymous line of observers.

Collages gain a whole array of new meanings in this context. In a sense the text looks at itself, becoming its own reflection and, at the same time, revealing linguistic dissonance. By appropriating the language of propaganda trivia, it shows just how deeply even the most minute details of reality are saturated with the jargon of propaganda fiction, but also — by echoing this language, it poses it in front of a mirror. By appropriating the quasi-objective didactic language of a lecture, calendar, press clipping or promotional book, Kozłowski sets irony in motion, playing with the arrangement of words by reversing them.19 This result is possible not only because the artist is quoting, but also because he is repeating. As Briony Fer notes, repetition can be linked to the annihilation of meaning.20 The language of quotations describing the world is thus shown as meaningless: it does not refer to facts but constructs a certain self-referencing fiction. Subjects can succumb to this fiction, or they can try to make themselves distinct from it by means of ironic strategies: a reflective separation which ‘says one thing, but means another’. But the use of ironic language is constructed by a subject which is dissociated, on the verge of madness. According to Paul de Man, ‘Therefore, ironic language splits the subject into an empirical self that exists in a state of inauthenticity and a self that exists only in the form of a language that asserts the knowledge of this inauthenticity.’21 Irony, or the split in language, is the end of all consciousness. The experience of time and being is, in this sense, divided into the pure mystification of the past (because time, like the circular structure of text, is constantly returning), and the future, which is permanently jeopardised by the possibility of falling into artificiality, signalled here by the rows of depersonalised silhouettes.

The problem of the complicated relations between subjectivity and language is again the focus of Kozłowski’s work entitled Lesson, which was realised both as a book (1972, issued in 1975), as well as a performance (1973). The artistic operations in the book version of the Lesson are based on a drawing and the text titled In the Sitting Room from the popular English language textbook by E. F. Candlin.

19

Cf. Paul de Man, ‘The Concept of Irony’, in idem, Aesthetic Ideology (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).

20

Briony Fer, ‘Hanne Darboven. Seriality and the Time of Solitude’, in Conceptual Art: Theory, Myth and Practice (Cambridge:

21

Paul de Man, ‘The Rhetorics of Temporality’, in idem, Blindness and Insight (London: Methuen, 1983).

Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 223.

The fictitious situation presented in the text and in the drawing was ‘made real’ by Kozłowski: the drawing is replaced by a photograph (Mr. and Mrs. Brown in the photograph are actually the artist’s parents), and the continuous text from the book is split up into sentences arranged in columns. The consecutive sentences from the column on each page are confronted with the photograph, and subjected to a deconstruction invented by the artist (e.g. into the letters composing the words) or a transformation (e.g. into a sentence, sound, idea). In the book, Kozłowski confronts two different ways of representing reality: from thought, through speech and text, to different types of visual representation. At the same time, he thus questions the transparency of language in relation to the world in the vein proposed by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

The performance version of the work located the deliberations on representation in reference to the horizon of the body, placing the experience of reality in language. The three mentioned representations, the text, the drawing, and the photograph, upon which the artist had performed his operations were hung on the gallery walls. On a table, the artist carried out an analysis of the successive sentences from the book. In the two last cases (transforming the sentence into a sound and a thought), Kozłowski turned to the audience with the following commands: ‘say’ and ‘think’. Each sequence ended with drill exercises (printed at the end of the book), which pointed to the mutual and interchangeable relations between the text — speech (sound) — thought — photograph — drawing and, finally, reality.

As a performance, Lesson introduced the aforementioned issue of language as an activity on the one hand and, on the other, it brought to light the question of the relations between language, the body, and the subject. By means of language, the artist became a ‘speaking body’. Language, by dint of being played out literally, became an activity with concrete consequences, an act of violence performed on specific subjects in a specific reality. By saying the text of the drill exercise, the artist disciplined the public by means of language and, at the same time, surrendered to language seen as a defined and fixed semantic and grammatical system. To use the notions proposed by Jacques Lacan, he not so much used language as was ostentatiously spoken by language. When subjected to parsing, language crumbled. In Lacanian terms, language, which is a system structuring all social laws of exchange, is here subjected to destruction by the artist so as to adopt the form of lalangue — the incommunicable aspects of language, a ‘primary chaotic substrate of polysemy out of which language is constructed’.22 The subjectivity constructed by Kozłowski in the Lesson was dynamic and, at the same time, provisional. In the first part of his operations on sentences, it was constituted by incidental linguistic structures; it was the space of a reflexive verb form. However, when the sentences were subjected to an arbitrary parsing, the artist entered areas where language asks about itself, where it plays and shows its limitations, and where it reveals itself not as an autonomous structure, but as an activity entangled in reality. Kozłowski was thus pointing to the possible construction of a Self which is conscious of its contingency, a Self which negotiates meanings, and therefore — itself.

The Lesson in its performance version erased the metaphysical opposition between the body and language, between the mental and material spheres. Furthermore, as was the case with the verbal events of the late sixties, it also eliminated the opposition between self-referentiality and referentiality. It should be noted that, whilst in the latter half of the sixties Kozłowski’s works exhibit the annihilation of the instance of the author as the guarantor of truth and meaning, in the Lesson the author is back — literally so.

Both in the Situation and in Collages, the author only cast a shadow on the textual action. This was done for the sole purpose of breaking the linguistic fiction. In the early seventies, however, the author begins to appear in Kozłowski’s actions and books, including the Lesson. But he appears in a translocation, as a peculiar effect of language or an unstable subjectivity seeking a temporary point of balance.

The Lesson was also the first performance by the artist in the Akumulatory 2 Gallery — a venue which he founded in 1973 and managed until 1989. This place was an important platform for manifesting and confronting the conceptual discourses being formed at that time. The idea of the NET was a significant experience in the life of the gallery. It was a manifesto which Jarosław Kozłowski and Andrzej Kostołowski sent out in 1972 to over three hundred artists and art critics in Poland and the world, offering 22

Dylan Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis (Hove and New York: Brunner–Routledge, 2003), p. 97.

064

065

lesson published by Beau Geste Press Devon, 1975

collaboration and a free exchange of artistic facts. Disseminated via mail, the anti-institutional, or rather ‘uninstitutional’ NET began to grow in a manner impossible to predict, slipping out of control. It was a peculiar utopia of privacy which was contrasted with the ideologised public sphere, totally appropriated by the discourse of the authorities. But the utopia was broken. The visit of the security services to Kozłowski’s flat during the first reception of the NET clearly demonstrated that no separation between the private and public domain is observed in an authoritarian state. The Akumulatory 2 Gallery became an area of renewed attempts at regaining the lost right to privacy. The period between 1973 and 1979 was dominated by discussions on representation, on the relations between language and the world, as well as about the modernist myths of the artist, the work, the painting, or the sculpture. The conceptualism, or rather the various conceptualisms, formulated in Akumulatory 2 rejected universalism and drew on differentiating and stratifying notions, as well as on unmasking paradoxes and the ambiguity of both the paradigm of art ‘in context’ (art engaged in social and political criticism), as well as art ‘beyond context’ (autonomous art).

In his Lesson Kozłowski decided to also expose himself — not as the hegemonic Self of the author, but as a subjectivity inseparably connected with language, one which emerges from its structure. This exposition, however, had nothing to do with exhibitionism or narcissism which is all too present in the performance art of the seventies. It should rather be seen as an attempt to establish the position of the discursive Self: a subject which skilfully moves in the areas of language, and which speaks to others on its own behalf. The exposition of the subject in the case of Kozłowski always seems to be happening in the presence of repetition, in the context of a playing out. The action of the Lesson can indeed be termed a repetition, a transplantation, or an iteration23 of text.

Repetition understood as iteration went on to become the structural rule of Continuum. In the drawing operations based on the principle of repetition, begun in 1978 and continued to this day, the text archived the action, at the same time blurring any traces of authenticity, expression, and an experience of being ‘here’ and ‘now’.

23

Jacques Derrida claims that iterativeness or repeatability stems both from the Latin iter (‘again’) and the Sanscrit itara (‘other’).

Iterativeness is to Derrida ‘working out the logic that ties repetition to alterity’ as well as a ‘repetitiveness of the same, but not the alterity of the same, idealised in a single event’. Jacques Derrida, ‘Signature Event Context’, in idem, Limited Inc, trans.

Samuel Weber (Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1988), p. 7.

I repeat the same actions, but they set free a new energy in me each time, new emotions, a new rage, and each time it’s truly something new, for the first time. Continuum demands physical effort. My physical condition has changed over the years and, no matter how much I try to draw the same way each time, it comes out differently each time because the chalk breaks more often or less frequently, the surface of the board is different and so on. On very occasion, it’s a different time, a different space, a different audience, and a different interaction with them. And so, for me, every execution of the performance is a new experience. . . . [N]othing can be repeated.

— said Kozłowski about his operations.24 The drawing actions were each time saturating themselves with new contexts and becoming expanded with their own histories. Though they are focused more on underlining the differences rather than the similarities, their course could be boiled down to the following pattern: the artist sets the alarm clock, the artist draws on the board with a chalk until the entire surface of the board is covered, the artist compulsively begins to erase the board with a wet sponge, the artist waits for the entire surface to dry. The performance ends with the artist smashing the alarm clock against the smooth and empty surface of the board. The initial events were given ironic titles, such as The Cavalryman and the Girl (1978), Leda and the Swan (1978), Mona Lisa in the Fourth Dimension (1979), Here and Now (1980). As Kozłowski wittily elucidated in the self-commentary which closed, documented, and historicised the entire action, the first title referred to the tradition of Polish painting, the second to the tradition of Western European painting, the third to the context of world art, and the fourth was inscribe the act in the context of present art, etc.

During the successive performances of Continuum, the board is drawn over by means of different techniques, some of which require more expressive movements, while others more precision. The drawings during the performances become less abstract and more tangible, closer to the surface of the board. With time, they become both ‘temporal’ as well as ‘weighing’ — they turn out to be concrete objects. They all appear and vanish with effort, as a result of the physical labour of the artist orbiting around the board. His body, expression, and movements, are in a sense parallel to the dynamic drawing on the board. He is exposed and subject to the audience’s assessment. Such assessment, however, is not possible — the public knows that they are participating in a game, the rules of which are being formed along the way. There is no knowing which part the artist is performing, and which part is he humorously, ironically, or angrily playing out, or re-enacting. The drawings (depending on the context) can be associated with writing, documenting, or commenting on the successive triumphant returns of expressionist painting. In some cases, the action can be treated as an activity critical to the very ‘medium’ of performance, where the notion of authenticity or unmediated experiences of ‘here and now’ is taken away from the recipients by means of the historicising comment, and by being locked in the catalogue of past events. One might suggest that by repeating, and thus each time reconstructing the history of Continuum, Kozłowski inquires about the status of artistic pronouncement and its ‘context’, which —just as in the case of ‘reality’ — has an ascribed conceptual unequivocalness. Jacques Derrida claimed that, ‘every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written (in the current sense of this opposition), in a small or large unit, can be cited, put between quotation marks; in so doing it can break with every given context, engendering an infinity of new contexts in a manner which is absolutely illimitable’.25 Following the waft of Derrida’s comments, one could say that Continuum does not just relativise the context as a problem or erase it from the field of vision. Instead, it presents it as an origin which can be lost, leaving no absolute anchoring point for the artistic statement.

Contrary to its title, Continuum does not delineate a line of progress but creates continuously expanding temporal loops, where something is paradoxically changed through returning to its previous state. The interpretation, seen both as an iteration and a historicisation of the action, takes place through the successive performances on the basis of a mechanism resembling that of Freudian 24

Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Andrzej Szczepaniak, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Zasłony / Curtains, exh. cat. (Cracow: Galeria Starmach, 2006), pp. 25–26.

25

Derrida, ‘Signature Event Context’., p. 12.

066

067

territory i 1970–2005 (detail)

Nachträglichkeit or afterwardness. This notion assumes that traces in the memory are processed with a delay, as a result of the socialisation of the subject. Hence they acquire a new sense and a causative power.26 As Agata Bielik-Robson observes, Nachträglichkeit is contradictory to Kant’s experience of temporality as a stream in which the subject is submerged, or as a story with a beginning, middle, climax, and an end. The subject functions in time trouble, in a situation of continuous relapses and experiences which cannot be included in a meaningful context (traumatic events) nor in the consecutive phase of the reinterpretation of events from the past which eventually disrupts the reorganisation of experience.27 In this sense, Continuum can be treated as the artist’s model for reading histories (including his own). But the artist here is not a guardian of meanings but rather an advocate of a radical reading. Kozłowski’s art has not developed in a linear manner. Its structure is more based more on the abandoning and breaking away from particular formulas and artistic media. Most notably, it is also characterised by paradoxical returns to practices once rejected, so as to reread them and make sense of them again. In 2006 in Regensburg, the artist performed his project from 1970, Territory, opening it to the present by means of Territory II. In the sequel work, the ‘no entry’ signs were replaced by signs spelling out expressions of welcome in four different languages (the type one sees in airports). The original net-fence was replaced by a regular one. Then again, in 2007, during a television show dedicated to his oeuvre aired by the TVP Kultura channel, Kozłowski iterated his Expedition. Curiously, in both cases the artist referred to works which are not obvious and which cannot be ‘reconstructed’ in the museum sense of the word, which are suspended between re-enactment and repetition, between the object, text, and performance, and which bear unstable and fragile meanings. I therefore believe that the artist not only recalled here his historical projects, but also explicitly interpreted his present position. Here he was pointing to the conceptual trope as to an experience which was constitutive for his artistic identity, even if it dissolved all certainty and knowledge. In his application of Nachträglichkeit to describe the relations between the neo-avantgarde and the avant-garde, Hal Foster observed that in the case of afterwardness, an event is registered 26

Zofia Rosińska, ‘Doświadczenie mnemiczne, czyli fenomen pamięci według Zygmunta Freuda’ [The Mnemic Experience, or the Phenomenon of Memory According to Freud], Dialogi, no. 1/2, 2002, pp. 66–72.

27

Agata Bielik-Robson, ‘Słowo i trauma. Czas, narracja, tożsamość’ [The Word and the Trauma. Time, Narrative, Identity], Teksty Drugie, no. 5, 2004, pp. 23–34.

as traumatic only through a subsequent event which, in turn, performs a retroactive reading. In reference to historical courses, Foster talks about a return to events of the past, to the radix, where a recognition takes place of moments overlooked and motifs neglected. Such a mechanism, however, disbars from the vocabulary such notions as originality, authenticity, or origin. The scholar further focuses on the phenomenon of the parallax: our understanding of the past as defined by our present position.28 In the case of Jarosław Kozłowski, I believe that conceptual art played the role of this kind of radical event — traumatic in the metaphorical sense, inflaming the space of art history, forcing one to re-enter each reading anew. It is not about understanding and closing, but about recognising and undertaking a project of the conceptual criticism of reality, the experience of which is always mediated, as Joan W. Scott indicates, by language. *** Hanna Świda-Ziemba claims that the system in Poland up to 1989 created strong mechanisms for making society conform. Such social conformism was the main binding material in the structure of the system. Those in power were to stand guard over a given scenario, which was replicated in all domains of life. The scholar further notes that the ‘deformation processes caused by participation in the communication code of the communist system are based [on a situation when] a distortion has taken place in the relationship embedded in the consciousness between communications about reality and the experience of reality; between the decision to achieve certain objectives and the very process of achieving them; between institutions which are to carry out specific goals and their actual functions; between words and their meanings’.29 In his works from the late sixties and the seventies, Jarosław Kozłowski not only analysed language, pointing to blind spots in the practices of its quotidian use as described by Świda-Zięba. He understood language also as an activity, the consequences of which mark and change both the subject and reality.

In the texts/actions discussed, the space of language is, on the one hand, revealed as a field where subjects can demand the sovereignty of which they had been deprived and, on the other, language is also associated with exerting pressure, with disciplining and disempowering, with the actions of authority. Kozłowski used both oral and written language in ways so as to question its potential to represent reality, and thus to draw attention to the ‘real’ effects of ubiquitous linguistic operations.

Language was thus presented as a space of ambiguity: a system which disciplines and is spoken by subjects, but which can be appropriated temporarily (under the constant threat of falling into the space of the reflexive ‘itself ’) and used to demand one’s own individual sovereignty. This sovereignty has no identity, it cannot have one. As Georges Bataille said, to be free is, first of all, not to be a function.30 Jarosław Kozłowski similarily determined the relationship of the world and art, visualising it by means of the metaphor of the three rings: The first one [ring] is the domain of reality, both social and material, such as we experience it. The second one would be the domain of art as it is usually conceived [defined by official hierarchies, the scene, the salons, the art market, etc.]. . . . [Such] [a]rt is dependent upon reality as its image, projection, commentary, language, utopia, or — as Beuys would have it — universal ‘social therapy’. . . . The relationship between the first two rings and the third one would be quite different. . . . The objects within this third ring often look ‘the same’, but their new status and the different internal relations between them mean that they are not themselves from the domain of reality any more, and that they have even less in common with their ‘representations’ or ‘transformations’ in the domain of art. They assume a different identity, and with it they regain their lost dignity.31 28

Hal Foster, ‘Who’s Afraid of the Neo-Avant-Garde?’, in idem, Return of the Real. The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 1–32.

29

Hanna Świda-Ziemba, Człowiek wewnętrznie zniewolony [The Internally Enslaved] (Warsaw: ISNS UW, 1992), pp. 57 and 281.

30

Krzysztof Matuszewski, ʻWstępʼ [Introduction], in Georges Bataille, Doświadczenie wewnętrzne (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo KR, 1998), pp. 14–16 [Polish edition of L’Experience interieure (1948)].

31

Kozłowski, Ludwiński, ʻConversationʼ, pp. 101–2.

068

069

Kozłowski says that the third ring is the realm of freedom,32 which I would refer to as sovereignty.

When commenting on the writings of Bataille, Derrida observed that a sovereign action does not subject itself to anything, nor does it impose itself on anything. A sovereign action is a loss, an unproductive expenditure of sense which goes beyond the world of labour and utility.33 Kozłowski’s conceptual work based on language (always however with reference to the subject and his relations with reality) gives form to the deletion of ‘being a function’ both in reference to subjects, as well as to objects. It determines ‘purposelessness’ and the never ending movement of exceeding formulas, conventions, and history (by its successive interpretations). Language becomes for Kozłowski the space of achieving sovereignty.

By entering the territory of language, as Thomas Keenan has written, one experiences the split and alienation from the home of unconsciousness, but also an opening to the outside, gaining the chance for subjective self-realisation.34 Ludwig Wittgenstein associated thinking with language. Inspired by the philosopher, Kozłowski, in his conceptual works from the late sixties and seventies, practiced not only language, but first and foremost he practiced his thinking. He practiced doubting which, like thinking, as Hannah Arendt observed, makes the consciousness function in a manner which is not automatic.35 All that the individual is left with when deprived of freedom, and which enables one to maintain sovereignty, is thinking. Hannah Arendt believed that thinking is, alongside acting, an elementary form of exercising one’s humanity. To stop thinking means to be led towards conformism and a complete thoughtless submission to authority. According to Arendt, therefore, thinking makes us able to make ethical choices and judgements about reality.36 Kozłowski shares a similar intuition in his practices. His linguistic projects, which insistently probed the law and violence transmitted by language, as well as possible linguistic transgressions, are persistent exercises in the ability to judge reality. Exercises in the sovereignty of the mind. warsaw, 2009 Translated from Polish by Ewa Kanigowska-Gedroyć

32 33

Ibid., p. 102.

Jacques Derrida, ʻOd ekonomii ograniczonej do ekonomii ogólnej. Heglizm bez resztyʼ, in idem, Pismo i różnica [Writing and Difference], Wydawnictwo KR, Warsaw 2004, pp. 459–60. English edition: Jacques Derrida, ‘From Restricted to General Economy. A Hegelianism without Reserve’, in Writing and Diff erence (London: Routledge, 2001).

34

Cf. Rosalyn Deutsche, ‘Agoraphobia’, in eadem, Evictions: Art and Spacial Politics (Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press, 1998), p. 324.

35

Cf. Marcin Król, ʻWstępʼ [Introduction], in Hannah Arendt, Myślenie (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 2002), pp. 7–8 [Polish edition of The Life of Mind, vol. I: Thinking (1978)].

36

Hannah Arendt, The Life of Mind, vol. I: Thinking (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978).

1967–1977

072

073

arrangement odNowa Gallery Poznań, 1967

074

075

untitled 1968 from the collages series situation Pod Moną Lizą Gallery Wrocław, 1968

076

the expedition 1968 Place: Room apartment house street quarter city suburb motorway field road forest and further . . .

Time: from the beginning A day or two, a week or a month, a year, many years . . .

Description: An unlimited number of people can participate in the Expedition. Beginning with the first participant, the Expedition becomes a fact.

You can start the Expedition at any time, simultaneously with others or not, individually or in a group, and you can take a break at any time and then continue again.

Your participation in the Expedition does not require you to do anything except performing the Fundamental Task. The Expedition’s Fundamental Task is the activity of DRAFTING. DRAFTING is done in any direction and is not restricted in any way, being determined solely by the participant’s individual trajectory of movement.

Depending on the surface, the DRAFTING instrument is white chalk or a stick, the mark — a continuous line.

Regardless of the form it assumes, the activity of DRAFTING is the most active way of participating in the Expedition.

Expedition documentation: Individual or collective impressions, experiences, thoughts, journals, recordings, photographs, videos and so on . . .

077

expedition (drafting) Poznań, 1969

containers Bałtycka Art Gallery Sopot, 1970

078

079

imagination zone Koszalin, 1970

imagination zone Osieki, 1970

imagination zone Poznań, 1970

imagination zone Osieki, 1970

080

081

imagination zone Poznań, 1970

imagination zone Osieki, 1970

imagination zone Poznań, 1970

imagination zone Poznań, 1970

082

083

ladder Palace in Świdwin, 1970

cabinet National Museum in Poznań, 1970

territory i 1970–2005 Ostdeutsche Galerie und Museum Regensburg, 2005

084

085

territory ii 1970–2005 Ostdeutsche Galerie und Museum Regensburg, 2005

086

087

set EL Gallery Elbląg, 1971

set 1971 (detail) set 1971 BWA, Wrocław, 1995

apparatus Foksal Gallery Warsaw, 1972

088

089

apparatus 1972 (detail)

090

091

cognition 1972 1. A stretch of land on the lake in Montreux — e.g.

Macadam — should be photographed at a 1:1 scale (29.7 x 21 cm) 2. The photograph should then be presented to five philosophers representing five different schools: Analytical Philosophy Phenomenological Philosophy Marxist Philosophy Existential Philosophy Thomist Philosophy asking them to comment on the image.

3. Their comments (or lack thereof) will be the documentation of Cognition

cognition Galerie Impact Lausanne, 1972

092

metaphysics Foksal Gallery Warsaw, 1972

093

physics Foksal Gallery Warsaw, 1973

-ics Foksal Gallery Warsaw, 1974

contradiction and non-contradiction Pawłowice, 1975

094

095

exercises in ethics Galerie S:t Petri Lund, 1977

exercise in semiotics 1977

096

097

4.

LES MOTS ET LES CHOSES Sabine Folie

It is only the shallow people who do not judge by appearances.

The mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. oscar wilde, the picture of dorian gray

Words and objects, their referential character or their refusal of same, play a central role in the oeuvre of Jarosław Kozłowski. These two central categories, the phenomenological world and its cognitive ordering through conceptual classification, have been thoroughly delved into, not just by philosophy but also by the art of the sixties. It is therefore not so surprising that there are analogies between artists, and here I would especially like to trace the affinities between Kozłowski and Marcel Broodthaers, an artist who conducted a pointed investigation of the medium of language and of objects and signs until his premature death in 1976. Both Kozłowski and Broodthaers were considered to be conceptual artists, even as they criticised the orthodoxy of conceptual art and undermined it with their subtly subversive poetics.

Other connections can be made to Michel Foucault, René Magritte and, alternatively, to the philosophers of logical empiricism and the Vienna Circle around Ludwig Wittgenstein, who in turn maintained contacts with British philosophers such as George Edward Moore and Alfred Jules Ayer, who influenced the work of Kozłowski and other artists such as Joseph Kosuth. Kosuth cites Ayer extensively in his legendary text Art after Philosophy in order, among other things, to arrive at and prove the wholly arbitrary and autonomous meaning of language and art in general: We see that the axioms of a geometry are simply definitions, and that the theorems of a geometry are simply the logical consequences of these definitions. A geometry is not in itself about physical space; in itself it cannot be said to be ‘about’ anything. But we can use a geometry to reason about physical space. That is to say, once we have given the axioms a physical interpretation, we can proceed to apply the theorems to the objects which satisfy the axioms.

Whether a geometry can be applied to the actual physical world or not, is an empirical question which falls outside the scope of geometry itself. There is no sense, therefore, in asking which of the various geometries known to us are false and which are true. In so far as they are all free from contradiction, they are all true. The proposition which states that a certain application of a geometry is possible is not itself a proposition of that geometry. All that the geometry itself tells us is that if anything can be brought under the definitions, it will also satisfy the theorems. It is therefore a purely logical system, and its propositions are purely analytic propositions.1

Kozłowski can thus be associated with the thinking of both circles; during the sixties and seventies he felt a special affinity for the Vienna group. Here Magritte, Broodthaers and Foucault merit a brief introduction as leading figures of an approach that, following Thomas Aquinas, considers words and 1

Joseph Kosuth, ‘Art after Philosophy’, fi rst published in Studio International, no. 915 (October 1969), pp. 134–37; no. 916 (November 1969), pp. 160–61; no. 917 (December 1969), pp. 212–13. Here quoted after Joseph Kosuth, Art after Philosophy and after. Collected Writings 1966–1990, ed. Gabriele Guercio (Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press, 1993), p. 24. Ayers’ quote is in idem, Language, Truth and Logic (New York: Dover, 1946), p. 82.

terms to be accidental, not substantial attributes of things and, in that respect, able to be viewed as a ‘purely logical system’. In another article, I described Magritte as a conceptual realist and Broodthaers as a conceptual nominalist and I would be tempted to describe Kozłowski likewise as a conceptual nominalist.2 In 1959, Magritte published an essay titled Ressemblance, in which he theorises about two terms that for him denote different approaches to things: ressemblance, ‘resemblance’, which is situated on a meta-level and reveals the mystery of things and, secondly and distinct from that, similitude, ‘similarity’, which describes a purely rational approach to the comparative categorisation of things. The second approach does not penetrate the mystery of things, but identifies them solely in order to enable them to be more easily exploited in the system of commodities and cash flow. . . . Magritte appreciatively took up Foucault’s observations in The Order of Things, whose study particularly of the pre-Classical period confirmed his belief that the occidental system of classification is a conventional and arbitrary one that has an improper, non-inherent relationship to things. With the advent of the Classical age, words and signs have become separated from things. Things are rendered distant in order to analyze them, to subjugate them to an instrumental, rationally motivated schema, which describes their similarity but no longer knows anything of their resemblances, their hidden connections. And with that, an entire universe of knowledge is lost. . . . This relativism of the sign inspired Magritte to bring an endless variety of things together in new contexts through absurd confrontations. . . . We find something of the evocativeness of the incongruous, the gap, and mistrust of language again with Mallarmé. A fascination that might have motivated Broodthaers to rework Mallarmé’s poem Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard. By crossing out the letters and words that generate meaning — albeit a mysterious poetic one — a new and different calligraphic form resembling baroque pattern poetry or concrete poetry emerges. A moving wave of words generates a new order of a poetic kind through the white, the spaces, the breaks. An intervention is brought into play that later would be continued in the ABC works as well as in the rebus-like picture-word creations. In those works, Broodthaers would move away from the illusion that reality could be represented, and at the same time approach reality in another way, as the idea of realistic representability. But what really interested him [and, it can be equally maintained, Kozłowski] was reality, the world of phenomena — in all its contingence and also in its social relevance. . . . Broodthaers was a radical deconstructivist and conceptual nominalist. For him, things and their meanings are constructed to subjugate them to capitalist cravings, and this he counters with his poetic alphabet.3

In relation to Kozłowski, the notion that words are merely names for things, which though they describe things have no intrinsic ontological status, would certainly be understandable from the biographical point of view alone. Kozłowski had long lived in a system in which language was ideologised and had denunciatory force, and where any freedom of verbal expression was limited at most to poetry or to voiding the referential system of any identity between word and thing. Paradox, wordplay, tautology and nonsense are in this respect good strategies for restoring to things their semantic ambiguity, poetic power and subtlety, or even to refer back to their profane materiality — in the words of Frank Stella, ‘What you see is what you see.’

Kozłowski is usually associated with the linguistic, critical-rationalistic side of conceptualism. This applies when one considers his works from the seventies, which were aimed primarily at language and its referential nature, or indeed lack of reference to reality: A–B (1971), Reality (1972), Grammar (1973), and Lesson (1975), for instance. Here the modernist interest (modernist in Mallarmé’s sense) manifests itself in the rhetorical figures of the pause, repetition, the gap, the purely formal impression of the letters without a context for constituting a meaning that the word might convey, aside from a strictly poetic one.4 2

Cf., Sabine Folie, ‘Marcel Broodthaers — eine Kunst ohne Bedeutung’, in Marcel Broodthaers. Politique poetique, exh. cat.

(Vienna: Kunsthalle Wien, 2003).

3

Ibid., p. 14ff.

4

The exhibition catalogue Un coup de dés. Writing Turned Image. An Alphabet of Pensive Language (Vienna: Generali Foundation 2008), in which Jarosław Kozłowski is also represented with works from the collection, devotes itself to this topos.

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dark blue Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik Odense, 1989

Also stemming from this early period are works that relate not only to books, to the arrangement of text in the pictorial space of a white sheet of paper, but also pieces that expand to include space as an entity of multiple dimensions. We get a good understanding of this if we look at a work that was created between 1972 and 1974 and is in the Generali Foundation collection: Metaphysics (1972), Physics (1973) and -ics (1974). Through their change of perspective, multipartite work titles serve to demonstrate the constitution of reality and the intellectual and conceptual apparatus involved in its naming. This happens similarly in a later work that Kozłowski realised for the DAAD in Berlin in 1985: The Show, The Exhibition, The Catalogue, The Auction.5 An analogy to Broodthaers’ method can clearly be drawn, not just from the titles and their listing, but also in the analysis of the constitutive mechanisms of the market: event, image, cataloging and canonisation, and the definition of market value, exploitation, and finally cash flow.

But let us return briefly to the work from 1972–1974. In a dark room, an image of a room is projected. In this picture are various objects, which are labeled with numbers. There is apparently a correspondence between thing and number, even if it is an arbitrary one. The numbers are listed on a wall. From a cassette tape recorder a voice speaks, bringing together signifier and signified and, through their designation, defines the construction of reality in arbitrary terms per se. Kozłowski calls this installation Metaphysics (1972). In Physics (1973), a photograph of the slide projection from 1972 hangs at the identical spot where the slide had been projected, yet only a sketchy, ghostly black/white or light/shadow is recognisable in the photo. In place of the cassette recorder, hanging on the walls are texts that describe, or rather hypothetically interrogate the composition of the space and the things found in it, to the point of negating any sense, logic, or empirical experience: ‘If this is a room, then this is a room.’ In this way, skepticism about the visible world and its naming is taken to extremes and the claim to ‘truth’ is surrendered in a circular, tautological chain of inextricable, though logical, assertions.

-ics (1974) consists of the same spatial situation, only now there is neither photograph nor projection, but just the numbers, which in a system of correspondences (as in the Kabbalah) are meant to stand for the descriptions of things. The old order is done away with, a new one constructed. But the objects, the things described, have vanished, which is why the numbers or terms have lost their reference points and become obsolete, that is: empty signs, a pure alphabet. Things and words are disparate entities and their coming together an achievement of the human intellect, an empirical criticism that both Duns Scotus (1270–1308) and Willem of Occam (1300–1350) had already carried out, whereby the linguistic apparatus exists solely to plot reality.

5

In his article in this publication, René Block goes into detail about this work, so I refrain from doing so here.

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-ics 1974 Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, 2000

Kozłowski works with wordplay, paradox, language and a confusion of perception. Yet his later works from the 1980s are by no means limited to the facticity of floating letters (as in A–B or Reality), but instead deal very much with things and their thingness and the connections between things and words.

The reason for this lies in a fundamentally skeptical stance vis à vis an art that devolves into concept and dogma. Kozłowski speaks here of ‘abandon’, of shunning artistic strategies that in time acquire the character of articles of faith.6 Such ‘abandonments’ have occurred periodically from the very beginning. As a student, I painted a lot and with great zest. I liked the smell of paints, turpentine, I was praised as a promising ‘oil painter’. Finally I felt that painting began to resemble eating cream cakes, that I was losing distance towards myself and what I was doing. So I stopped painting. And since my graduation I have not made a single oil painting. Instead, I began to draw, although earlier I had hated drawing; it was then the most petrified form of academic craft. Somewhat similar motivations later made me abandon my linguistic explorations. I noticed that I was feeling more and more comfortable with them. I enjoyed arranging various conceptual configurations, combinations of more and more ingenious games and logical paradoxes. And again I felt the necessity to abandon that, get away from what Gombrowicz called ‘stupefaction with form’. Abandonments are important.7

Roland Barthes speaks about skepticism with regard to established patterns of discourse in Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes: He has no affection for proclamations of victory. Troubled by the humiliations of others, whenever a victory appears somewhere, he wants to go somewhere else (if he were God, he would keep reversing the victories — which, moreover, is what God does!). Transposed to the level of discourse, even a just victory becomes a bad value of language, an arrogance: the word, encountered in Bataille, who somewhere mentions the arrogance of science, has been extended to all triumphant discourse. Hence I suffer three arrogances: that of Science, that of the Doxa, that of the Militant.8 6

Cf. Jarosław Kozłowski, Jerzy Ludwiński, ʻConversationʼ, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, exh. cat. (Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994), pp. 89–103.

7

Ibid., p. 94.

8

Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 46–47.

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Kozłowski’s installations from the 1980s and 1990s consequently are not at all commensurate with dryly linguistic conceptual art, but have more the feel of set pieces from Fluxus events, or of theatrical experiments with abundant allegorical allusions that are eloquent even without human actors. Psychoanalytic props such as clocks, metronomes, keys, vacuum cleaners, lamps and sharp objects correspond to topoi such as time, the prohibited and the repressed, aggression and its coverups. Sometimes they evoke the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock films like Spellbound, which introduces the full repertoire of psychoanalytic symbols. Ambiguous objects and things seem to lead their own lives, or are laden with memories that belong to the works’ creator, but are not without consequence for the perception of the observer. The surrealistic repertoire is also not alien to Broodthaers, and it links Kozłowski and Broodthaers to Duchamp and to Magritte and Raymond Roussel as well.9 That is, things speak, they are full of memories and connotations, and everyone is constantly imbuing them with other thoughts and associations. Things also become a vehicle for this when they lose some of their functionality or it becomes obscured, as in Dark Blue, a 1989 installation at Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik in Odense. There all the watches displayed in formation were painted black. Even though the watches function, obedient to an inner clock in the literal sense, they lose any and all purpose for us: we can’t make out the time from their faces and so time is arrested, so to speak, and there suddenly arises a space of freedom that seemingly elevates us out of the temporal continuum, at least as an intellectual experiment. In a stroke, the burden of historical circumstance is temporarily banished and things take center stage in order to speak.

A withdrawal strategy like the one Broodthaers had always employed is at work here, one that withdraws things from the flow of goods, the flow of meanings, and thus from economic or political exploitation — a method to which Kozłowski still is faithful, and that he deploys with an amazing amount of lightness, a multiplicity of means and a steadfast attitude that is at once stoical, sharpedged and human. july 2010 Translated from German by Andrea K. Lerner

9

See also my remarks in ‘Marcel Broodthaers — eine Kunst ohne Bedeutung”, further, the puzzlement of the world in rebus-like structures in Impressions d’Afrique by Raymond Roussel, a novel that, like Stéphane Mallarmé’s Un coup de dés, was deemed to have represented one of those constitutive modernist moments, one that not only Duchamp would absorb.

books

untitled published by Galeria Krzysztofory Cracow, 1971

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107

a–b published by ZPAP Poznań, 1971

nazwa pusta / empty name published by Galeria A Gniezno, 1972

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109

deka-log published by J. Kozłowski Poznań, 1972

language / język published by Galeria Foksal PSP Warsaw, 1972

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111

reality published by ZPAP Poznań, 1972 2nd edition published

by Matt’s Gallery London, 1978 3rd edition published

by Matt’s Gallery London, 1979

grammar / gramatyka published by Galeria Akumulatory 2 Poznań, 1978

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113

propositions published by International Artist’s Cooperation Oldenburg, 1973

three points published by Visuelle Komunikation Kassel, 1975

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115

lesson published by Beau Geste Press Devon, 1975

ćwiczenie z estetyki exercise of aesthetics published by Galeria Foksal PSP Warsaw, 1976

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117

kolor [Colour] published by Galeria Pawilon Cracow, 1978

the academy published by Matt’s Galery London, 1986

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119

three thirty and fifty one published by Kunsthallen Brandts KlĂŚdefabrik Odense, 1989

grey thoughts published by Matt’s Gallery London, 1990

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time vacuum / próżnia published by BWA Zielona Góra, 2001

5.

DRAWING IN THE SPACES OF THE MIND Alicja Kępińska

Drawing is akin to thinking. It is the most direct recording of ideas and emotions and at the same time the most analytical, free from rituals of method. jarosław kozłowski1

Drawing is one of the most mysterious powers capable of producing the phenomenon of art. It has an extraordinary optical force: one line on a piece of paper can capture our attention, introducing us into a space which was not there ‘before’. At the same time, drawing creates an autonomous reality, which does not exist in nature: it shows that a straight line and geometrical figures can exist. Thus it has the power to order, but simultaneously it is a form of freedom: it can run anyway it likes and create its own trajectories, disturbing the rhythms of the world and introducing into the world energies of its own. Both those qualities — the disciplining functions which at the same time liberate — apparently mutually exclusive but in reality complementing each other, are the true essence of Jarosław Kozłowski’s work. Drawing and reflection on its intellectual agency underlie his art.

The artist offers us a special type of cognition, which does not depend on describing or ‘explaining’ anything. He demonstrates that the cognitive result is always unexpected, that it takes us where the interpretive routine fails; he shows us that the cognitive effort leads toward open questions and not closed answers. That is why each of the artist’s works leaves us in a state of amazement, such as is the beginning and the end of all philosophising, according to the inhabitants of Jorge Luís Borges’ planet Tlön.

At the same time, the works of Jarosław Kozłowski make us aware that drawing lurks everywhere, also in the space outside art. Easy Drawings remind us that drawing is an activity available to each of us; sometimes we perform it unknowingly (conference drawings).2 Wall-Paper Drawings, with their repeated motifs, demonstrate that often there are drawings right next to us, on the wall, something we do not even notice.3 The constructions of objects built by the artist also create a sui generis drawing in space, such as those produced by piled up chairs; blades of scythes thrust into an armchair, a TV set or a sewing machine; or Personal Files installations with their perpendiculars and horizontal lines of cases and shelves.4 Perhaps drawing is the ontological principle of the world, just as it constitutes the ontology of Jarosław Kozłowski’s art? This question is not without grounds, for drawing is for the artist a gateway to posing fundamental questions: what is art? what does it work with? where is the source of its impulses?

Is the DNA spiral of art moored in the human brain, in his ‘thinking and thinking’?

1

Jarosław Kozłowski, text on the wall of the Counting-Out Rhyme exhibition, AT Gallery, Poznań, 2005.

2

Easy Drawings, Matt’s Gallery, London, 1982.

3

Wall-Paper Drawings, Kastrupgårdsamlingen, Copenhagen, 1985.

4

Exhibitions: Non-Truths/Non-Lies, Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki, Cracow, 2009; Sharp Objects, Tapko, Copenhagen, 1992; Spaces of Time, National Museum in Poznań, 1997.

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grey thoughts published by Matt’s Gallery London, 1990

Kozłowski must have posed such questions as early as the seventies, when he created the drawing cycles in which he often indicated drawing’s power of agency. It soon became apparent that such questions are inexhaustible, that they are an ocean of unknown depths. Therefore, the artist continues to examine in each of his works both the nature of the act of drawing and the course of our thinking with drawing. In his book Grey Thoughts, we see tomographic images of the brain, each marked with a line: red (perpendicular), brown (curved), orange (stair-like), green (square)5. The respective drawings are accompanied by text, e.g.: Someone is thinking straight His thoughts are very Grey But sometimes grey means red

Out of these processes of thinking with drawing orders emerge, but also disturbances, meaning substitutions, ambiguities: sometimes grey means red, sometimes it means brown, or orange, or yellow, or green. And sometimes grey means grey. The drawing behaves accordingly, changing its trajectory with each substitution. The essence of the matter is captured by the book’s motto: Somewhere in the Universe Someone is thinking and thinking

This sentence, just like the fascinating image of the brain, with the course of the drawing etched in, lead to the key sentence: the essence of art is thinking. The visible signs of thinking processes (what is usually called form) are tightly bound to these processes in the artist’s work. In this sense, one can speak of an ethical use of form: it never gives in to the temptation of aesthetics for aesthetics’ sake. It is a body emanated by the spirit of thinking.

One of the artist’s early actions, Expedition (Drafting) from 1969, is a telling example of this ‘thought — drawing’ connection. Jarosław Kozłowski used chalk to draw simple lines on the pavement in the Old Town in Poznań, lines which did not overlap with the cracks between the paving slabs. This activity (interrupted, in fact, by the former militia), showing the emergence of the drawing out of non-existence, 5

Jarosław Kozłowski, Grey Thoughts (London: Matt’s Gallery, 1990).

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small drawings Piwna 20/26 Gallery Warsaw, 1981

highlighted not only its own processual character, but that of thinking itself. It also revealed the peculiar self-propelling nature of drawing, its ‘draws itself’ quality. The drawing is directed by the will and the hand of the artist, but at the same time, the artist follows its course.

A number of years later, the exhibition Drawings and Spaces became an excellent bracket for ‘thinking with drawing’. The exhibition was accompanied by Jarosław Kozłowski’s text, saturated with ‘drawing’ words. Let us surrender again to the atmosphere where the word is capable of drawing: beside drawing drawing beside from drawing drawinng from in drawing drawing in off drawing drawing off out drawing drawing out on drawing drawing on over drawing drawing over round drawing drawing round under drawing drawing under with drawing drawing with.6

The words show all the possible ways in which a drawing may expand, similarly to the drawings which surround and at the same time create space. Such are, for example, the 1969 and 1970 projects Cabinet and Territory7. The drawing project Territory maps out a 4 x 4 metres square field, surrounded by a 1.6 metre iron fence supported by six pillars, open on one side for entrance, but with a sign in five different languages saying ‘no entry’. In this way, a conjured-up space creates a ‘place’. Place, a phenomenon inseparably connected with the notion of space, is permeated with the substance of our whole being in the world, beginning with places of birth, residence and work, through the things and behaviours for which there is ‘a proper place’, to our attachment to various spatial configurations. The notions ‘nowhere’ and ‘anywhere’ make us think: where are these ‘non-places’?

6

Jarosław Kozłowski. Rysunki i przestrzenie / Drawings and Spaces, exh. cat. (Wrocław: BWA, 1995), p. 4.

7

Cabinet, project for Współczesna Gallery, Warsaw, 1969; Territory, 1970. Both projects in Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, exh. cat. (Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994).

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annexation of the gallery (detail) Krzysztofory Gallery Cracow, 1980

Artistic activities have, however, at least from the end of the sixties, undermined our attachment to the stability of the location and appearance of places. We know the disturbing effects of environment and installation works. Philosophical thought developed parallel to those activities. Fredric Jameson introduced the term ‘dystopia’ which is an exclusion or an absence of utopia.8 Utopias have always designed a harmonious space in which people, landscape and objects had a place ‘proper to themselves’. In a dystopia everything undergoes a shift: plans and properties are confused and places are created of undefined significance which Jameson calls ‘nonidentical’. Art can both conjure up places from non-being, as is the case with the above-mentioned cabinet and Territory projects, and reach for existing places and disturb their identity so that they undergo a ‘shift’ in relation to their previous location.

With Annexation of the Gallery, Jarosław Kozłowski took into possession a place well known and domesticated by him, the Krzysztofory Gallery in Cracow, changing its parameters by drawing crossed lines on each block of stone lining the walls of the gallery.9 Being ‘here’ we simultaneously found ourselves ‘elsewhere’, led by the drawing outside our experience. ‘Difference rather than identity’, says Jameson. Differentiation and change attract our attention today more than the sustaining of identity.

Kozłowski’s drawing actions or performances in which the emphasis has shifted from the effect of the drawing to the process of its creation and fading, have become for him a special arena for cognitive activity. In the process of the creation of Individual Mythologies, a blackboard is successively whitened out by slanted lines drawn with chalk. Such lines, made with the movement of the artist’s body, crossed in the Mona Lisa in the Fourth Dimension.10 The procedure was variously executed — including the erasing of the blackboard, that is, the fading of the drawing — and was repeated by the artist in various strains of the Continuum cycle.11 Activities are repeated many times, just as certain objects and elements are repeatedly used in other works. Asked by an interviewer about this aspect 8

Fredric Jameson, ‘Postmodernism and Utopia’, in Utopia Post Utopia. Configurations of Nature and Culture in Recent Sculpture and Photography (Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art; Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press, 1988), pp. 11–35.

9

Annexation of the Gallery, Krzysztofory Gallery, Cracow, 1980.

10

Individual Mythologies, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań, 1980. Mona Lisa in the Fourth Dimension, symposium Fourth

11

Continuum XI, State School of Visual Arts, Poznań, 1994.

Dimension, Osieki, 1979.

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of his work, the artist says that he was led by ‘a curiosity as to whether something can be repeated’.12 For repetition is never a return to the identity of the previous situation: ‘I repeat the same activities, but they set free a new energy in me each time, new emotions, new rage . . . ’ The answer to this question is essentially this: every time an action is repeated the disposition of the artist changes, the chalk breaks more or less often, the surfaces of the blackboards differ, the audiences differ, the time of action differs. The surprising titles of some of those actions (Leda with the Swan, Mona Lisa in the Fourth Dimension) may, just may, be references to entirely different energies, which still move us when we face the art of the past.

Investigating the possibility of creating ever new localities with his drawing, the artist created Time Drawings and Weight Drawings (of differing weight, depending on the intensity of the drawing).13 ‘Art is always a struggle with time’, says Kozłowski, giving the example of his own drawing activities brought to an end with the gesture of the smashing of an alarm clock (the freezing of time). The artist calls this gesture — preceded with the act of producing the drawing and its erasure — an act of self-destruction: the aim being to destroy time in order to introduce a Continuum in its place.14 This sequence of activities was repeated many times, in many countries, as part of the very idea of the Continuum.

Object Drawings, on the other hand, destabilise the very notion of an ‘object’.15 Drawn-over until they are blackened, the sheets covering the object in the room — the table, the chair, the bed — cause the object ‘proper’ to be de-objectified, so that its function is taken over by the drawing. *** Jarosław Kozłowski has repeatedly said that in many cases cognitive curiosity is the starting point of his actions, a curiosity related to the language of art and, consequently, to the essence of art. ‘Art is a language which conveys primarily thoughts.’ Therefore it is not functional, it pulls us out of the practical aspects of being. It is entirely disinterested, claims the artist. Asked about the criteria of the creation and reception of art, he says: ‘When it comes to art, criteria are called into being every time we commune with the work.’16 For the art theorist writing this text, the sentence quoted above is invaluable.

There are no rules or criteria which would embrace the whole province of art; there never were, even in the times when such systems were attempted. Today we know that we are not their prisoners. That is why Jarosław Kozłowski and his whole oeuvre tell us that art is the domain of freedom, both for the artist and the audience. In an interview with Jaromir Jedliński on the occasion of the exhibition Hot News, we are given the completion of that statement: each utterance calls for its own grammar, its own logic, which, from that moment on, becomes obligatory.17 Jean-François Lyotard offers a similar formulation, when he claims that the postmodern artist and writer are in the same situation as the philosopher: the text written by the writer, the work produced by the artist, are not governed in principle by pre-established rules and cannot be judged by a determinant judgment based on known categories. Rules, categories are what the work is seeking and not what it is subject to. The artist and critic thus work without rules to establish the rules for what will be created.

That is why the work of art and text have the properties of an event.18 12

Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Andrzej Szczepaniak, in: Jarosław Kozłowski. Zasłony / Curtains, exh. cat. (Cracow: Galeria Starmach, 2006), p. 25.

13

Time-, Weight- and Quantity Drawings, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań, 1980.

14

ʻSztuka, jak krawat, jest niefunkcjonalnaʼ, Jarosław Kozłowski interviewed by Maciej Mazurek, Arteon, August 2009, pp. 16–21.

15

Object Drawings, Piwna 20/26 Gallery, Warsaw, 1980.

16

ʻSztuka, jak krawat, jest niefunkcjonalna . . . ʼ

17

Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Jaromir Jedliński, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Hot News, exh. cat. (Poznań: Galeria

18

Jean-François Lyotard, ‘Réponse à la question: Qu’est-ce que le postmodernisme?’, Critique, no. 37, 1982. English edition:

Muzalewska, 2002).

Jean-François Lyotard, ‘Answering the Question “What Is Postmodernism?”’, in idem, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Goeff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 1999), pp. 71–84.

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caledonian road series 1980

empatia–empathy Muzalewska Gallery Poznań, 2010

The statements of the philosopher and the artist are, therefore, synonymous, even if, as is worth pointing out, Jarosław Kozłowski has never used the term ‘postmodernism’ in talking about his own art or art in general. He would never agree to be assigned to a movement, name or classification of any kind.

That includes the term ‘conceptualism’, a category he is sometimes assigned to: for conceptualism was not a movement or a direction in art, but a phase of deep and radical insight into the nature of art. It is this intellectual effort that the artist participated in and still does, released from all prior qualifications.

This is also a form of freedom.

Defending this very freedom, the artist confesses that he is annoyed by the appropriation of art for the purposes of theory and the tendency to ‘completely ignore the artistic facts because they don’t fit a priori assumptions and because they upset the consistency of the discourse’. For it is impossible to formulate the concluding statement in art: it is not possible to construct a single universal theory covering every instances of art.19 Similarly, it is impossible to define some universally legitimate method of creation. Jarosław Kozłowski admits that he himself reaches for various methods and his choice is not always preceded by a conscious decision: ‘Sometimes it takes a while before I realise the chosen means were justifiable.’

A similar lack of pre-meditation lurks at the threshold of the creative process. Sometimes its beginning lies in some ‘concept, word, object or event’; at other times, an observation in the social or political sphere, or the sphere of art. What is more, ‘the result is usually a long way from whatever the starting point was’.20 A few quoted sentences voiced by the artist reveal something, tell us something about the nature of the creative process, but simultaneously shroud it in secret: the more we want to ‘know’, the more the secret will protect us from the inopportune designs of the rationalising mind. For this is the secret of art: its hermeneutic nature sidesteps our whole conventional cognitive apparatus and activates the hitherto dormant aspects of our responsiveness, that which constitute our ‘responsitory’ as Lyotard would have it. They are a membrane which begins to sound when touched by art.

This amazing secret, and the lack of prior rules of creation, became apparent most fully in the process of creating the Caledonian Road Series. Accidentally discovered objects were accompanied by the following text: 19

Kozłowski in conversation with Andrzej Szczepaniak , p. 19.

20

Ibid., p. 23.

In 1966, on a scrap-heap in Poznań, I found some enamelled plates with numbers on them. Twelve years

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later — on 18th November 1978 — whilst standing on the platform at the Caledonian Road underground station in London, waiting for a train, it occurred to me how to use them.21

Let us notice the time-span (12 years) between the impulse and the result, the distance in space (Poznań–London), and finally the mundane quality of the place (the platform) where ‘something’ occurs to the artist. Something, or the thought which draws its paths in the spaces of the mind. Why ‘then’, why ‘there’, why ‘at all’? — neither us nor the artist will ever know that.

As a result of the lack, or the uselessness, of all rules of creation ‘art cannot be learned’, as Kozłowski puts it: one can learn certain techniques, for example using new media, or some skills,22 but even those are not always necessary. Many of the artist’s drawings (for example the lines on the blackboard) are created as if in no relation to skill, as we traditionally understand it. The real skill is the ability to peer into those cracks in the world in which art may be lurking, cracks only an artist may discover and reveal using the means he finds appropriate to the task. By doing this, he simultaneously opens out the field of possibility for others. Conceived as a process in time, the project Expedition (Drafting), invites the participation of any number of people, whose task it is to draw: with a pencil, chalk, graphite, finger — depending on where the activity is taking place. The artist himself draws with chalk on the floor, saying that ‘the line can be simple, rollicking, aggressive, interrupted, it can become straight or geometrical, be visible or not, it can cross out, return, describe or deny description . . .’23 At the same time, the artist reveals the physical aspects of the line: it is a trace of the material: even erased by walking feet it remains, in the form of molecules, becoming a part of the ground. And it remains abstract: it has no referent in reality. It does not exist until we draw it. The line is one of the secrets of art, even when the artist speaks of it with utter precision.

These comments continue to probe the questions of what is art and its language, what is the nature of creative work. ‘I’m not a born artist’, says Kozłowski in his conversation with Audun Eckhoff.24 He admits that he was always sceptical of already existing truths. When he decided to voice his thoughts with the language of art, he had to ponder what art is at that particular time, what is real and what is fiction in what he himself does, what agrees with accepted standards and what agrees with honest personal input?

To what extent is art one of the forms of articulating human freedom and to what extent is the artist a prisoner of the ‘art scene’? Wanting to evade the structure of this scene, he admits that he would like to find a better word for art than ‘art’. Perhaps he feels that this term is not capacious enough, that it does not reach to the very core of the phenomenon, that it does not protect him/it from the temptation of bad and vulgar feelings and the attacks he is so often exposed to. Perhaps that is the origin of the work Curtains: watercolours of curtains, preceded by text, which are to protect from ‘stupidity, boorishness, rudeness, violence, cruelty, humiliation, suffering, sordidness, enslavement, intolerance, fanaticism, xenophobia, dogmatism, narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy, egoism, indifference, dishonesty, greed, poverty, the absurd’.25 This moving sequence shows and names the forms of evil we encounter in our lives. It shows also that art can reveal them in a particularly intense way: in that way, and only in that way, art can protect us, sometimes from ourselves.

Text is often an important part of Jarosław Kozłowski’s works. What is more, many of his works reveal a true fascination on the part of the artist with the phenomenon of writing: with letters, numbers, words and sentences created by writing. Thus a number of his books feature surprising use of the material of language. In the introduction to the booklet published by the Krzysztofory Gallery in 1971, there are nine quasi-words, which are not words, for example: ‘ojcfd’, ‘izwer’, ‘fehom’. Those letter clusters were created by the throw of a dice: each number was assigned a certain number of letters. Perhaps 21

Caledonian Road Series, Matt’s Gallery, London, 1980. Quoted after: Jarosław Kozłowski. Rysunki i przestrzenie / Drawings and Spaces, p. 32.

22

Kozłowski in conversation with Andrzej Szczepaniak . . .

23

Alfabet polskiego performance, television program in TVP Kultura, June 11, 2010.

24

Jarosław Kozłowski, Audun Eckhoff, ‘A Conversation’, Terskel / Threshold (Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo), no. 15, 1995.

25

Jarosław Kozłowski. Zasłony / Curtains.

in this way possible words were created, such as those that are born in us, in what Lew Wygotski calls ‘internal speech’: speech ‘almost without words’, in which the possibility of a word is, however, contained.26 But there are other aspects of the artist’s work worth considering here: his work is an emphatic demonstration that words are created out of letters and that letters, this building material for words, are really a form of drawing, whether they are printed or, as is the case with this booklet, written by hand. Not without reason do we analyze people’s handwriting and discern pictorial inventiveness in doctors’ illegible signatures on prescriptions. Printed text also has importance for the reader, the font deciding about the peculiar beauty of letters and punctuation marks.

It is to the latter, modest and yet so important elements of writing that the artist devoted the book Reality. Its pages contain a reprint of the commas, periods, semicolons, quotation marks, question marks, brackets, dashes, extracted, with the exclusion of the words, from three subchapters of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.27 The first page of the book carries an explanation of the origin of the beautiful drawing created by all those many signs. Each of the words, however, is bracketed by quotation marks, thus drawing our attention: ‘Immanuel’ ‘Kant’ ‘Kritik’ ‘der’ ‘Reinen’ ‘Vernunst’ ‘II / I / II / III’

From this opening move, throughout the book, the presence image value is revealed of what usually escapes our attention when we read books and without which sentences could not be formed. The presence of punctuation in a text is a reality which almost imperceptibly coexists with the reality of words, and is almost as important as them.

The ontology of the text and its constituent parts has frequently been the subject of Jarosław Kozłowski’s thought. The book Lesson contains drawings and photographs explained by text placed on facing pages, as is often the case with textbooks.28 In fact, both drawings and text from In the Sitting Room come from an English language textbook for foreigners. The simplicity of the presented scenes is accompanied by the elementary simplicity of descriptions such as: ‘this is a Man’, ‘this is John Brown’, ‘this is Mrs. Brown’. The image-description relationship seems equally simple. Yet in Kozłowski’s book letters gain autonomy, either by being separated from each other by commas and dashes, or by being placed far apart with large spaces between them. In Lesson, the text of the textbook, called up to translate image into word, begins to attend to its own potential and its image-like quality, which places it in conflict with the image. The text liberates itself from the image, the image liberates itself from its linguistic mooring. The ‘image–word’ equivalence is destabilised. The common belief that one can adequately ‘describe’ the image ceases to be so obvious.

Image and text are two different entities with an unclear degree of translatability of one into the other.

The problem of the ‘image–word’ relationship has been taken on many years later by critics, for example by David Joselit, who observed that art works on dramatising the subject of the ‘picture/language interchange’.29 They were prompted by the dramatically growing presence of advertising (‘image–word’) in social life and the ways that art has addressed that phenomenon. But Jarosław Kozłowski’s motivation is different. His work results from careful study of the ontology of distinct segments of reality: objects, images, texts. Such explorations lie at the core of all of the artist’s work, in his penetrating, even ruthless examination of the essence of things and of our utterances about those things.

These explorations led to the making of the Empathy exhibition in 2010.30 Language and the key word ‘empathy’ create a focus for a broad inquiry about the naming of things and phenomena, about 26

Władimir Bibler, Myślenie jako dialog (Warsaw: PIW, 1982).

27

Reality, 1st edition (published by Jarosław Kozłowski, Poznań, 1972); 2nd edition (London: Matt’s Gallery, 1981); 3rd edition (London: Matt’s Gallery, 1986).

28

Lesson, 1972 (Devon: Beau Geste Press, 1975).

29

David Joselit, ʻSaying the Unspeakableʼ, in Utopia Post Utopia. Configurations . . . , pp. 69–81.

30

Empatia–Empathy, Muzalewska Gallery, Poznań, 2010.

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object drawings Piwna 20/26 Gallery Warsaw, 1980

the suitability (‘empathy’) of the name for the object and itself, about the forms taken by a line and the line’s relation to surface and space. Therefore texts placed on the walls speak, among others, about ‘the empathy of the word for the proper name and vice versa’, about ‘empathy of the painting for the wall’, ‘empathy of the line for the corner’, and ‘empathy of the perpendicular for the horizontal’. Each time a subtle exchange of values appears between the elements of the system (e.g. the perpendicular line drawn on the wall in relation to the line made where the neighbouring walls meet) which substantially changes the space of the successive rooms of the gallery. Again, we are led ‘somewhere else’ by means of a drawing, but also by means of objects containing ‘drawing’ potential (such as an open umbrella or piled up chairs and tables).

One could say that through the breadth of the problems addressed, this exhibition ‘drew itself’ in the fullness of the artist’s thinking about his work. Yet this is a peculiar fullness: it does not close anything off but opens the cracks of successive questions. What else will we be asked about in the future? What fields and edges of wonder will we be led toward? The drawing continues on and nothing can stop it.

Jarosław Kozłowski knows that. We can trust him.

drawings

points Krzysztofory Gallery Cracow, 1971

modal drawings Akumulatory 2 Gallery Poznań, 1975

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from the facts series 1976

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from the facts series 1976 facts 1976 Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Cracow, 2009

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1 + 4 strokes or 4 + 1 stroke Galerie RenĂŠ Block Berlin, 1979

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drawing facts Galerie 38 Copenhagen, 1979

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wall-sculpture ii private apartament Poznań, 1979

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wall-sculptures v–ix Galerie S:t Petri Lund, 1979

wall-sculptures iii–v Galerie René Block Berlin, 1979

time drawings 1980 BWA Awangarda Gallery Wrocław, 1995

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lines 1978 Galerie 38 Copenhagen, 1979

weight drawings 1980

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object drawings Galerie Vor Ort Hamburg, 1980

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object drawings Piwna 20/26 Gallery Warsaw, 1980

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post-object drawings Wielka 19 Gallery Poznań, 1980

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annexation of the gallery Krzysztofory Gallery Cracow, 1980

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transmission of the exhibition Foto-Medium-Art Gallery Wrocław, 1980

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reconstruction of the exhibition Foto-Medium-Art Gallery Wrocław, 1981

caledonian road series Matt’s Gallery London, 1980

caledonian road series ii Sprengel Museum Hanover, 1986

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light-and-shade drawings and their pictures Galerie Kanal 2 Copenhagen, 1983

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easy drawings ii Piwna 20/26 Gallery Warsaw, 1983

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fata morgana Galerie Gruppe GrĂźn Bremen, 1986

triptychon Kampnagelfabrik Halle 36 Hamburg, 1983

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3-153 Zakład nad Fosą Wrocław, 1984

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wall-paper drawings KastrupgĂĽrdsamlingen Copenhagen, 1985

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easy drawings Matt’s Gallery London, 1982

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lined paper or paper lined R Gallery Poznań, 2001

squared paper or paper squared R Gallery Poznań, 2001

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die schwarze rose RR Gallery Warsaw, 1987

red–blue Arsenał Gallery Białystok, 1994

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cover your face Archipel Apeldoorn, 1989

6.

THE CONCEPTUAL IMPULSE Ewa Mikina

In one of his interviews, Jarosław Kozłowski mentions several 20th century artists that were more interested in the idea, the concept, than in the object, the material ‘piece’. If I remember well, he mentions Marcel Duchamp, Kazimir Malevich, and then adds, ‘and why not Piero della Francesca?’

Piero della Francesca was the author of the first treatise — a treatise that would herald one of the most important paradigms of the modern painting order — on perspective in the picture (perspectiva artificialis, as it was called, as opposed to perspectiva naturalis and perspectiva communis). He was not only a painter, but also a great mathematician. A scholar and an artist. He laid the foundations for a new vision, making representation three-dimensional, giving it depth and stereometric rigour: his figures are solid — as if sculpted in the canvas. He was probably the first artist to have fulfilled the principles of the work’s construction laid out in De prospectiva pingendi1; he immobilised the viewer and was the first to have brought him or her out of the crowd (as in the case of church painting we can probably speak of the crowd of churchgoers — or their community), thus becoming one of the fathers of the modern subject.

This is not yet academic discourse — this will start emerging in the 16th century2, to then degenerate at the turn of the 17th and 18th — but already its foundation is firm.

As late as in the 18th century, Joshua Reynolds — and probably only him in that ethereal and neurasthenic era — tries to maintain the Academy’s universalistic beliefs and norms, but he already portrays real people in the costume of mythological figures (the figures that, up to this point, had formed the strict canon of modern iconography). His art starts showing ontological cracks and in the end it abandons universals altogether. Reynolds paints the ‘live paintings’, as it were, that were so popular in the 18th century. In European art history, this is the first, if not yet self-aware, ‘meta-art’, whatever we might mean by this pretentious term.

In the 19th century, the term ‘academic painting’ amounts to an insult. It becomes mechanical and standardised, as befits the era of the industrial revolution. But the first concept of the avant-garde, 1

Piero della Francesca’s treatise on perspective is probably the fi rst such treatise ever, http://tiny.pl/h76px (URL abbreviated, accessed 27 September 2009). He wrote a total of three theoretical treatises: Trattato d’abaco, Libellus de quinque corporibus regularibus (in which he reintroduces Aristotelian teachings on polyhedrons to European science), and precisely De prospectiva pingendi (ca. 1474).

2

The fi rst academy, in Florence, was, incidentally, the Accademia del Disegno. Founded in 1560 by two monks, with the participation of artists such as Giorgio Vasari, Agnolo Bronzino or Domenico Ghirlandaio, it was to breathe life into the dying Compagnia di San Luca, in existence since Giotto’s times. The Accademia del Disegno, better known as the ‘Vasari academy’, established with Vasari’s strong commitment and Cosimo di Medici’s support, opened officially on 31st January 1563. It was a combination of a painters’ guild and an art school. Cf. Raichel Le Goff, ʻArt and the Viewer in 17th Century Italy: Agostino Carracci as Teacherʼ, http://tiny.pl/h76pg (URL abbreviated, accessed 27 September 2010).

as presented by Saint-Simon, calls for a close collaboration between the artist, the savant, and the industrialist (producer). From the very beginning, modernity is far more complex than we tend and like to believe. Saint-Simon’s vision provided for a rather radical division of labour. From this, and only this, point of view, we can speak of the lack of any distinction between the 19th century figures of the ‘avantgarde’ artist and the ‘academic’ one. No one, of course, suggested an equivalence here: on the discursive level, the opposition was very clear, very radical.

From the viewpoint of 19th century art history, we can ask who needed the academician and what for, and how he managed to function in an atmosphere in which there was not much symbolic demand for his work. This, of course, is an anachronistic question, asked from the position of the smart alecks that we are today. The 19th century public were hugely in favour of the annual Salons spiced with the thrill of a scandal, loved the panoramas and dioramas, had become accustomed to the morning newspaper, evening variety show and dinner at a restaurant. Curiosity was beginning to govern Europeans’ minds and even a sophisticated connoisseur unwittingly mingled with the big-city crowd — a dispersed crowd, let us add, absent, as it were, allegedly individualised.

The academician never regained the status he enjoyed in the 17th century. In the 16th, he was still a painter (less often a sculptor, if we read the paragoni) and a scholar. The two notions were closely intertwined, no distinction was probably made between them, at least not during the Italian Cinquecento (Erwin Panofsky writes about this in one of his essays), an idea which today is quite hard for us to grasp: our epistemology is completely different. At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, the pictor dictus3 emerges, a painter well-read in history and literature, the owner of an impressive library, and an expert on iconography, mythology and biblical motifs. This is already a wishful figure, a conscious attempt to attain artistic status, someone completely different from the 16th century painting and various disciplinestudying, artifici scholaris.4 It is probably in the 17th century that the notion of the artist emerges as we know it, with all its manifold mutations, to this day. Before that, there were painters, sculptors and etchers. The term ‘artificer’, accompanied by the proper adjective, could apply to a pharmacist, a criminal or a master of the gilders’ guild, and of course also to a painter.

Kozłowski is said to have been the first Polish artist to initiate the conceptual attitude: a conceptual approach to art. He is, let us say, a new academician, someone who forgoes ʻretinalʼ art — he stops painting right after graduating from the academy — and alludes in his artistic statements to philosophy, logics, and a special kind of linguistics or semiotics.

I do not want to try and construct new ‘interpretations’ here, to play with methodology or introduce an illusion of historical continuity — the latter makes sense only in relatively short stretches of time. Far more important would be an attempt to show how varied and complex the ‘artist’ figure is, how rich an archaeology it has in European art history, and how inconsistent and non-equivocal a concept it is.

Referring to the fundamental distinction used in structuralism, we can speak of diachronic complexity and synchronic complexity. And so, the academician, who died at the end of the 19th century, was replaced after World War II, with the onset of prosperity in ‘first world’ countries, by an artist working in the second ring — since Kozłowski suggests a triple-ring model. The first ring is the Lebenswelt, the second one — the art industry, the Western world’s mighty Art machine, with its promotion of Great Artists, its dazzling museums, exclusive galleries, superstar curators, its rankings, brandings, periodicals and luxury coffee table books about art; the third ring, then, is the space of (potential) freedom of thought, creativity, action, people connected into a Network.

3

Artifex, -icis: 1) artist (artifi ces scaenici — stage actors); 2) artisan; 3) master, creator; 4) author; 5) originator, perpetrator, ~ logicus — logician; ~ medicamentarius — pharmacist; ~ sceleris — criminal. Artifex, artificer — how the language we use anachronises knowledge.

4

Pictor dictus. It is worth mentioning here Agostino Carracci, founder of Italy’s second oldest art academy (1582), who devoted ‘most of his energy not to painting, but to scholarship. Independently, he proceeded to study philosophy, mathematics, geometry, astrology, music and other liberal arts. He also gained quite a reputation as a poet in both Latin and the vernacular’.

Cf. Raichel Le Goff, http://tiny.pl/h76pg (URL abbreviated, accessed 27 September 2010).

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The conceptual impulse has always seemed academic to me and, in contrast to what was said above, here it is not a pejorative term. Quite the reverse — it refers to practices reflecting on, revising, or perhaps just critically aware of one’s own role and the art world’s governing mechanisms. It means standing outside the dominant area and building the ‘third ring’, about which I am actually sceptical, but more about that later.

In any case, if we — provisionally — accept the division, Kozłowski would be a heterotopic academician operating within the space of his self-defined ‘third ring’. At this point, it needs to be stressed that the terms used here are provisional, working terms, and therefore possibly false.

In this impossible/possible third circle, there is reflection, a respect for thinking and knowledge: there is constant study. There is a denial of normativity, a reversal of orders; there are mythologies and demythologisation. In other words, there is something and, at the same time, there is not, because artistic activity is a process, a becoming, and it is also a constant asking of questions, a constant questioning of reality. A process so perceived is a mirror reflection and this, in its turn, is a constitutive metaphor for The Order of Things. In the preface to the Order of Things, Michel Foucault explains what heterotopias are for him: That passage from Borges5 [author’s note] kept me laughing for a long time, though not without a certain uneasiness that I found hard to shake off. Perhaps because there arose in its wake the suspicion that there is a worse kind of disorder than that of the incongruous, the linking together of things that are inappropriate; I mean the disorder in which fragments of a large number of possible orders glitter separately in the dimension, without law or geometry, of the heteroclite 6 [author’s note]; and that word should be taken in its most literal, etymological sense: . . . things are ‘laid’, ‘placed’, ‘arranged’ in sites so very different from one another that it is impossible to find a place of residence for them, to define a common locus beneath them all. Utopias afford consolation: although they have no real locality there is nevertheless a fantastic, untroubled region in which they are able to unfold; they open up cities with vast avenues, superbly planted gardens, countries where life is easy, even though the road to them is chimerical.

Heterotopias are disturbing, probably because they secretly undermine language, because they make it impossible to name this and that, because they shatter or tangle common names, because they destroy ‘syntax’ in advance, and not only the syntax with which we construct sentences but also that less apparent syntax which causes words and things (next to and also opposite one another) to ‘hold together’. This is why Utopias permit fables and discourse: they run with the very grain of language and are part of the fundamental dimension of the fabula; heterotopias (such as those to be found so often in Borges) desiccate speech, stop words in their tracks, contest the very possibility of grammar at its source; they dissolve our myths and sterilise the lyricism of our sentences.7

Utopia is a special, exceptional and unique non-place, always present in the mind. The essence of utopia is its unfulfillability. Life without utopias seems unthinkable: it is unthinkable not to think utopias. Could I not think utopias? In order to ‘think utopias’, we need syntax. And Euclidean geometry.

Syntax and convergent perspective, where everything has its place, where everything gains an inner logic, is precisely utopia: the triumph of the imagining and disambiguating mind. Let us note, however, that the mind disambiguates and organises an impossible ‘beyond’.

Foucault suggests that heterotopia is our everyday world. By ‘everyday’ I do not mean the Lebenswelt, but all the spaces of experience. However, a constant experience of heterotopia would be 5

Foucault quotes a text in which Borges mentions an animal ‘taxonomy’ defi ned in an old Chinese encyclopaedia: the animals divide, to mention but a few ‘species’, although the encyclopaedia mentions a total of fourteen, into those ‘belonging to the Emperor’, ‘embalmed’, ‘tame’, ‘fabulous’, ‘having just broken the water pitcher’, ‘sirens’, and so on.

6

A heteroclite is an object that is incoherent, different, strange and weird, from Latin heteroclitus, originally Greek ετερόκλιτος, hétéroklitos, deviating from the rules of the art (in the sense of ars/techne, of course).

7

Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. XIV–XXIV, http://tiny.pl/h76pt (URL abbreviated, accessed 27 September 2010). Cf. also Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias, trans. Jay Miskowiec, http://tiny.pl/ h76p7 (URL abbreviated, accessed 27 September 2010). ‘Des espaces autres’ was a lecture delivered in March 1967, published in Architecture / Mouvement / Continuité, no. 5, 1984.

destructive, would annihilate Being. Heterotopia can be seen in a disturbing, discomforting flash, in the cracks of being.

The division proposed by Kozłowski becomes more complicated, the three circles being in constant movement, each rotating at its own pace, sometimes slower, sometimes faster, all three constantly intermeshing, often with difficulty, as when we change gears when driving and have a problem with the clutch. At other times, the shifts are smooth, escaping our distracted attention.

The three circles create anxiety, interlock. And they thwart efforts at disambiguation. We have already mentioned the diachronic distinction present in the word/term ‘artist’. Here we will have to do with a synchronic difference. And that is a heterotopia. It is impossible to immobilise meaning in a precisely defined loci communis, because this turns the term into a cliché, a rhetorical figure, at least that is how the Latin (originally Greek) ‘common place’ is construed today.

Kozłowski speaks in this spirit about the problems generated by the notion of ‘art’: I would like very much to find some better word for so-called art. Because of the mythologies, misunderstanding and manipulations that were made in and around art, I wished to find a kind of alternative field, which is neither art as it is understood and used nor so called reality, but some territory in between, something which is not necessarily seen as a mirror of reality, but at the same time is not the kind of art that became ‘arty’. I didn’t find the word — perhaps it is only a conceptual idea. Still, I have serious difficulty in speaking about art and employing the term art, which is used by others who have a completely contradictory understanding compared to my own. Actually, my idea of art is still quite idealistic, very much related to the kind of transcendental understanding of art as a phenomenon of recognition, rather than as a tool for reaching other aims.8

This is a declaration of someone who has inherited (just as there are ‘inherited settings’ in computer software) one of the modernistic versions of utopian thinking, with its irony and reflexivity.9 Although Kozłowski sees conceptualism already in a postmodern perspective, as a non-doctrinal strategy, he still envisages art as a utopian sphere, a space of unselfish practices paving the way for (another essentially modernist concept) freedom. In the eighties, Western culture calmed down, the Reagan/Thatcher era began and, as Piotr Piotrowski writes in the essay published here, hippies, the underground and alternative movements were all replaced by yuppiedom. Perhaps. But a few streets away, in suburban shopping malls and in the heart of the city, ‘punks hung around in plenty’. There was grunge, there was culture jamming with its urban guerrilla tactics. The artistic industry was successfully building situationist memorials. Revisionist art history was born. Artists were abandoning the Unfinished Project and beginning instead to read, almost compulsively, the new theoreticians of culture, looking around themselves rather than looking out for a luminous future; they wrote theoretical essays and realised the new theory in visual and non-visual statements. ‘Academic’ theoreticians made visual productions to back up their theories or moved to ‘artistic’ positions. Momentous shifts were taking place and language, and therefore our understanding — Kozłowski is absolutely right here — were failing to keep up with them.

At the time when the onset of the postmodern era was being announced (let us remember that postmodernism was but an aesthetic trend that revitalised the ‘image with figures’ and architecture parlante), there were heated arguments about when the new era had actually begun. Modernity was being revised from the left and attacked from the right. Theoreticians and artists not so much — or not only — searched for niches or that alternative air the late modernists needed to breathe freely as they analysed the broad context of the entertainment industry. They opened themselves up to pop culture, mass media and show business, with which the powerful institution of Art was linked anyway. The artist became an activist or an intellectual with a knowledge of sociology, anthropology and so on, or both. Indeed, it is hard to say precisely what art was becoming and what its status is today.

8

Jarosław Kozłowski, Audun Eckhoff, ‘A Conversation’, Terskel / Threshold (Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo), no. 15, 1995, p. 47.

9

Fredric Jameson so defi nes modernist utopias in his Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (London: Verso, 1995), chapter ‘Synthesis, Irony, Neutralization and the Moment of Truth’, pp. 170–81.

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15 x 9 ca. 1987

It is certainly pluralistic (that’s a truism), no one institutes ‘movements’, ‘styles’ or ‘tendencies’ anymore. It has become provisional, transitory, processual. Gianni Vattimo sees a Heideggerian streak here and a rapprochement between ‘art’ and mass culture, as equally ephemeral and impermanent.10 Who is the author of a remix? A musician? A composer? Or an art college student working on sousveillance technologies? Or someone posting visually and textually intelligent avatars on the Web that in one concise image and slogan comment on the afflictions of our culture? Or an enthusiast, a hacker (or linker) type in the visual domain, who painstakingly, pixel after pixel, renders perfect desktop wallpapers showing a herd of deer at a watering place at sunset, or the HMS Victory frigate carrying Nelson’s body from Trafalgar to Britain across rocky (or calm) seas?11 (Perhaps a linker would be today’s equivalent of the mediaeval artifex or artificer, as they were called; neither an artist in the modern sense of the word nor an artisan). Whatever we call these people, what really matters is that they speak, that they have tools for this, that they have access, although the access barrier exists and we must not forget about it. We immerse ourselves in a cacophony of voices, but we know all too well what the alternatives to this cacophony are.12 Kozłowski, on the one hand, attaches a fundamental importance to the absolute, utopian purity of the domain in which he operates — he is, as he himself calls his position, an ‘idealist’. On the other, he keeps challenging ‘norms’ and ‘normativity’. He is an orthodox at odds with the obvious and established.

Painted-over clock faces, the deafening ticking of nearly four hundred alarm clocks, each of them showing a different time (Personal Files, Archief, The Hague, 1993); sofas and desks with protruding scythe blades, turning the furniture pieces into mythological creatures (Sharp Objects, 1992); furniture pieces cut in 10

Cf. Gianni Vattimo, The Transparent Society, transl. David Webb, chapter ‘From Utopia to Heterotopia’ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 62–75.

11

Wallpapers by Kenwas, http://tiny.pl/h76bq (URL abbreviated, accessed 27 September 2010) — here one representing HMS Victory carrying Nelson’s body to Portsmouth. WinCustomize.com features hundreds of his wallpapers: airplanes, submarines, historical sailing ships, landscapes, scenes from rural America. In many cases, a ‘photo would suffice’, but Kenwas reverses the process, painstakingly rendering each picture. There are also deer by a creek http://tiny.pl/h76bx (URL abbreviated, accessed 27 September 2010), elephants, giraffes, eagles, leopards . . . One might say: the convention of the 19th-century kitschy paintings from the petty-bourgeois living room — and the most advanced digital technology, overcoming technological barriers.

12

Henry Jenkins writes extensively on this in his fascinating Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: New York University Press, 2006).

half and joined together with their ‘wrong’ generic halves (as if the artist wanted to say that a generic chair or table are but an illusion, an abstract concept, at best, that does not ‘hold together’ in reality) (Soft Protection, 1994). Furniture pieces accumulated like those carried by refugees: for although the latter are more concerned with saving their lives than their belongings, their decision to lug their wardrobes across half the globe reveals that they probably would have already burned down anyway. And there is also the aspect that a furniture piece is a sign of location, of people’s situation in their place, and thus moving a piece of furniture is always a catastrophe: a small one in the case of refurnishment or renovation or a big one in that of being uprooted, of losing the ground under your feet. A little house turned inside out, levitating under the roof upside down (Room Negative, 1997) . . . In all of Kozłowski’s works there is a distortion of time and space, the two primary dimensions fundamental for our being in the world.

Academism restored to the former dignity of knowledge/thought; a utopian, stubborn purity inherited from modernism; a conceptual attitude; being rational and far-out (to use a colloquial expression); heterotopic projects and heterotopic anxiety — ‘neither this, nor thatʼ — the same accumulation and ‘incompatibility’ as that of the furniture pieces in Kozłowski’s installations (Living Room, Sleeping Room, Guest Room — Nomadic Versions, 1997) . . . Or ‘abstract’, empty paintings accompanied by newspaper-like titles (Hot News, 2002), borrowed from the repository of 20th century culture, utterly banalised by overuse, meaningless and yet seemingly suggesting contextual involvement, as if contradicting the deadness of the abstract canvases (15.10 to Kabul, All Quiet in Central Africa), or by titles that are self-contradictory due to the distortion of syntax or of the visual order/sense: Special Services in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, Alternative Aim 1–6. Special-service squads turn into alchemist squads, and pretty pictures, distantly referring perhaps to Władysław Strzemiński’s dreams, into shooting targets. But do they really ‘turn into’? No, they are this and that at the same time, in incompatibility. They are trolls.

All this would comprise a heterotopia — places related to each other and yet forming a discontinuous space; places where experience collapses, as it were, losing its raison épistémologique, ceasing to be resolute. So continuity collapses, but art itself — as the artist understands it — is an aesthetic heterotopia here.

On the other hand, complicating the matter further and paraphrasing a philosopher, we should say that today aesthetics is everywhere — except in aesthetics. The 17th century Italian disegno (which we will return to) has turned into design, everyday objects have become designed objects, images of themselves, and it is no accident that the philosopher paraphrased above can be called a philosopher of plastic, shopping centres and news flashing, by no means furtively, through the TV screen (the second US invasion of Iraq was a ‘political’ product, designed for mass consumption by the country’s largest PR agencies).

Another issue related to the above is not so much that of the work’s status, or process, as its functioning. When it is a brief essay on colour, a peripatetic discussion (there were plenty of those in the second half of the 18th century) or a rebuff to Kant,13 it can adopt the noble but poor form of a book. The installation disappears, leaving only its documentation. The statement depends, partly at least, on the media (in fact, most of us know works of art from the media if we apply the term to art periodicals, artist’s books, ‘ambitious’ TV shows, web sites and online archives). Museums, university-affiliated centres or research institutes collect documentation, of course, but it is usually available only with difficulty or not at all. And so art, in its refined form, meets the huge machine of the media industry, in the same way in which the museum exists in several spaces at once: it is an apparatus for constructing national identity,14 researching, classifying, instructing as well as, perhaps more importantly from today’s point of view, successfully servicing LET (leisure, entertainment, tourism) spaces. Let us add that, incidentally, for Michel Foucault the museum is one of the heterotopic spaces, collecting in one place and the same time objects from different places and times.

13

Reality (1972), where one chapter from Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason has been ‘erased’, leaving only punctuation signs.

14

On the birth of the museum and its role in the emergence of nation states in the 19th century, cf. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Refl ections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983).

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The installation exists solely in documentation, in accounts, photographs, on video, in our consciousness, memory; at the same time, it is not there because it is only a ‘reflection’, phantom, conceptual project après la lettre, a reversed chronology, and, appearing out of necessity so to speak — in certain cases — a faithfulness to conceptual thinking.

As long as they materially exist, Kozłowski’s works seem to transgress the status of artistic objects. They are under the statement (their status is that of sub-statements or, one feels like saying, understatements), and can be seen as a dismantling of a coherent whole, a deconstruction of a cohesive structure, a discontinuity (not resulting solely from the media employed) — they rip the skin, as it were, off the aesthetic, off what we regard as ‘visual quality’. The ‘works’ are visible but devoid, so to speak, of aesthetic properties, thrown out of the sphere of visual codifications. The frame has been de-formed, or was never formed in the first place. On the other hand, Kozłowski’s creations in semantic exercises, short dissertations, early texts, conversations and interviews, are over the statement, are a reflection, a story about the potential and shortcomings of artistic narratives frozen in objectiveness, in a thought certain it has achieved its goal, completed the statement.

In Kozłowski’s realisations we have to do with ‘under’ and ‘over’. This is what happens in drawing — a technique whose significance for his practice Kozłowski has stressed over and over again. And perhaps it is precisely drawing that will best serve as the closing bracket for this text. Often disregarded as a tedious and boring exercise, it is also the first materialisation of one’s thoughts, that is at least how disegno was understood in the 16th and 17th centuries.15 Francesco Lancilotti is the first to award this meaning to the term, defining disegno in his Trattaro di pittura (1509) as something that relates directly to the creative idea.16 The line connects the hand with the mind, drawing being a process of articulating thoughts, of defining the project. It is that which is simplest, most ‘primitive’, it is the first, infinitely repeated, exercise in ‘artistic proficiency’. At the same time, it is the first documentation, or recording, of that which is inside one’s head, thus being most closely bound up with a concept. Disegno, in other words, is thought, concept, project.17 Translated from Polish by Marcin Wawrzyńczak

15

On disegno in the broader meaning of the word, cf. the entry ‘disegno’ in The Oxford Dictionary of Art, ed. Ian Chilvers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Cheng Chuko & Yang Ping-Yu, A Discussion On The Changes And Progress Of Design-Related Terms, http://tiny.pl/h76jr (URL abbreviated, accessed 27 September 2010).

16

Ibid.

17

The fundamental difference between modern-era disegno, 19th-century ‘artisanry’, interwar industrial design and fi nally the phenomenon, omnipresent since the fi fties, of design is a separate and fascinating subject in itself.

sketches

situation 1968

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arrangement 1967

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cabinet 1969

cabinet ii 1969

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mirror 1970

line 1970

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exercises in linguistics 1989–1991

rhetorical figures 2005 untitled 1990

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tapko (sharp objects) 1992 object-pictures 1991

matt’s gallery (in yellow) 1990

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1993 HCAK The Hague, 1993

soft protection museum version 1994 soft protection the great britain and northern ireland version 1995

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light table 1995 parallel object 1995

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closed circuit 1995

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living room nomadic version 1995

gravity room 1996 temporary objects 1996

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counting-out rhyme 2004 personal belongings (united world. alternative version) 2004

negative room 1997

be aware 2004 universal twenty-four-hour screen special version 2003/4

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greetings from berlin 2004/5

rhetorical images 2005 rhetorical figures iii 2006/7

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united world utopian version 2005/6

7.

THE SHOW René Block

If the stool stands by the bed, the pictures are on the walls.

For forty years, I have known Jarosław Kozłowski; for forty years, I have been interested in his work and followed his artistic development. A development that has unfolded quite serenely, away from the hectic art market. Jarosław Kozłowski works not for the market, but for art. Since the early seventies, we have worked together on many projects, symposia, exhibitions and biennials. My clearest memory is of a project that we worked on during his year-long residency with the Artists-in-Berlin Program. In recounting it now from memory, 25 years later, some details might escape my mind’s eye, but the essentials are still present. the show / the exhibition / the catalogue / the auction Even just the choice of the title for the four-part project in the daadgalerie in the spring of 1985 betrays much about the artist Jarosław Kozłowski: his relationship to language, and his precise and sensitive way of thinking.

The Show stands for demonstration, for being involved in a process, an intervention in the gallery space. The Exhibition denotes the final thing, the accomplishment, the result of a long stretch of work.

The Catalogue is released as an independent publication, parallel to the exhibition, and documents The Show, the role of the artist and the role of the public. The Auction is finally the moment when the art market appropriates works from The Exhibition in order to turn them over to the highest bidders from very different kinds of public and private collections.

The staging of The Show in the five exhibition rooms of the daadgalerie clarified and illustrated various features of Kozłowski’s way of working — be it his handling of objects real and illusory, natural and artificial, original and reproduced, or of existing and found objects and invented things.

During that very labour-intensive year in Berlin, Jarosław Kozłowski also had to carry out his tasks at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, where he had taught since 1969 and was named rector in 1981.

During one of his stays there, he noticed a curious change near his apartment: in one building, all the windows on the ground floor had been bricked up and covered on the outside with protective bars as well. This barring of bricked-up windows, which he photographed and framed as an example of an absurd reality, hung on the gallery walls in many variations.

The series became the point of departure for a new view of reality: the window wall in one of the exhibition rooms was obstructed by wooden boards that had been painted white and inserted between the double frames of the window. Then grating was installed over the windows inside. In the gallery room opposite, the corresponding wall of windows was also blocked by painted white wooden boards.

Kozłowski spent days there drawing latticework with felt markers on the glass panes and window frames, a grating that corresponded to the metal grating across the hall.

The entrance to a supply-room near the latticework drawing was fitted with an additional doorgrating. This grating reappeared again as a drawing on one wall of a room that was actually barred, positioned so that it was mirrored in the glass of a door opposite, which closed off a room visible behind it.

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The glass on this door was so thick, the frame so airtight, that no sound could emanate from that room into the room more accessible to the public. Every day, Jarosław Kozłowski, who had never previously laid hands on a violin, played an hour-long violin solo back there. He was visible, but not audible, to the gallery visitors. Outside performance times, he reproduced this concert in a silent video recording. Meanwhile, a transistor radio, which apparently had been left lying around, blared sports scores, news and canned music to the baffled and curious visitors to The Show. The fact that one of Bach’s Partitas for solo violin was coincidentally broadcast on the evening of the opening only heightened the general confusion, which had already been triggered by a pungent fake floral scent. This fragrance, which made breathing difficult, wafted from artificial flowers arranged in an oval on the floor of the fifth room up to the glazed oval above the vestibule. From there, exotic plants in a lush top-floor winter garden were visible.

The Show began on 24th April and ended on 1st May 1985. The Exhibition opened on 15th June and closed on 14th July. An exhibition of prints by Richard Hamilton took place between these two events.

At the performance during the opening of The Show, a series of photographs had been discreetly taken of the audience. In the interim, twenty of these photographs were selected, enlarged to ca. 70 x 100 cm, and put into gilt frames with little metal plaques bearing the name of the artist and title of the work.

These pictures were now displayed in a classic museum arrangement. Somewhat beneath the right half of each picture was a small board with an artificial potted plant on it. Plants and pots were gilded.

The audience at the opening, having arrived in great anticipation, now saw themselves as if in a mirror.

A mirror in the vestibule with the same kind of frame made that clear.

On 12th August, friend and artist Emmett Williams auctioned off the exhibits. The Auction concluded the cycle of what is usually a long and drawn-out process — from the creation of an artwork to its delivery to an auction house — as if it was fast-forwarded.

I view this four-part project as a key (there are surely also others) to the oeuvre of Jarosław Kozłowski.

In an impressive way it exemplifies the logic with which the artist pursues his work, as if in a permanent process of research. august 2010 Translated from German by Andrea K. Lerner

mythologies of art mythologies of reality

mythologies of art

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opus i Akumulatory 2 Gallery Poznań, 1983

opus ii Akumulatory 2 Gallery Poznań, 1983

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piece for two and one RR Gallery Warsaw, 1984

still life with wind and guitar Akumulatory 2 Gallery Poznań, 1984

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the show daadgalerie Berlin, 1985

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the exhibition daadgalerie Berlin, 1985

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the auction daadgalerie Berlin, 1985

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the academy Matt’s Gallery London, 1986

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from the mythologies of art series National Museum in Poznań, 1997

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the garden of art HAH Copenhagen, 1986

mythologies of reality

in yellow Matt’s Gallery London, 1990

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sleep well Kunstverein Giannozzo Berlin, 1990

double agent Ośrodek Działań Plastycznych Wrocław, 1990

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double identity Museum Wiesbaden, 1991

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single lighting Kunsthallen Nikolaj Copenhagen, 1991

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double image Potocka Gallery Cracow, 1991

feedback Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Warsaw, 1992

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delicate moves Galerie l’Ollave Lyon, 1992

eyewitness BWA Stara Gallery Lublin, 1992

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double exposure ZPAP on Mazowiecka Gallery Warsaw, 1992

the case l’Espace lyonnais d’art contemporain (ELAC) Lyon, 1992

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out of order Kunsthalle NBK Berlin, 1992

08:00

8.

EITHER THINKING OR ART Szymon Wróbel

Painting is philosophy. leonardo da vinci, treatise on painting

For me, art is no excuse for reality. It is another reality, which is not secondary, compared to ‘real’ reality. For me, an artist is not somebody who cleans the mirror in order to achieve a bright reflection of what we can see in the mirror.

To be more precise: by separating art from so-called reality, I am not trying to say that artists are not at all involved in or responsible for what is happening around them. On the contrary, we all are. We are involved in, and share the responsibility for the world. As human beings, on the same level as others. jarosław kozłowski1

1. coming to know each other Jarosław Kozłowski’s work could have remained silent and inaccessible or even alien to me forever. Jarosław Kozłowski himself could have remained for me but another enigmatic figure looming in the catalogue of contemporary aesthetic transgressions. I could have had nothing to say about Jarosław Kozłowski, could have not even sensed his presence and could have not included him in the ontology of my social world. This unawareness and oversight would obviously impoverish me and stand as proof of my general ignorance. Surely Kozłowski fares better without me than I do without him. And I mention my own awareness of the exceptional phenomenon whose name is ‘Jarosław Kozłowski’ only because it seems a plain miracle to me.

When Kozłowski spoke to me for the first time, it was in a critical, even aggressive voice. I was chairing a faculty meeting at the Department of Art and Pedagogy (at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań) and I presented the results of a questionnaire assessing the research activity of the Department members, when a new employee, as yet unknown to me, addressed me in approximately the following words: ‘I saw these questionnaires of yours and I have to say that they have nothing to do with art and are entirely useless as far as art is concerned.’ His tone of voice showed dislike or even disgust with my attempt to reduce art to a catalogue registering artistic effectiveness and statistically calculated quality.

This was the voice of Jarosław Kozłowski. What I mean to say is that I intruded upon his world as a distasteful bureaucrat who attempts to regulate the life of the department, while he barged into mine as a careless and incompetent anarchist attempting to provoke a rebellion against the authorities among the already generally insubordinate employees of the Department of Art and Pedagogy, and to supply them with more reasons for indolence. Needles to say, this event did not inspire us with sympathy for each other; in fact it created a distance between us. A long year had to pass before the report from the Ministry of Science bestowed a first class status upon the Department of Art and Pedagogy, an event rightly considered by everybody a miracle, even if one forced by my prayers. At the following meeting of the Department, a substantially more upbeat one for me, Kozłowski was the only employee who publicly recognised that the positive evaluation of the Department was the result of my strategy. From then on, 1

Jarosław Kozłowski, Audun Eckhoff, ‘A Conversation’, Terskel / Threshold (Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo), no. 15, 1995, p. 46.

my relations with Kozłowski took a turn for the better. The above described criticism, however, preceded, and necessarily so, our coming to know and, consequently, understand each other.

I tell of my first meeting with the ‘Kozłowski phenomenon’ in such detail in order to recognise the absurdity and fortuitousness of these beginnings, and to acknowledge that they were related to violence and mutual criticism, or at least to suspiciousness and distrust. Sometimes I think that the existence of such institutions as the Department of Art and Pedagogy can be justified only by the fact that they bring together people who otherwise would never have met. I also reminisce at such length to feel again how strange and disturbing was the accident which brought us together at that particular time and which, as I will try to show, became a pure necessity. For this case shows that there is no genuine knowing which is not preceded by aggressive and total criticism, a criticism so painful that it undermines what we take for granted about the world which we happen to inhabit, undermines what we take for granted about our experience of that world and consequently, undermines the shape of the things we perceive here and now.

It is important to point out that I encountered the phenomenon under the name ‘Jarosław Kozłowski’ before I ever came to see his work. This circumstance not only deforms my knowing and understanding, but also and above all entirely preforms it or even makes it possible. Undoubtedly, knowing the personality of an author does not help in understanding his work and an artist’s biography is not a good key to his art. And yet when the artist’s biography or our relation to him reveals phenomena, objects or ideas which we also find in his work, then both the person and the work acquire the power to speak to us in a new, stronger voice, the power to illuminate a way which a moment ago seemed an unbeaten track.

2. pleasure I will therefore follow the clue determined by accident. My next important experience with Kozłowski was of a culinary nature: I discovered he does not eat meat. The importance of this discovery lay not only in the fact that the artist adopted some ethical principle, but in my realisation that his attitude to the world is not mindless and conventional. I also found out that Kozłowski controls the pleasure he experienced, that he aims at creating a system of control over what Jacques Lacan calls jouissance. This control over pleasure is not merely negative, repressive: it also has a positive, productive dimension.

One needs only witness Kozłowski smoking his cigars and the pleasure he derives thereof. He enjoys his cigars, risking ostracism and even conflict with the law. In fact one of the professors, hardly known for refraining from pleasures himself, encouraged me to do something with this guy (Kozłowski) who does not understand what is meant by public space, and that it should not be contaminated by his whims. We should seriously attend to the hypothesis that the patterns formed by the smoke of Kozłowski’s cigars may in fact be a result of some hidden performance, a secret activity that he watches over with no less attentiveness than his official installations.

Kozłowski often says he is suspicious of the category of pleasure. For example, in conversation with Andrzej Szczepaniak in May 2006 he recalls: I have refrained from painting for many years because it seemed to satisfy me a little bit too easily, and I seemed to derive too much pleasure from using the painter’s instruments. That was dangerous to the degree that it threatened the loss of critical distance towards what I was doing.2

He makes a similar and even more emphatic comment in the now famous interview with Jerzy Ludwiński from 1994: As a student, I painted a lot and with great zest. I liked the smell of paints, turpentine, I was praised as a promising ‘oil painter’. Finally I felt that painting began to resemble eating cream cakes, that I was losing distance towards myself and what I was doing. So I stopped painting . . . . Somewhat similar motivations later made me abandon my linguistic explorations. I noticed I was feeling more and more comfortable with them. I enjoyed arranging various 2

Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Andrzej Szczepaniak, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Zasłony / Curtains, exh. cat. (Cracow: Galeria Starmach, 2006), p. 32.

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conceptual configurations, combinations of more and more ingenious games and logical paradoxes. And again I felt the necessity to abandon that . . . . Abandonments are important.3

Kozłowski felt a pleasure in painting, so strong that it proved dangerous. It made him give up the painter’s career. What does pleasure mean to him then? In the simplest terms, pleasure has the important function of signalling, of informing us that what we do no longer resists us and that it requires no effort, no investment of intellect and energy, that the activity we are engaged in has become routine and threatens to become mere mechanical repetition. Here is what pleasure means: it is an effect of a fully formed dynamic of movement installed in us so strongly that it no longer requires conscious control and adjustment. Pleasure thus signals to us growing conformity and should therefore constitute a warning that we should change something in our lives if we do not want to succumb to routine, vanity, narcissism or some other abomination.

Reducing pleasure to the function of signal and information does not, however, exhaust the pleasure principle. Thus I pose the question again: what does pleasure mean to Kozłowski and what activity is it related to? Does his work operate beyond the pleasure principle or conversely, does it remain in total, one could say organic, agreement with that very principle? To put it briefly, for Kozłowski pleasure is related to thinking, but not just any kind of thinking. In 1995, in conversation with Audun Eckhoff, Kozłowski spoke extensively on the topic of thinking, directly linking the act of thinking to art: Transformation is a very essential idea for art in general. Whether we paint or draw, or whichever tools we use.

I think this concept is very basic. But the process is somehow analogical to the concept of thinking, which in my instance is triggered by simple curiosity. I am curious to draw a line or to build some structure which doesn’t exist. In the process of making or transformation, the art work is imbued with a new existence, another life. But the beginning is always curiosity. I like questions very much. And for me, this is more about asking questions than giving answers. It parallels the division between the artist as investigator, someone who is searching for some new sense or new ideas, and the artist who already knows and is telling the truth.4

This premise allows Kozłowski to explain why it is so difficult for him to enclose a thought in a single work of art, one installation or one painting, why his works engender a series, continuities, histories which mutually position each other, commenting, undermining and renegotiating meanings.

This act of renegotiation, the conversation between works created by the artist: that is what thought is.

Thinking must be intertwined with seriality, with the process of evolution, with transformation and with something which materialises in the openness and incessantness of supplementation and commentary.

Hence my strong thesis: that the proper topic of Kozłowski’s work is the very act of thinking and his installations, paintings, drawings and performances are merely transitional points of this process, this action, this dynamic; his works of art are merely a temporary dwelling in objects, ideas, events or acts, which have been accidentally chosen by thought as a site for habitation.

Pleasure is then the reason why Kozłowski abandons painting and continues his work in another field, in another place, with the use of a different tool. His art is the effect of such dislocations of the pleasure principle. It does not come into being beyond the pleasure principle. His asceticism, rationality, self-control, minimalism, orderliness, restraint, that is, all these Apollonian virtues which are commonly attributed to Kozłowski’s work, are by no means synonymous with some deeper work of eradication, repression or denial of pleasure conceived as the forbidden fruit. They are at the most a symptom of sublimation, of a transfer of pleasure from the narrowly defined sphere of events and physical actions to the sphere of symbolic events and activity. Abandonments are important, even crucial because only they allow him a continuation of the process of thinking. Let us pause, however, and ask: thinking about what and with what?

3

Jarosław Kozłowski, Jerzy Ludwiński, ‘Conversation’, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, exh. cat. (Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994), p. 94.

4

Kozłowski, Eckhoff, ‘A Conversation’, p. 47.

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continuum i BWA Gallery Zielona Góra, 1988

The later part of the question is perhaps easier to answer. Remaining faithful to the pleasure principle, we can say without much ado that there is no object or medium Kozłowski could not think with. To begin with, he thinks with his body. He thinks with his body when he engages in the so-called drawing actions, something he has been doing since the seventies. In those usually short performances, the artist comments on the history of art or an arbitrarily chosen episode of it, as in The Cavalryman and the Girl, Leda with the Swan (1978) or Mona Lisa in the Fourth Dimension(1979). These are now past, however; abandonments are important, after all, and never accidental. Continuations are equally important, and never fully calculable. Beginning with 1988, all successive actions are given a common title, Continuum, and assigned consecutive numbers. In Continuum I, an alarm clock appears for the first time, measuring the time it takes for a blackboard to dry when wiped thoroughly after its surface was covered with chalk drawings. A collection of 27 stopped alarm clocks (smashed with the artist’s hand) is the trace of the Continuum series created thus far. Each event has the same script but differs in time, location and the condition the artist is in (his age). Because Continuum requires physical effort and the artist’s energy resources change with age, the act itself is always unique and unrepeatable despite its repetitive character.

There is no doubt that the Continuum series constitutes for the author the act of thinking in its pure form, in the form of his body, which repeats the narration and plot designed by the painter and, more recently, the narration (the way of the cross) and the plot of Kozłowski’s life. Continuum is thus a twofold self-meditation: attending to the history of the discipline he represents, the artist attends to himself, and comments on himself, attends to his own finiteness and countability.

I do not know what amount of pleasure is secreted in Kozłowski during the successive drawing actions. I also do not know whether the activated quanta of pleasure, which are indistinguishable from thinking itself, are for him useful indicators, informing him about the necessity of abandonment or continuation. I do know, however, that the artist’s body is not his only thinking tool. He thinks equally easily with objects, places, or even with whole structures, such as time and space. I have no doubt whatsoever, that such works as Sharp Objects or Soft Protections are an attempt to think with objects; works such as Sleeping Room. Nomadic Version and Gravity Room are attempts to think with places; and finally works such as Swedish Bathhouse. Australian Version, United World. Utopian Version, or Time Vacuum are attempts to think with whole spaces. I repeat the question then: what is thinking for Kozłowski and why is he so omnipresent? How is it possible for his art to think with practically anything so that, to paraphrase the artist, the boundary between object and concept becomes uncertain?

Well, the answer is apparent already. Kozłowski says that the classical error made in our understanding of thinking is to reserve this process for a narrowly defined internal activity of our brain, when in fact

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thinking may be and is public in character and takes place not within some internal space, but within the space of the world itself. It is an error also to restrict the process of thinking to purely human activity bounded by our convictions and to believe that thinking is anthropological in character and remains the eccentric attribute solely of humans. Were it so, we would be infinitely lonely and infinitely impotent in our cognitive activities. But it is not so. One thinks with objects, events and even structures, provided that we snatch them out of the torpor of banality and triviality, that we allow objects to speak and release meanings concealed by our pragmatism. Thinking is a power which allows objects, ideas and words to speak for themselves, which means, inter alia, that thinking is more on the side of the object that on the side of the subject, were we to uphold that distinction.

Let us correct and sharpen up the main thesis: it is not so much that Kozłowski thinks with everything that surrounds him, but that through his activity he creates the conditions under which things/concepts/ words/bodies can think for themselves, i.e. can become thinking beings.

Somewhere in the Universe Someone is thinking and thinking5

In reality, somewhere in the cosmos there are beings who renew the act of thinking. This act of thinking does not result, however, in their isolation from the world of external, indifferent, thoughtless, inanimate nature, but allows them to blend into the landscape of the world.

3. drawing The difficult art of drawing does not exhaust itself in the systematic covering of a blackboard with chalk, the thorough erasure of the chalk marks with a sponge and the waiting for the signs of erasure to dry.

Even if this act is systematically repeated and its duration is measured with an alarm clock which is subsequently destroyed. The activity of thinking is not exhausted in thinking with the body, through the body and in the body. In conversation with Jaromir Jedlinski, Jarosław Kozłowski observes: Drawing is akin to thinking. Drawing is the most direct recording of ideas and emotions, a recording which is, at the same time, the most analytical and free of the rituals of the craft. It is amazing that for so long it has been considered a secondary form of expression serving — as sketch or note — as aid in the composition of the image in painting, sculpture or graphic plate . . . . For me, at the turn of the seventies, it became the basic tool for uncovering the secrets of the language of art and for shaping artistic awareness.6

Drawing is the thinking of the hand and eye; it is the thinking of the very surface of things.

When I first read the quoted conversation, I was struck by how closely Kozłowski’s comments on drawing as a form of thinking, an exercise in thinking, correspond to certain intuitions on painting I had encountered earlier in the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss.7 Lévi-Strauss’s essay is one long meditation on a sentence from Vasari, who defined painting as ‘intellectual cognition’. According to Lévi-Strauss, the first task of art is to select and organise the flow of information sent to our eye by the external world. Art models thinking. By ignoring some pieces of information, reinforcing or reducing others, shaping those he or she has chosen, the drawing artist lends a coherence, which becomes the marker of his style, to this multiplicity, this excess of information, flowing from the world and flooding our senses.

Lévi-Strauss asks: does a photographic or film camera behave in the same way? And answers: to agree to equate the work of the eye with the work of the lens would be to fail to recognise that the physical and mechanical demands of the machine, the chemical properties of the light-sensitive surface, the possibilities the cameraman has in the choice of subject, angle and lighting give him a very limited 5

Jarosław Kozłowski, Grey Thoughts (London: Matt’s Gallery, 1990), n.pag.

6

Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Jaromir Jedliński, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Hot News, exh. cat. (Poznań: Galeria

7

Claude Lévi-Strauss, ‘A un jeune peintre’, in Le Regard éloigné (Paris: Plon, 1983).

Muzalewska, 2002), p. 33.

freedom in comparison to the practically boundless freedom of the eye, the hand and thought. Further, Lévi-Strauss comments on the paradox in the history of contemporary drawing: the importance of the subject wanes progressively for the sake of what is euphemistically called the work of the artist (or drawing technique) while it is only when we insist on treating drawing as a means of cognition that the mastery of a craft inherited from the old masters becomes meaningful again, and again becomes a sovereign topic of research and reflection.

This very paradox is addressed by Kozłowski in the works addressing the subject of seeing. The drama is played out between the subject and object of seeing. And I use both categories (subject/object) more as a result of a lexical powerlessness and inertia than intentionally. Such works by Kozłowski as Eyewitness, Double Exposure, Double Image, Sleep Well, Single Lighting are not merely examples of a critique of cognition, which simultaneously take on the complex problem of the ethics of seeing, but above all they are drawings understood as ‘intellectual cognition’. Drawing is ‘the basic tool for uncovering the secrets of the language of art’. If it is so, drawing becomes an a priori condition of art (a proto-art or a meta-art), rather than art in the conventional and banal understanding of the term. Kozłowski does not merely ask the question what we see and who has the right to see, but asks much more than that: how does what we see transform into the seer?

Drawing is not merely a collection of lines left by the movement of the painter’s hand on paper and cannot be reduced to the thickness of the lines organising the finite, enclosed space. Drawing is omnipresent; we can find it on maps of cities, in layers of ploughed earth, in the lines of the landscape, in the lines of one’s palm, in star constellations, in mountain ranges, in lines demarcating the political map of the world, in outlines of clouds, in the constellations of our words, in the holograms of our brains, and in cigar smoke. Kozłowski’s early works, Metaphysics, Physics, -ics, refer to drawing conceived in this manner (as geometry).

Metaphysics (1972) embraces relations, defined by the code of colloquial language, between concepts and objects visible on the black and white photograph projected on the wall of the gallery. Those objects are marked by numbers drawn on the wall and constitute parts of a typical home interior. Kozłowski is asking about the relationship between a sign and its referent, about the principle which allows us to separate objects from what surrounds them, to mark boundaries between objects. He is asking about the boundary of an object, its drawing, its map. Obviously the determination of the unambiguous relation between the concept and its referent poses difficulties, because the concept does not determine the exact temporal and spatial boundaries of the object. In trying to define a general model of the object which constitutes the referent of a given term, a model which would allow for a precise determination of its boundaries, Kozłowski refers to the system of point-free geometry conceived of by Stanisław Leśniewski, a figure known also for his philosophical reflections. In point-free geometry, all space is understood as a great solid which freely subdivides into other solids. In classical geometry, those masses are considered to be collections of points; here they are the primary objects. Conceived as a solid, the object becomes — in the light of this theory — a concrete body, and at the same time a substratum of future divisions.

Kozłowski’s task in this work is not only an exercise in logic and set theory, nor is it a mere rehearsal of things long known to philosophers. It is rather an attempt to reach the numerical code which positions and determines our understanding of things, which determines our most elementary orientation in the world and ability to recognise an object at all.

Physics (1973) describes the logical scaffolding of the situation presented on the photograph in Metaphysics. It is made up of seventy-four panels with compound sentences based on patterns of tautology. The simple sentences which constitute the compound sentences describe the interior represented on the photograph used in Metaphysics. Since Physics pertains, however, only to the formal relations between sentences and not to the relation of these sentences to reality, the photograph it uses from Metaphysics is out of focus.

While Metaphysics and Physics described relations, semantic and syntactic respectively, whose character was determined by necessity, -ics (1974) concerns only the sphere of possibility. In this case, it is the viewer’s task to interpret numbers placed on the wall in an order identical to that from Metaphysics by identifying them with adjectives read aloud (from tapes) in alphabetical order. Adjectives are elements

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post-object drawings Galerie Vor Ort Hamburg, 1980

of language which do not denote objects (although they connote qualities); detached from objects, they map out the structure of potential reality. And again: the point is not to perform a simple language exercise, but to make the viewer aware of how complex is the system of coding used by his brain.

Recoding the language of objects as the language of images is recognisable to our brains; recoding the language of images as the language of logical formulas is conceivable, but the reversal of this translation goes beyond the cognitive capacities of our thinking organs.

Object Drawings (1980) are a type of modification of the model of relations, presented in Metaphysics, between the names used in colloquial language and objects. The drawings of Object Drawings are made on sheets of paper: graphite prints of the surfaces of the exhibited pieces of furniture are placed on top of those pieces. The names of objects are replaced in this work by their indexes, an almost mechanical reproduction of their shapes. They remain readable also as Post-Object Drawings (Galerie Vor Ort, Hamburg, 1980) shown, similarly to the numbers in -ics, separately from the objects they denote. In these works, drawing is used as something concrete, as a code which became the object itself. Let us repeat: drawing is the thinking of the hand and eye, the thinking of the very surface of things, a guessing at the very signature of the object.

Somewhere in the Universe Someone is thinking straight His thoughts are very grey But sometimes grey means red8

In reality, there are beings somewhere in the cosmos who are trying to think without mediation, but their thought is not aligned with the object of thinking and the surface of things cannot be translated into the content of their thought.

4. the lost dignity of objects One day after a faculty meeting, Kozłowski approached me and told me that I had a very elegant watch.

I was doubly surprised. First, because he had astonished me with his perceptiveness and ability to register a fact which my eye could not register. Second, I was surprised that he paid any attention to such a detail as a watch. Only recently, after I acquired a certain familiarity with his work and saw the 8

Kozłowski, Grey Thoughts, n.pag.

role played in it by watches and various other objects of everyday use, did I realise how many meanings and how much, I dare say, tenderness were hidden in this little remark about my watch. There is no motif Kozłowski emphasises more that his ostentatious aversion, if not hatred, towards the demand for functionality. But this aversion may be easily misinterpreted as plain dislike of the administrativeeconomic paradigm characteristic of our social world. I believe that Kozłowski is not aiming at a critique of the post-political world of liberal and global exchange, but rather he desires to reach and recover the lost dignity of the object, where ‘dignity’ means ‘the proper meaning of.’ Let us add that the same gesture of liberation pertains also to words and concepts. Only words and concepts are not being liberated from the demand for pragmatically limited functionality, only from the demands of semantic pragmatism, from the subjugation to the conventionality of humanly assigned meanings, that is, they are liberated from the oppression of signification. Thus, with Kozłowski the movement of the liberation of objects and the movement of the liberation of concepts go in opposite directions.

In conversation with Jerzy Ludwiński, the artist presents his concept of the three rings: The objects in the third ring thus often look ‘the same’ but their new status and the different internal relations between them make them no longer be what they are in the reality ring, and they have even less in common with their ‘representations’ or ‘transformations’ in the art ring. They acquire a new identity and with it they recover their lost dignity.9

It is from this — ethical rather than purely conceptual — point of view that I want to read Kozłowski’s opinion expressed earlier in the same text that ‘[f ]rom [his] current perspective [he] would not make a too clear-cut distinction between object and idea,’ and that objects undergo continual dislocations, displacements and reconfigurations in relation to each other, or furthermore, that ‘objects may be good carriers of ideas, ideas are often reified’.10 How does Kozłowski recover the original dignity of objects? And are not his goals in this project too far fetched, too revolutionary and utopian? Is the project feasible? Is it that after the epoch of freeing people from the prison of tradition and superstition, of recognising successive minority groups, and of animal liberation, the time has come to liberate objects? And does Kozłowski turn out to be the prophet of this liberation, donning the mask of the messiah of all that which had been reduced to the function of a servile object? In the light of what was said here, the recovery of the original dignity of objects would mean above all making them objects of thought, releasing in them the power to announce their proper meaning, their name. But how is that to be achieved? How are we to initiate a revolution, not among the human masses this time, but among the masses of objects enslaved by the dogma of functionality?

Importantly, Kozłowski’s work makes use of ready objects, mostly things of everyday use. Such objects were part of his art right from the beginning, but they were usually interwoven in multilayered utterances in which the artist also used other media, such as drawing, photography, sound and colour.

In arranged artistic situations, those objects usually performed their functions actively: fans caused the air to circulate, lamps gave light, metronomes and clocks measured time, the table held plates, and a key opened the door. Kozłowski soon realised that as a result his intention was not sufficiently and fully radical, and that he still was situating himself on the side of the aggressor, the one who harnesses and subjugates, on the side of the master.

Fundamental change came perhaps with the work called Sharp Objects (1992). In essence, Kozłowski refused to sacrifice anything any more to situationally conceived functionality; he was not satisfied with local, partial revolution any more and demanded total liberation. This liberation, however, turned out a surprise. The artist does not help the chair to achieve new status by liberating it from its oppressive condition of a machine for sitting, nor does he liberate the clock by lifting off its stigma of a machine for measuring time. He performs an act which is much more violent; in a way he wounds objects, decomposes and cuts them, crops and sews them up, arranges and glues them together again. Thus, 9

Kozłowski, Ludwiński, ‘Conversation’, p. 102.

10

Ibid, p. 94.

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physics 1973 Generali Foundation Vienna, 2006

he inflicts pain on objects, even destroys and tortures them. A legitimate question arises as to whether it suffices to join the chair to the cabinet with bandage and band aid, or like a farmer to plant scythes in our chairs and tables, or to allow heaps of our daily newspaper to glue the sawed off leg of a table to the floor to become the liberator of the martyred still life of the objects of this world and earn the title of the messiah of dead matter. Does it suffice to pin books to the shelves, imprisoning them in one’s catalogue logic, to make us aware, the way Kozłowski’s Library does, that libraries are prisons and books conceived as receptacles for information have become unable to speak and say more through their silence, their imprisonment, than through their flowery text wrought in ink?

One needs to point out also that in Kozłowski’s work, liberation is related to the opposite gesture, namely, the objectification of ideas. Ideas are not thought when, as is generally believed, something is conceptualised, but when they are reified. A perfect example of this may be found in the work from 1977 called Exercise in Semiotics. It consisted of a sequence of 49 mass-produced postcards with reproductions of roses of various brands and colours. Each pair of identical photographs was marked with the same commentary doubled by its opposite. If the caption under one photograph read, ‘this pretty red rose is a red rose’, under the next, identical photograph, the caption said, ‘this pretty red rose is not a red rose’. The real colour of the roses was irrelevant. The artist intended for the term ‘the rose’ to mean THE ROSE. Such miracles had been possible only in the Cana of Galilee and, maybe, also in Hegel’s philosophy. Kozłowski seems to be saying that now they are to be common experience. Democracy means also, or above all, the democracy of cognition.

The question therefore is the following: why, despite Kozłowski’s rough treatment of his objects, when he paints furniture with black paint and pierces tables with sharp scythes, when looking at those objects we do not see them as victims; rather, wounded (liberated) they seem to become counter-objects,

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library (detail) Museet for Samtidskunst Oslo, 1995

actively struggling for their identity and sovereignty? Analogously: how does it happen that concepts treated by Kozłowski with logical neutrality and mathematical precision are in the end granted by him a subjectivity and a vitality, which makes them causal agents capable of influencing the world of objects? The answer is that through the manipulations of the artist, these objects and ideas reveal their active, thinking nature. There is nothing which disturbs him more than the passive nature of objects.

Thinking is always active and activity is never peaceful. The armchair will not allow anyone reclining in it to feel at ease, the television will resist transmitting information, the typewriter will rebel against writing. Yet an attentive viewer will be able to register in each object a tiny fragment of their original surface, which has not been painted over. This trace of previous status constitutes a stigma of their former, slave nature. It is a souvenir of human domination, of the epoch of enslavement, a warning against what we (things) will become if we stop thinking.

Kozłowski was equally ruthless with the objects from the series Soft Protections (1994–95). Furniture, carpets, and other smaller things such as radios, lamps, clocks, mirrors, ashtrays, etc., were glued together out of two parts of separate objects of the same type. This time the artist played the doctor and he dressed the cuts with bandages and band aid. Here objects enter illegal unions, and merge into larger entities, loosing the identity bestowed upon them by socially sanctioned codes. But, can this be read as an expression of authentic care, as if Kozłowski was dealing with a being capable of experiencing pain?

Do we have the right or even a duty not to feel at home, as if we were not in our own room (in its Danish, Swiss or Polish version), but in a hospital room where the wounded are being treated after a dramatic battle? Or maybe we are watching a spectacle of objects created as a result of an illegal, extra-species or inter-species copulation? Maybe we are witnessing a recording not so much of the consequences of the violation of the incest taboo, as of the transgression of the boundary of a species?

In one of the versions of this installation, the furniture and objects constituting the typical furnishings of the rooms named in the titles were stacked one on top of the other, with those bearing the burden of the rest placed on wheels. What did this mean? Moving to a different house, existential instability, an interval in the order of things? Did the magazines, those prosthetics of the inter-species, supporting the legs of the furniture and lining the paintings constitute a guarantee against the loss of meaning of the objects? Or did the hierarchical construction signify exploitation and a pecking order which exist even in the world of objects, some carrying the burden of others, so that even here equality is impossible? Perhaps Kozłowski does not want to liberate things at all, but is simply angry with them and like an evil demiurge vents his fury on the objects of initial adoration which have disappointed his divine expectations with their passive nature?

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Somewhere in the Universe Someone is thinking awry His thoughts are very grey But sometimes grey means brown11

In reality, sometimes some beings in the cosmos think something out of kilter and out of line, and then contradictions appear which are the reversal of tautology.

5. time and space Whenever I meet Kozłowski he asks me for the time and generally seems to be an organism lost in time.

But he has never asked me about a place or the way to get to a place. He is not lost in space. It seems that, in the case of Kozłowski, the deficit of temporal orientation was transformed into an abundance and brilliance of spatial orientation. The artist’s obsession with time is present both in his utterances and in specific actions. Let us try to translate this thought into the language of his work.

Time has entered space no less violently than space had entered time, as we can see in the episodic and accidental quality of the relation between objects in the work Temporary Objects from 1997. The idea seemed simple: the artist borrowed objects from various people’s homes, which then were used as the material to build temporary formal arrangements in the National Museum in Poznań.

For the duration of the exhibition, the objects were given the status of art, a status which was only temporary as they later returned to their homes to continue performing their utilitarian functions.

The unstable relation between thing and idea, the object of contemplation and the functional object finds its analogy in the unstable and uncertain relation between time and space. The clock is the best example.

The clock is a paradoxical tool. It serves to measure time, but it measures time with its arms travelling in space. This travel, as we know, is illusory, because the hands travel around their own axis.

The clock imitates the revolutions of the earth around its own axis and its arms persist in a circular, eternally repeatable journey. For Kozłowski, it is a paradox that movement in space can measure time.

This paradox is best illustrated by his work from 1999, Time Vacuum. It consists of 24 clocks placed on the outside walls of twelve ends of 19th century, historic buildings. These buildings have been moved from the centre of the old town to the History Museum in Reykjavik (The Arbaer Museum), where one can learn about old ways of life. Each clock shows a different time. The hands of twelve of these clocks move in the right direction, ‘clockwise’ and twelve move in the opposite direction, ‘anticlockwise’, constructing an amazing relationship between space and time, a type of spatio-temporal corrugation. Gravity Room is based on a similar principle. In it Kozłowski subjects to revision one of the basic laws of physics, the law of gravity. The simple procedure of placing upside down a plain home interior, the fixing on the ceiling and walls of what usually stands on the floor — tables, sofas, cabinets, cases — denies the existence of gravity. There is more at stake here, however, than a simple gesture of deconstruction or reversal; the point is to undermine our most elementary spatial intuitions of ‘up’ and ‘down’. Assuming that Kozłowski has outgrown the phase of childhood negativity, the question arises why do such things, why the perversity?

Let us ponder the significance of the Reykjavik event. First, an operation in space is performed: houses are moved from one place to another, or, rather, a group of houses is uprooted and turned into a heritage park. This operation is, however, also taking place in time, because it is performed on historical buildings which are moved from a living space to a space of contemplation. They are, to put it bluntly, torn out of their proper space and time, and lodged in spacelessness and timelessness, in a vacuum. Kozłowski’s operation consisting of placing the 24 clocks only puts a stamp an operation that is already completed, merely describing and giving it a signature. In a vacuum, clocks lose their spatial orientation and begin to work counter clockwise. It would be an error to claim the clocks are out of order, they were in fact ordered by the operation described above. They behave the way we would behave in an 11

Kozłowski, Grey Thoughts, n.pag.

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soft protection danish version (detail) Charlottenborg Copenhagen, 1994

undefined, unstructured, undetermined reality. What I called thinking with structures finds a perfect demonstration here. Kozłowski is no longer satisfied with liberating objects or spaces; his revolutionary appetites have grown substantially, he demands something more profound: a liberation of the formal conditions of thinking or, as Kant would say, of the a priori conditions of space and time. And what happens after this structural liberation?

Let us take the example of Three Thirty and Fifty One, a book published in 1989 by Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik in Odense. The departure point is constituted here by photographs of watches taken at various times. The watches change and, judging from the shape of the hand, the hair and clothing, so do their wearers. The time shown by the first watch is 3:30:51 and such is the title of the photograph and the whole book. This dial and the time shown by its hands opens a series (in time) in which colour becomes an important element. There is the 12:09 of white, 03:30 of black, 11:15 of blue, 06:45 of yellow, 11:14 of red and finally 28 seconds of orange (a photograph of two hands in gloves and two watches showing 01:10 and 08:52 respectively); at the end, the time 3:30:51 is shown again, this time digitally.

What is happening here? What does this series signify? What effect is created by this strange, disturbing contamination of time, space and colour? I believe that what is at stake here is more than just a discovery of a private, subjective dimension of time. The point is not merely that there are many kinds of time, that time is immanently connected to place and that ‘there are no two points on Earth which at the same moment of astronomical time would remain in an identical relation to the Sun’12.

The point is not a simple spatio-temporal relativity. True, Kozłowski’s speculations are not unlike the anguish of young Hans Castorp from Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain. The later was tortured with questions such as: does time in the sanatorium hidden away in the mountains run differently form the time of healthy people living in their towns? Is the biological time of the body cells of a certain Russian woman with a French name, Klaudia Chauchat, which Castorp has come to desire, comparable to the time of his own mortal body? It seems, however, that Kozłowski’s speculations are not exhausted in the psychology of the experience of time, nor in the personal phenomenology of time awareness. The artist is not merely after experiments and questions like: does time in a closed, dark room run more slowly (or more quickly) to the prisoner than time in a bright, open space? He aims to say more: not 12

Jarosław Kozłowski, ʻCzas aktualny sztuki i cywilizacji pośpiechu. Czy istnieje więź bezkolizyjna?ʼ [The current time of art and the civilisation of rush. Is there a safe connection?], in SytuARTacje. Jankowice 2–11 luty 1978 (Poznań: Oficyna, 1978).

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only that space participates in time, not only space is time, but also that all elements situated in space become time. He is not after the time of a certain colour, but after the colour of time. The colour of the dial is not irrelevant to time itself, is not, as it would seem, an accidental, neutral parameter, but essentially modifies time. The subject proper to the fine arts is, then, not space, but time. Drawing organises time.

Time and space regulate not only the world’s cosmology; the map of the world is not limited to a geographical map, but is supplemented by a political map. In works from the United World series, miniature flags with the colours of different countries perform the function of guarding and fixing meanings resulting from the juxtaposition of objects. The position of the flags — horizontal or perpendicular — suggests a specific type of construction of meaning. In Totalitarian Version (The Brno House of Arts, 2000), the placement of the objects is defined by the principle of accumulation. House objects are piled up like a rotunda and separated from the rest of space by a polygon of steel grating. The flags shooting straight up, placed on the top edge of the grating, make us associate the construction with the order of some unidentified sublime ideology. The distribution of objects in Democratic Version (BWA, Zielona Góra, 2001) is defined by the principle of dispersal. The monolith of the cylindrical construction is replaced here by an irregularly shaped aggregate of objects of everyday use, branching out horizontally in many directions and covered with transparent foil. The flags point in many directions, suggesting the principle of plurality which is the key to the democratic order. Kozłowski’s thought moves in a similar direction to that of Hannah Arendt’s, who in The Origins of Totalitarianism compares constitutional governments to a space in which law is like a hedge between buildings, facilitating orientation in space.

Tyranny is like the desert; we move in an unknown, open, flat and uniform space and the will of the tyrant falls on us like the sandstorm on a nomad. Totalitarianism has no spatial topology: it is like an iron ring bracing the thinking substance until everything within it becomes uniform. Perhaps, however, Kozłowski is closer in his thinking to Thomas Hobbes or Jonathan Swift, for whom freedom in all regimes, be it democracy, aristocracy or monarchy, is always the same, because defined by the space of the state to which we belong.

Somewhere in the Universe Someone is thinking in two His thoughts are very grey But sometimes grey means blue13

In reality, somewhere in the cosmos, someone is thinking for two, and even for three, for five, for the million, billion or even the whole multiplicity and then, behold, greyness becomes the blue of the sky. It becomes the blue of the sky, because the sky is the only greyness there is.

6. weariness Jarosław Kozłowski’s work could have remained silent and inaccessible or even alien to me forever.

I could have never known anything about him. Perhaps I still don’t. I know nothing about him, but that he does not eat meat, that he likes to cover blackboards with chalk and has an eye for watches.

But he knows something about himself. In the conversation with Jaromir Jedliński, quoted above, the artist says: The reason why I come back to watercolour painting today, after a break of several years, is different again. To begin with, I am tired with the inter- and multi-media canon of art so omnipresent today and the pushy journalism and infantile scandals of so-called ‘critical art’. Secondly, I am amused by the ‘serious’ diagnoses of the exhaustion or the end of painting, pronounced stubbornly and with such surprising satisfaction. Against these popular opinions I believe that no language of art expires . . .14 13

Kozłowski, Grey Thoughts, n.pag.

14

Kozłowski in conversation with Jaromir Jedliński, p. 35.

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three thirty and fifty one (fragment of page) published by Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik Odense, 1989

In a conversation with Andrzej Szczepaniak from May 2006 he adds: In my opinion, every work of art should be critical, whether it’s Polish or not and whether it’s called ‘critical art’ or not. This applies equally to what’s outside and what’s intrinsic, because otherwise it sinks into self-satisfaction and academicism.15

Kozłowski often emphasises that he does not feel an artist and certainly does not feel a born artist.

The only thing he is for sure is a human being. This is an important declaration which distances him from contemporary anti-humanism: there are thinkers who use every occasion to emphasise their inhuman character. Today, being human has become an embarrassing privilege.

In a conversation with Audun Eckhoff from 1995, Kozłowski confesses: I chose to work and act in the field of art, and it was a very conscious decision. I was not born an artist. If one wants to become a shaman, one had to believe in his or her peculiar ‘mission’ and one’s privilege of, for example, knowing better than others. For me, it is too pretentious and rather too megalomaniac. And I have always been sceptical, as much towards all the truths which were given to me, as towards myself. So in order to work in the field of art, creating my ideas in the language of art, I had to face the question of what the phenomenon of art actually is. I believe it is simply a matter of a curiosity in the language you use and the whole structure you are working in, including its borderlines. When I began to question different aspects of art — to use the fashionable term: to deconstruct its mythologies — there was a very important need for me to know more about what I myself am doing. What is real in what I do, and what is fiction? What do I do in accordance with assumed standards, and what is my personal and honest contribution?16

Further on, the artist deconstructs the myth of freedom in art, of the free act of creation, of the sovereignty and divine autonomy of the artist. He demonstrates how much the language of art is embroiled with the language of politics, business and even military defence.

15

Kozłowski in conversation with Andrzej Szczepaniak, p. 20.

16

Kozłowski, Eckhoff, ʻA Conversationʼ, p. 45.

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time vacuum (detail) The Arbaer Museum Reykjavik, 1999

Kozłowski’s art is doubtlessly critical art, but it has nothing to do with so-called Polish critical art.

He is light years away from Zbigniew Libera, Artur Żmijewski or Katarzyna Kozyra, who are concerned mostly with the passivity of the population, with the creation of a silent majority and with the dead masses of consumerism. The critical aspect of their works is mostly social and political; it is to activate passive citizens. Kozłowski activates an entirely different critical sense, which has to do primarily with the analysis of the possibilities and impossibilities of the very conditions of the existence of the world and its objects. The artist does not take the side of Karl Marx, Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, but, rather, of Immanuel Kant, Edmund Husserl and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The criticism of the Polish critical school is for him not critical enough. Today, however, Kozłowski is weary of his own excess of criticism. Perhaps he is also weary of what he discovered in his critical analysis.

One of the signs of his weariness is the piece Rhetorical Figures presented in the Oko/Ucho Gallery in Poznań and in the Warsaw Gallery Le Guern, where Kozłowski showed the third version of this work.

In the former he was interested in the rhetoric of the image/object; in the later, completed for the Art, Life and Confusion exhibition in Belgrade (2006), he pointed to the rhetorical overuse of slogans, both in everyday language and in more official utterances. LED displays with the short text ‘No news from . . .’ were installed at different locations in the city — in the gallery, in the museum, on the street — and announced the lack of news from 23 places situated at different geographical and political locations.

In his latest project, the artist returns to the rhetoric of art itself, to artistic ostentatiousness and the meagreness of the artistic message. The gigantic construction of cardboard boxes covered with mortar acquires meaning in juxtaposition with the brief message: ‘No news’.

I am looking at a catalogue Rhetorical Figures published by the Oko/Ucho Gallery. In this collection of black images, again, each image bears the title No News From . . . followed by the name of the place: Berlin, Brussels, London, Madrid, Moscow, Oslo, Paris, Rome, Warsaw, New York, Peking, New Delhi, Tokyo, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Johannesburg, Nairobi, São Paulo, Sidney. This resembles the late poetics of Samuel Beckett, for example the short stage work Breath. The play lasts no longer than thirty seconds and consists only of the sound of inhaling and exhaling and a short exclamation at the beginning and at the end. The lack of news is not synonymous with good news in Kozłowski’s work; rather, it is synonymous with black news, the worst news, news of catastrophe. But because this black news comes from all corners of the world, it becomes monotonous; it inspires not so much shock as weariness: weariness with catastrophes.

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united world democratic version BWA Gallery Zielona Góra, 2001

The question is, then: does all the critical analysis undertaken by Kozłowski in his highly creative life have to come down to the statement: ‘No news from anywhere. No news from Kozłowski’? Kozłowski’s oeuvre does say something important about the consequences of inverting the world with thought.

His whole oeuvre is thought, thought released from the pleasure principle. To say ‘released from the pleasure principle’, however, does not mean a departure from and acting beyond the pleasure principle, but an attempt to connect thinking to this principle at its source and to make thinking the only pleasure.

Is Kozłowski’s inverted world inhabitable? Is Kozłowski’s a world which may not only be thought, but also lived in, settled? Is life possible here — life perceived as a process of exchange of information and energy with the environment, life perceived as a one-directional process of the dissipation of energy and matter or, finally, life perceived as a multiplication of life, a replication — if in his world even the kitchen is nomadic and the living room is moving on wheels in an unknown direction? How much would we have to change, how lonely and homeless must we become to release within ourselves a disposition to settle in those rooms? Are we like that already? Is the price to pay for the liberation of objects my own death on the scythe which suddenly grew out of my armchair?

Perhaps today we need to imagine Kozłowski strolling in a united world, where European standards have been adopted, in search of his personal file. He is infinitely sad. Personal files are held in temporal spaces connected with soft protections. His file can be found in the Negative Room in which orientation vanishes. He has 20 minutes to find his file, he checks his watch, only to see that its hands are moving backwards. His only hope are mathematics and geometry; he knows objects have been given numerical reference. He once knew them. The problem is, that when he is looking at the numbers only, he cannot connect them with objects. With the process of thinking, the number of unknowns grows instead of decreasing. The artist abandons the hope to find his file and instead begins exercises in ethics; those, however, plunge him into an uncertainty whether what he sees is vertical or horizontal. He does not know and there is no way he could find out. Reason is of no use in this matter. He despairs. Ethics was his last hope.

Kozłowski is searching for a way out of the world and finds it in the sphere of the imagination. He leaves the prison of personal files in Reykjavik. Instead of going into a historical building with two clocks over the entry, he goes into an Australian version of a Swedish bathhouse. A surprise awaits him there. Red light strikes his eyes and a stern voice says: ‘sleep well’. Still, he goes inside. From the maddening play of projectors a pair of eyes emerges. He realises these are his own eyes. But they are not symmetrical; they are the positive and negative of an eye reflected in mirrors to the accompaniment

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of music or, rather, a cascade of ticking clocks and metronomes, which mutually invalidate themselves.

There is no quartz clock. Kozłowski is watching Kozłowski. Kozłowski becomes Kozłowski’s eyewitness.

Kozłowski sees Kozłowski’s brain. Kozłowski’s brain had already tried to think straight, in reversals, in doubles, strangely, narrowly, clearly, excessively, directly, with bravado. His thoughts had been: red (straight), brown (oval), blue (double), orange (storied), yellow (thoughtful), green (square), golden (round). Currently they are grey (invisible). Kozłowski’s eye is watching as his hand draws nervously on the board, lines becoming thicker and thicker, only to be erased with a wet sponge. Kozłowski is out of breath. Kozłowski’s hand smashes the first/last alarm clock against the wall. ‘No news from Kozłowski’.

Somewhere in the Universe Someone is thinking away His thoughts are very grey But sometimes grey means grey17

17

Kozłowski, Grey Thoughts, n.pag.

time declensions

żołty time, rote czas, blue zeit Potocka Gallery Cracow, 1988

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simple geometry Royal le Page Building Edmonton, 1989

dark blue Kunsthallen Brandts KlĂŚdefabrik Odense, 1989

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blue fragments iii Bond Street Building 8th Biennale of Sydney, 1990

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personal files Archief The Hague, 1993

personal files ii National Museum in Poznań, 1997

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time declensions Museet for Samtidskunst Oslo, 1995

temporary stories Kunsthallen Brandts KlĂŚdefabrik Odense, 1998

temporary stories ii Ostdeutsche Galerie und Museum Regensburg, 2005

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time vacuum ii BWA Stara Gallery Lublin, 1997

untitled Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Warsaw, 1997

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change of order National Gallery Prague, 2000

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time vacuum The Arbaer Museum Reykjavik, 1999

transit Emerson Gallery Berlin, 2005

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cistern of time Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Warsaw, 2006

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loop XRay Gallery Luboń, 2007

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the library of time Kalisz Museum Kalisz, 2007

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time to change Galerie Nord Berlin, 2007

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9.

ON THE DISMISSAL OF THE SIGNIFIED Piotr Piotrowski

Looking back we see that the work of Jarosław Kozłowski has been, and still is, often interpreted according to the categories of conceptual art. It is also conceptual art which is seen as the genesis of his oeuvre. The artist is even frequently cited as the leading representative of this particular movement, though more recent opinions no longer focus as much on such an affiliation.

Urszula Czartoryska, for example, warns against assigning too much attention to this particular trope.1 What is more, the artist himself, when asked by Jerzy Ludwiński about a shift of focus from objects to ideas, replied: ‘From my current perspective, I would not make a too clear-cut distinction between object and idea.’2 Regardless of these different revisions, there is no doubt that Kozłowski belongs to a group of artists of the seventies who dealt with issues typical for conceptual art. It would be difficult to overestimate the significance that certain conceptual works by Kozłowski have had, both for the artist himself, as well as generally for Polish art history of recent years. These include Apparatus (1971), Metaphysics (1972), Physics (1973), -ics (1974), Exercises in Aesthetics (1976), Exercise in Semiotics (1977), Time-, Weight-, and Quantity Drawings (1980). The issues dealt with here basically concerned the ontology of art, even though they evolved with time. In the early eighties, Kozłowski became interested in artistic mythologies, in the systems of ideas which formed the status of art as it were from the inside.

Later on, the artist’s focus shifted more towards ‘external’ relations, to the social mythologies of art, so as to, in effect, ask about art’s political status.

In fact, Kozłowski’s art, as summarised in the statement above, demonstrates a certain evolution of conceptualism. There is a very characteristic tension between the artists of the sixties and early seventies — who measured artistic endeavours by the ‘dematarialisation of art’ — and the artistic production of those who came later, including contemporary ones, who while admitting to sharing that same critical tradition, nonetheless ‘materialise ideas’. The object again appeared in the scope of artistic operations in the eighties and nineties. This time, however, it is no longer aesthetic and situated in the hierarchical system of artistic culture, but has instead been taken from ‘elsewhere’ or created intentionally. In any case, it is always made instrumental for the purpose of the idea formulated by the artist. It can be said that this is where the difference lies between the art of the eighties and nineties, and that of the sixties and seventies: the former questioning the material object, the latter — always referring to it. Both art movements were driven by a critical sense towards reality — be it artistic or extra-artistic. They were particularly critical towards the relations between these realities, though in very different intellectual and political contexts. The atmosphere of the common contestation of the hippies was pushed out and replaced by the atmosphere of the universal conformism of the yuppies.

This led to a change of the language capable of expressing critical attitudes. The former was radically 1

Urszula Czartoryska, ʻJarosław Kozłowski’s Gamesʼ, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, exh. cat. (Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994), p. 31.

2

Jarosław Kozłowski, Jerzy Ludwiński, ʻConversationʼ, ibid., p. 94.

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sharp objects Tapko Copenhagen, 1992

iconoclastic, while the latter — seductive and misleading, using attractive appearances so as to later expose. The artist of the past had subversive ambitions. The artist who came later knew that it was impossible to build an alternative world. The only thing possible was to deconstruct the world we live in and expose its mechanisms in a critical light.

The shift in the attitude towards the object is undoubtedly visible in the evolution of the art of Jarosław Kozłowski, a point which can be proved simply by referring to his publications from the seventies, which were treated as creative manifestations but which were also modest, if not ‘poor’. On the other hand, there are also the impressive spatial projects from the eighties and nineties. Let us recall, for example, the extraordinarily spectacular Sharp Objects (Tapko, Copenhagen, 1992) — extremely dangerous sharp scythes mounted on furniture. The work was again shown in Budapest at the Express Polonia festival.

Another unbelievably striking if not stunning example of this tendency was Room Negative, a major project made for the Spaces of Time exhibition at the National Museum in Poznań (1997)3.

Room Negative involved a construction, suspended in the hall of the museum, which was an inversed, negative image of ‘normality’. Its historical and immediate point of reference was an installation entitled Gravity Room (Oslo, 1995) — a space filled with furniture placed on the floor or attached to the walls and the ceiling, in a way defying the laws of gravity. The room at the Poznań exhibition was not founded on the ground but left suspended, as if devoid of mass. The floor became the ceiling, while the ceiling became the floor. The interior became the exterior and vice versa. Another interesting aspect were the clocks, which did not show the passage of time, but its regression. Time and space, the fundamental categories for describing the world, have been deconstructed in Room Negative. The juxtaposition of time and space indicates the conventional categories of description, their conventional nature — though these categories — as clearly revealed by the exhibition — are close to Kozłowski’s heart. The lack of faith in the objective possibilities of representing time and space is coupled with a critical effort against the appropriation of the alleged transparency of the description which we are happy to use for the sake of convenience.

One could criticise Room Negative for not being so much a deconstruction of the conventional laws of time and space as their simple inversion, a reflected reality similar to the other side of the mirror in Lewis Carollʼs novel. The thing is, however, that the room functions in a different, ʻnormalʼ museum space, which has a ceiling and a floor, and which also has side walls maintained very much in order. It 3

A part of the present text has been taken from my essay published in the catalogue of this exhibition: Piotr Piotrowski, ʻFurnishing a Room. On the Art of Jarosław Kozłowskiʼ, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Przestrzenie czasu / Spaces of Time (Poznań: Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, 1997), pp. 5–45.

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negative room National Museum in Poznań, 1997

is also functioning in a normal time marked with the museum’s opening hours and the period of the duration of the exhibition. Therefore, it is not a reality à rebours; its sense is contained in the tension of the ‘negative’ of the room and the ‘positive’ of the space of the museum. Following the trope of deconstruction and the Derridaean method of the criticism of the language of philosophy, we can say that it is based on the differance of one from the other, and not a difference (as the word is spelled in French). Moving along further in this direction, we notice that the relationship between the two sides of the mirror, as experienced by Alice, was based on ontological difference. The girl was convinced that by penetrating to the other side of the glass, she sees something which is ‘truer’ than the ‘normality’ of the side in which it is reflected. In Kozłowski’s case, however, the relationship between the negative and the positive has nothing to do with the above. The artist contrasts the imperfectness of words, which indicate the hierarchy in this relationship, with the neutrality of forms: both the ‘negative’, as well as the ‘positive’ form reveal their sense in their mutual confrontation. When combined, they do not reveal a ‘presence’ — to use the words of metaphysics as deconstructed by Derrida; they only refer to each other on the basis of the game of the signifiers, and not on the basis of a relationship between the signified and the signifier (signifiant and signifié).

The relation between the ‘negative’ of the room and the ‘positive’ of the exhibition hall is thus a random game of forms. This game, however, indicates the distance to the colloquial meaning of the words we use when we describe this entire construction. When formulating notions such as negative/ positive, we reveal — somewhat unintentionally — a hierarchy. The words seem to suggest that this is the ‘negative’ image of reality. But when we look (sic) at the relations between the forms, their character fades — it becomes more neutral, maybe formal, almost conventional and, as such, it can be defined in terms of Derridean differance rather than onthological difference. And so, seeing remains in a relationship of tension with words, making it possible to undermine their conventional orders.

A series of works by Jarosław Kozłowski, entitled Libraries is, in this sense, a literal dismissal of the signified. The books are constructed in such a way that it is impossible to reach the ‘inside’; they cannot be used, they cannot be read, they do not serve their conventional function which is to convey their coded (written) contents. We are, therefore, unable to reach the signified, having to deal only with the form, the signifier. Such an objectification of the book, making it nothing more than a sign stripped of a signified, a sense further strengthened by means of different formal strategies (like in the 1993 version shown in The Hague, when the viewer was exposed to seemingly regular books with titles on their ridges — but which were all glued and thus impossible to read; or in the 1994 version from Łódź, where the books were meticulously painted over with white paint, page by page), evokes an association

with Baudrillard’s notion of ʻmuseumificationʼ. Indeed, this term seems to perfectly reflect the sense of Kozłowski’s Libraries shown, after all, in museums. It is in museums that the object is substantially subject to significant reification — significant in the sense that the object is devoid of it original senses and referred to other, institution imposed systems of references which are formal and absolutising in relation to the signifier.

The above means applied by Jarosław Kozłowski related to the dismissal of the signified boil down to the issue of the groundlessness of seeing. This perspective also gives a clue as to the role of the object which had been initially degraded in the sixties and seventies. The object is necessary now, provided it loses its signifié or its colloquially and commonly accepted meanings: a book ceases to mean an object for reading letters, a room is no longer a space which can be furnished according to practical needs, a clock — as in other works by the artist which include clocks working in reverse — is no longer a tool for measuring time. However, if a clock, which abides by convention, does appear, it is there only to reveal its own conventionality when contrasted with the others. The object is thus reduced to its form, to the signifier, and only as such it is exposed to interpretation.

To further elaborate on the above thought, let us recall yet another brilliant project by Jarosław Kozłowski — Personal Files, first exhibited in 1993 in The Hague. Its later edition was shown in 1997 in Poznań. The work is composed of shelves crammed with ‘personal’ alarm clocks (sent by the artist’s friends at his request), each of which had belonged to a different person, and each running according to its own time. All the clocks displayed different times, disrupting ‘objective’ time which was shown here on quartz clocks (New York, Tokyo, The Hague, Poznań — depending on the version) ticking away

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library National Museum in Poznań, 1997

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to the conventional and pragmatic time dimensions determined for a number of geographical zones.

The multitude of individual time measurements disrupts the adopted conventions for measurement as such. Each alarm clock is keeping — one could say —true time, and its truthfulness is contained in individuality, in the identity of measurement defined not in the context of a single (‘objective’) time, but in hundreds of such times. This has nothing to do with Truth, i.e. with ‘presence’. It is the quartz clocks set to the time zones which are ascribed to that. They show allegedly objective times, referring to the signifié. However, in the context of the huge number of alarm clocks, their signified has been somewhat invalidated, made absurd, brought down to the level of the multitude of measurements suggestively presented by the alarm clocks. Time has thus been reduced only to relations with the signified, to a game of individual measurements.

By invalidating “objective” time, or time in different geographical zones, the artist has posed the problem of the contingency of measures. The time which each of us — the owners of the different alarm clocks — inhabits is not based on any objective rule. It is determined by an individual measure.

There are no two points on Earth which at the same moment of astronomical time are in an identical relation to the Sun, says Kozłowski in the seventies, in the early years of his career.4 We could say that back then the artist still believed in the relations between the Earth and the Sun. There is no sign of it here. The only thing left are the ticking alarm clocks and the funny looking quartz ones. Though perhaps it is the inscriptions under them which are ludicrous: Tokyo, New York, Poznań . . . The sense of these clocks is not contained in their relations to the Sun, but to each other; it is contained in the tension between the first clock and the second, the second and the third, the third and the fourth, and so on.

The measuring contingency of each of the clocks is expanded into a contingency of the relations among them, and not towards anything objective. Thus, the personal files (as symbolised by the clocks) remain within their inter-relations and not in a relation to any ‘objective’ system — such a system is nothing more than a decoration, a fig leaf of pragmatics. And so this dismissal of the signified is of a different dimension than in the above mentioned case of the existential dimension. It is used to criticise the scales of evaluating human existence, placing them all in relativity and accentuating the relations between specific entities (alarm clocks), and not external relations, namely those between the entity and the commonly accepted criteria of its assessment.

Let us now look at the evolution of Jarosław Kozłowski’s art from a different perspective. In the seventies he was a staunch defender of the autonomy of art and, at the same time, an adamant opponent of engaging art in politics. Obviously, Kozłowski was not alone in his views — on the contrary, such a stance was relatively common. It does not mean to say, however, that his art lacked a critical character, politically or ideologically, but it exceeded the simple scope of a commentary of the current political situation and went beyond a simple criticism of a given system of authority. When analysing the artist’s references to philosophy in her Ph.D. dissertation, Luiza Nader argues that, ‘Philosophically engaged conceptualism became for Jarosław Kozłowski the only possible form of social action and involvement. It was a territory of equal aesthetic and ethical choices, of permanent negotiations of meanings, and of recurring attempts to describe reality, to finally become a tactical means of reaching liberty.’5

In any case, in those days Kozłowski would relentlessly defend art against any overt political declarations. With time, however, he gradually departed from purist interests in the autonomy of a work of art and its ‘self-referenceability,’ and pursued political questions instead. One of the most recent 4

Jarosław Kozłowski, ʻCzas aktualny sztuki i cywilizacji pośpiechu. Czy istnieje więź bezkolizyjna?ʼ [The current time of art and the civilisation of rush. Is there a safe connection?], in SytuARTacje. Jankowice 2–11 luty 1978 (Poznań: Oficyna, 1978).

5

Luiza Nader, Konceptualizm w PRL [Conceptualism of Poland’s People’s Republic] (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego and Fundacja Galerii Foksal, 2009), s. 223. Also see: Luiza Nader, ‘Język, rzeczywistość, ironia. Książki artystyczne Jarosława Kozłowskiego’, Artium Quaestiones (Poznań), vol. XVI, 2005, pp. 187–214. Reprint: Luiza Nader, ‘Language, Realisty, Irony: The Art Books of Jarosław Kozłowski’, in Art after Conceptual Art, ed. Alexander Alberro and Sabeth Buchmann (Vienna: Generali Foundation; Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press, 2006), pp. 101–117.

recycled news ii 2008 (detail)

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manifestations of this evolution is the Recycled News (from 2007) series. The work is also a specific execution of the strategy involving the dismissal of the signified.

Bożena Czubak writes that in the mentioned series, Kozłowski paints over newspapers leaving only headlines, sometimes dates or short — incidental as it may seem — pieces of text thus continuing his quest for the artistic nature of a work of art or, more precisely, for an answer to the question about the status of painting, a question is particularly relevant in the present moment of freedom and a pluralism of artistic media. The artist asks why and how painting can be an answer to the current problems of the contemporary world, and how — in this context — is its ontology shaped? In other words: how can one use painting to seek the ontology of art today?6 What I am interested in, however, is how this art, which carries out the strategy of the dismissal of the signified, can criticise the media and thus enter the area of political criticism.

‘The press is lying!’ — was the slogan chanted by protesting Polish students in 1968. Indeed, the press was lying, though generally it was not such a bad time for the press and the media — except, of course, for communist countries, where newspapers and the media were kept on a tight leash by party apparatchiks who did not care much for values such as ‘honest and fair journalism’. But elsewhere, it was after all the media that contributed to the end of the war in Vietnam by informing — or showing — the cruelty of Americans. It was the media, the press included, who helped inhibit police repressions and state actions against protesting youth in the late sixties by reporting on the massacres, brutality, and manipulations of the authorities. The American writer, Paul Auster once said that there used to be times when everybody had their own favourite newspaper, while today everybody has a newspaper that one likes to get furious at. Indeed, much has changed. The press, and in particular electronic media, have adopted the functions of entertaining and advertising to an unprecedented scale. The newscasts at each TV station are lined up in such a way as to mix sensational stories from the country and abroad with an appropriate dose of ‘funnies’ to entertain the audience who should not feel overly burdened with depressing news or complicated specialist analyses. Newspapers, up until now an attribute of the intellectual elites, have in time adopted the same style. I am not speaking here of tabloids, which obviously are in no way a medium for intellectuals and which are there only to provide entertainment and sensations (and to make money): the phenomenon has also encompassed highbrow titles. And intellectuals, no matter how irate, are still buying them — as does Jarosław Kozłowski, wherever he happens to be in the world.

In Recycled News the artist paints over newspapers, usually leaving out the legible titles, such as The Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde, Die Zeit, International Herald Tribune, Izvestia, and hundreds of others.

What is the meaning of this gesture? According to the simplest interpretation, it means the annihilation of the contents there contained, an erasure of information whose credibility was problematic to begin with. It is, therefore, a relatively simple procedure of repealing and dismissing the signified and, on the other hand, of absolutising the signifier which is the object — a newspaper marked with nothing more than a name (title). I do believe, however, that the meaning of this gesture is much deeper. The painted over and later framed newspapers are — like paintings — hung on walls in a manner so as to construct decorative panneaux. It could be said, therefore, that the artist gives the newspapers an aesthetic function by bringing them into a gallery. But that is not what he does — he merely reveals what a newspaper has become: a place where one can find gossip about the lives of celebrities and neighbours, horoscopes, photographs of pretty women and handsome men, or news about a baby giraffe being born in some zoo somewhere. Of course, there are also news about wars, though it would be difficult to judge just how credible this information is, once it has been filtered through military briefings, the opinions of politicians, and simulations provoking questions as to whether ‘a war is actually happening’. Newspapers are, after all, a huge business — gigantic enterprises making heaps of money not only (or especially not) by means of the printed word. The newspaper has changed its nature and become an aesthetic object. Kozłowski’s gesture, however, goes even further than this understanding. As I have mentioned, 6

Bożena Czubak, ʻRecycled Newsʼ, in Opowiedziane inaczej / A Story Diff erently Told, ed. Bożena Czubak, exh. cat. (Gdańsk: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia, 2008), pp. 49–83.

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the newspaper was once an attribute of the intellectual elite — we all used to have our favourite titles.

The anesthetisation of the media, and in particular newspapers, the dismissal of the signified are all, in effect, a drama of intelligence and culture, where information is not even a mere commodity any more, but the commodity’s pretty wrapping — its signifier.

There is one more question that criticism provokes: whether we can live without information, and if so — how? To what extent can we bear this dismissal of the signified? Obviously, there are people who do not watch TV or read the papers and only sometimes glance at the news on the Internet which, by the way, is also becoming commercialised fearfully quickly. But can we live without information?

Will we be freer without it? Of course not. So the question is: how are we to sieve information out from manipulation? Kozłowski does not give any answers. It is beyond any doubt, however, that by problematising the position of the media, he does allude to questions which seem to be key in a mediagoverned reality. This is where he sees the role of politics in art and also, or maybe especially, the role of art in politics.

Recycled News, one of the most recent works by the artist, reveals the evolution of Kozłowski’s art.

This evolution is similar to that of the path from idea to object, as discussed above: namely from idea to the materialisation of an idea, which was rather typical for the history of the whole artistic movement.

At the same time, this particular case is unusual and different. Conceptual art, as it is commonly known, developed in the West in the context of political criticism, which was sometimes formulated directly or, at other times, per analogia. The conceptualists worked within a framework based on contesting the culture and politics of the establishment. The situation in Poland was quite different. Although, as the already quoted Luiza Nader mentions, seeking alternatives for defining art according to, for example, philosophical and not aesthetical criteria could be seen as an expression of a critical attitude vis-à-vis the broadly understood system (and thus seen as an ‘extra-systemic’ activity), there was still a reluctance (at least on the part of Kozłowski) against any attempts at making direct political messages (contrary to the Hungarian artists of the time). Thus any comparisons of Recycled News with the books from the seventies serve as proof of the long journey the artist has travelled. Though, in one aspect, that journey was not all that long — namely in the aspect of the strategy of the dismissal of the signified.

In order to demonstrate the above, let us refer to the publication from 1972 entitled Reality (each word on the cover in quotation marks: ‘Jarosław’ ‘Kozłowski’ ‘Reality’ ‘MCMLXXII’). Its very title refers to reality.

The reference, however, is not direct, and actually it is not a reference to reality in the common sense of the word at all. The book refers to another publication, namely to Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Kozłowski does not quote it in any regular way, but instead rewrites it in a very peculiar manner.

He skips the words and cites ‘only’ the punctuation marks. In the twenty four page book we only see (sic) commas, full stops, hyphens, brackets, etc. There are two results of this action which seem especially important. One is the ‘reality’ of the title, which is reduced to nothing but punctuation. It creates a specific linguistic matrix of ‘reality’. The other aspect is the question of stripping the text of its semantics. The final arrival at the matrix, or perhaps at the ‘trace’ — to follow Derrida — means an arrival at its ‘form’, at the signifiers and the dismissal of the signified. In Kozłowski’s book we are thus dealing on the different pages with a displayed play of signifiers. The play repeals and dismisses the signified.

The comparison of these two works, which are separated by so many years, and presenting them as the backdrop of the evolution of Kozłowski’s art, reveals the fact that the artist still tries to grapple with the same problem, regardless of whether he uses text, object, or image for the purpose — the problem of language. © piotr piotrowski, 2010 Translated from Polish by Ewa Kanigowska-Gedroyć

objects

sharp objects Tapko Copenhagen, 1992

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1993 HCAK The Hague, 1993

sweedish bathhouse australian version Art-huts Malmรถ, 1994

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closed circuit Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Warsaw, 1997

light table Museet for Samtidskunst Oslo, 1995

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soft protection danish version Charlottenborg Copenhagen, 1994

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soft protection polish version Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, 1994

soft protection swiss version Berner Galerie, c/o Suti Galerie Bern, 1994

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soft protection museum version Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Bonn, 1994

soft protection the great britain and northern ireland version Matt’s Gallery London, 1995

soft protection russian version Garage Center for Contemporary Culture Moscow, 2010

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library Museet for Samtidskunst Oslo, 1995 library National Museum in Poznań, 1997

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reading room Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, 1994

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gravity room 27th SĂŁo Paulo Art Biennal SĂŁo Paulo, 2000

gravity room Museet for Samtidskunst Oslo, 1995

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negative room National Museum in Poznań, 1997

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temporary objects Stadtgalerie Bern, 1997

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temporary objects National Museum in Poznań, 1997

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interfaces Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Warsaw, 1997

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store Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Warsaw, 1997

bedroom nomadic version Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum Bydgoszcz, 1996

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living room nomadic version 4th International Istanbul Biennial Istanbul, 1995

guest room nomadic version Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Warsaw, 1997

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kitchen nomadic version Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Warsaw, 1997

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west-pomeranian room nomadic version National Museum in Szczecin, 2005

russian-polish room nomadic version Samara Art Museum Samara, 2003

north-westphalia room nomadic version Burgkloster zu Lübeck Lübeck, 2006

nomadic room częstochowa version, reduced house City Gallery of Art Częstochowa, 2010

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american standards The Brno House of Art Brno, 2000

european standards Matt’s Gallery London, 1999

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european standards czech and moravian version The Brno House of Art Brno, 2000

united world totalitarian version The Brno House of Art Brno, 2000

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united world totalitarian version ii Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Cracow, 2009

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united world american version Plastyfikatory Gallery Luboń, 2003

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united world democratic version BWA Gallery Zielona Gรณra, 2001

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united world alternative version ii 2004 XX1 Gallery Warsaw, 2005 united world alternative version iii 2004 Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Cracow, 2009

united world utopian version ii 2006 Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Cracow, 2009

10.

MAN THINKING Russell Radzinski

Magnifying and applying come I, Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson, Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved, With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image, Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more, Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days, (They bore mites as for unfledg’d birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,) Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see, Discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house, Putting higher claims for him there with his roll’d-up sleeves driving the mallet and chisel, Not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation . . . 1

Man thinking: these two words provide a good description of Jarosław Kozłowski’s artistic process. Man thinking is ‘the active soul’ of humankind returning to its mythical, original and ideal state of being, a central concept put forth by the American educator, critic and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson in his seminal essay The American Scholar (1837)2. For many today, Emerson is best know as the friend and sponsor of the more fashionably popular poet cited above, Walt Whitman. Particularly in the context here, however, Emerson’s role as an educator, his didactic efforts, should not be overlooked and arguably, Emerson’s ‘Scholar’ may be considered a trail-blazing manifesto, akin to a nineteenth century update of Plato’s Republic, an exhortation calling for a world of philosopher (artist?) kings. In this regard, Whitman’s work offers one of the most convincing, or at least most thorough, literary examples of the artistic manifestation of a philosophical directive, in this case, Emerson’s lessons of transcendentalism.

Such sweeping ruminations no doubt represent a most ambitious foundation to a brief exploration of the work of a single, living artist, but then, such an approach is suitable for the artist at hand: despite 1

Walt[er] Whitman, ‘Song of Myself’. The popular poem is readily available in any number of editions. Quoted above is verse 41 of the 1881 edition.

2

The essay fi rst took shape as ‘An Oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837’. Emerson seems to be experiencing something of a revival in popularity, and his work is, for example, increasingly available on-line. See, e.g. Virginia Commonwealth University’s Web of American Transcendentalism. More specifically, for Emerson’s ‘Scholar’, see: http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/amscholar.html. (accessed 14 November 2010).

the modesty of his person, Jarosław Kozłowski is aesthetically (and one might add philosophically as well as ethically) a most ambitious artist.

It may seem like a long reach to approach Jarosław Kozłowski’s art, and especially its philosophical dimensions, through reference to Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. If philosophy is the issue at hand, we could perhaps more easily begin with Ludwig Wittgenstein, since Kozłowski himself has made no secret of the Austrian’s occasional influence on his art.3 In contrast, there is no indication from the artist that Whitman and Emerson have directly influenced his work. They are referenced here more as a general approach to art which may also specifically shed light on Kozłowski’s output. In the end, I hope we will see the advantage of invoking Whitman and Emerson instead of the more easily available Wittgenstein.

A step back is advisable to look at the extensive territory we have already covered, to focus on the context we have already established. Whitman’s terminology, particularly from our contemporary viewpoint — words like ‘lithographing’, ‘drafts’, ‘engraved’, or ‘mallet and chisel’ — clearly place us in an artistic arena although the focus of the above quote might ostensibly lie elsewhere. Furthermore, it is no accident that I have chosen to leave off Whitman’s quote with the word ‘revelation’ as a segue to Emerson and his educational efforts.4 Thus in very broad strokes, we have the contours of Emerson’s and Whitman’s relevance to the effort at hand: both are striving to unveil the revelatory potential of art and education. Put more simply, both are looking to guide us on how to maximise what we can in fact learn from art and education. Given Kozłowski’s simultaneous activities over decades as both a professor of fine arts and a prolific creative artist in his own right, this seems a good place to begin our exploration.

Like many of his colleagues, Jarosław Kozłowski has constantly had to confront the often opposing demands of his role as a teacher and that of an artist. On the simplest level, the opposition involved is usually merely a matter of allocating resources: how much time does one devote to teaching and how much to making art? With Kozłowski, however, the teacher-artist dilemma goes much deeper; it is a dilemma of authority and freedom. Kozłowski clearly states, ‘Art is still for me, the synonym of freedom . . . .5 And yet, all teaching might include an authoritative element that potentially works against freedom. How can an artist-teacher reconcile the opposing aims to impart to his students some sense of knowledge and experience(!) while retaining the liberating impulses of an artist?

This is where Emerson and Whitman come in: both believed that art and learning are matters of active experience. For both, education and art in their very essence involve physical activity. Art and learning, then, are not static or passive events, they are dynamic acts which are best expressed by both Whitman’s and Emerson’s penchant for describing and commanding actors in the middle of their respective endeavours with gerunds, gerundives and progressive verb forms: man thinking, magnifying, outbidding, discovering . . . For Emerson and Whitman the way to experience, the way to learn something and/or create art is simply to do something.

It is no accident that the very first sentence of this essay refers to Kozłowski’s ‘artistic process,’ since process is essentially what it is all about with this artist. Process is everywhere evident in Kozłowski’s work and the results of his efforts are not idle objects to be observed, but rather situations and experiences to be explored.6 With these claims we can (finally) take a closer look at his work itself.

3

Cf. Jarosław Kozłowski, Jerzy Ludwiński, ‘Conversation’, in Notes from the Future of Art. Selected Writings by Jerzy Ludwiński, ed. Magdalena Ziółkowska (Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, Veenman Publishers, 2007), pp. 206–7. Kozłowski’s continuing philosophical concerns are also evident when he speaks of his 2005 exhibition Grüsse aus Berlin: ‘This work is also very philosophical . . . .’ Cf. interview by Sandra Berndt, broadcast by RBB Inforadio (93.10 FM in Berlin) on 13 February 2005 with moderation by Christine Krueger.

4

Of course, the treatment of Whitman’s passage here does not at all do justice to its complexity. An exploration of its use of the classic trope of the Creator as a smith or artist would be relevant in the context at hand, for instance; such an exploration would, however, be an essay in and of itself, which alone would be more comprehensive than the intended effort here.

5

Kozłowski, Ludwiński, ‘Conversation’, p. 201.

6

Cf. e.g. Kozłowski in his RBB Interview, ‘I am trying out different solutions . . . .’

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recycled news ii Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Cracow, 2009

Take for instance, Kozłowski’s large-scale watercolour painting series Recycled News. Der Tagesspiegel of 2005. For the viewer, the medium of painting does not ordinarily conjure up the image of a dynamic experience. We expect a rather passive, albeit meditative, act of viewing a completed picture, a gestalt that has been brought to its logical conclusion. Even action painting, despite its misleading moniker, involves a relatively sedentary viewing experience, the ‘action’ being more invoked in the painting than in the viewing, if you will. Kozłowski’s paintings, however, are something else altogether. These rather monumental paintings, for instance, are at first glance quite simple abstractions of variously coloured splotches of watercolour on sheets of German-language newspaper. We may enjoy them as colour studies similar to Monet’s Water Lilies, pretty paintings that we have seen so often that we receive them without further ado. That very suggestion would no doubt, in the context of his work, drive Kozłowski to distraction! As such, it should come as no surprise that our first impression quickly becomes more complex. We notice the arduous effort exerted by the artist in applying layer after layer of colour, which at once highlights then hides the newspaper text below. The paintings are presented behind glass, which is not always the case with Kozłowski, and the inevitable reflections encountered further complicate matters. We notice that from one angle elements are hidden, from another they are laid bare. With this revelation there is an urge to move in front of or even away from the paintings, one eye always on the works themselves, and to compare the various images we are presented with.

In this simple way we, otherwise passive viewers, participate in the art process. We take part in the art experience, not only interpreting already present art works, but in fact manipulating and enhancing the works in their circumstances. Of course, all artistic reception might arguably involve a greater or lesser participatory moment. With Kozłowski, a quantitative difference becomes qualitative as he maximises viewer involvement. Furthermore, with the imperative to move, we become more physically aware of our own activity and our direct involvement in the art experience.

From this standpoint, we might begin to question the relationship and effects of art and news media, or, if we are so inclined, we may question the associations possibly brought forth by the above mentioned reference to Monet’s Water Lilies. Art’s conventions and contexts are also inevitably brought into question, as when we gradually realise that newspapers whose age would suggest that they be discarded suddenly become art in a gallery context. While moving to and fro, should other viewers be present, there is a tendency to converse and compare what is seen from one angle or another. In terms of Kozłowski’s claims of the freedom of art, we are all on an equal footing; each viewer of the works has his or her contribution to offer to the entire experience. We are all equal participants in the art experience.

This participatory moment is even more obvious in another recent work, What’s Going On of 2007. Here media delineations are blurred; the work is at once both painting and installation. Six monochrome paintings are hung on walls facing each other. The paintings themselves are a wonder: once again layers of monochrome paint which almost automatically lead us to imagine the artist at

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work. The art work entails more than just the paintings, however. Their presentation is also an integral part the work. On the one side, the wall is reconstituted as a mirror and the paintings are presented in frames without glass. On the opposite side, the paintings are presented framed behind glass, on walls without mirrors. Between these walls, ironic texts are presented regarding variously coloured elephants in various international cities: ‘Red Elephants on the Streets in Beijing’, for example.

Through the use of mirrors, the viewer him or herself immediately becomes part of the viewing experience. Reflections become part of the entire work, both on the otherwise unnoticed wall on which the paintings are presented, as well as in the otherwise purposefully ignored sheets of glass behind which the pictures are framed. A certain disorienting effect also comes forth and questions are more asked than answered, but always only in the service of a heightened experience. We come away from the exhibit with the feeling of being wiser for having asked certain questions, even if their answers were not so forthcoming.

The — literally — self-reflective moment of the work brings to mind the time-worn question regarding whether art reflects the world we are in or shapes it, while the elephant texts — working like sensationalist headlines — both extend and dismantle our considerations of art, the media and viewer involvement.

These textual elephants are crucial, for at the latest when we confront them, we are made aware of the wit involved in the construction of this art environment. We are talking of wit with all its connotations of humour as well as in its more traditional sense of serious intellectual effort.

As both a teacher (Plato might say: a philosopher) as well as an artist, Jarosław Kozłowski offers us not merely art works in the common sense, but rather art experiences, events in which we as viewers are also active participants in the creative process. Amazingly, this holds true not only for his installations and environments, where visitor participation is de rigueur, put also with Kozłowski’s works in other media, where viewer involvement might otherwise be less expected. We encounter Kozłowski’s work as equals contributing to a discussion, a discussion intended to enlighten all participants — no doubt the artist himself as well — in some way or another.

This assertion brings us to a confrontation with one of the more misunderstood statements encountered in the art world since at least the middle of the twentieth century: ‘Everyone is an artist.’ The statement itself sheds more heat than light, and no doubt it has most often been expressed with such affected intent.

Unfortunately, it has all too often been misunderstood in a rather literal form. ‘Everyone is an artist’ certainly attests to the participatory element of Kozłowski’s work as well as much of contemporary (postmodern?) art, which is not to say that the artist in his or her traditional sense is relegated to the dust heap.

The mere act of raising a brush or chisel does little to confirm one’s status as an artist. Everyone is an artist in the art experience, but the initiator of that experience still plays a special role over his peers. This is the key to Kozłowski’s ability to act as a teacher and retain an environment of freedom. This aside is vital to approaching — and understanding — Kozłowski and his work. This sense of disciplined freedom allows Kozłowski to fulfil his role as a teacher while refusing to compromise his appreciation of freedom.

One of Kozłowski’s simplest works proves to be a case in point. His modest series Witnesses consists of a limited edition of traditional wind-up alarm clocks with their hands removed and their faces painted in red, black or white using old-fashioned wax crayon. The mechanisms of the clocks still tick, but they scarcely tell time. Once again, art as process is emphasised, both in the tedious effort involved in producing the work — in this case applying layer upon layer of crayon wax — and in the recurrence of a signature element that reappears time and time again in Kozłowski’s work: old timer alarm clocks.

This repetitive aspect of Kozłowski’s art, repetition in the effort of creating a single work, and repetition, the reapplication of elements, from work to work offers a striking demonstration of the open-ended nature of his art, the contemporary equivalent to Whitman’s rhythmic ‘ing’-forms. We are in the midst of a long-term on-going process, about which the artist simply notes, ‘. . . art is a process, the expression of various states of consciousness at various times . . . .’7 A dynamic is at play, something quite different from the static view usually granted to a museum’s displays. The ticking of the clocks is also a case in point. Their sound reveals Kozłowski’s efforts to overcome the ‘limits’ of visual art experience. The sounds are part of the work and more than just 7

Kozłowski, Ludwiński, ‘Conversation’, p. 209.

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continuum vi The University of New South Wales Sydney, 1990

our eyes should be involved in experiencing art. Once again, context, approach and environment are important, since the sound of the clocks varies with the recipient’s position in relation to the work and we might heighten this effect, playing with the Doppler effect by once more moving ourselves and/or the clocks.8 Once again, the almost manic effort of the artistic process is stressed in the accumulation of crayon wax applied to the face of the clocks. The relationship among artist, viewer, participant and creator is most evident, however, in the title of the work: Witnesses.

With this title, Kozłowski explicitly involves the viewer in the art experience, even if a witness is not an initiator. The viewer is not the artist, even if they share a democratic sense of equality. On the other hand, a witness is also neither a bystander nor a simple onlooker. Witnesses shape the consequences of the events that they perceive even if they do not bring those events about, and this is where the participatory element of Kozłowski’s art becomes most clear. The artist here serves as initiator, initiator of an aesthetic experience through which we all — including the artist himself — might learn something. He is also initiator of a situation that others are invited to witness and in the act of witnessing these others take part in an experience that they share with the artist/actor who set it in motion.

Experience is obviously a vital word in this essay and it provides access to the last key here in our exploration of Jarosław Kozłowski’s multi-dimensional output. The term refers to the dynamic activism of Whitman and Emerson, while also pointing the way to another source available to better understand Kozłowski’s art: a successor of Emerson and another educator, John Dewey.

Dewey’s philosophical treatise, Art as Experience describes a rather accurate approximation of Kozłowski’s work. For Dewey, art is a constructed situation permitting peers in a democracy to share a common experience. ‘The purpose of esthetic [sic] art . . . [is] the enhancement of direct experience 8

On a personal note, the element of space became most apparent when I shared this work with my two-year-old daughter, who became demonstratively excited by the variations of sound she experienced when I moved the clocks back and forth in front of her.

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itself . . . .’9 Continuing in Dewey’s often drudging terminology, ‘The material of esthetic experience in being human — human in connection with the nature of which it is a part — is social. Esthetic experience is a manifestation, a record and celebration of the life of a civilisation, a means of promoting its development, and is also the ultimate judgment upon the quality of a civilisation.’10 The introduction of the notion of a means (to an end) is significant. It highlights the transitional and procedural aspects of art. Art is a communal experiment in search of common ground and with this idea of experimentation we can tie up the various loose ends in our effort here.

Art, teaching, experience and freedom: where does this rather eclectic mix of elements lead? To experimentation. Experimentation is a common thread coursing through Kozłowski’s work. It is also key to reconciling his potentially contradictory roles as artist and teacher. In fact, the idea of art experiments not only reconciles Kozłowski’s endeavours as artist and teacher, it renders these two activities inextricably bound.

We feel the experimental nature of Kozłowski’s work in many of his installations and serial work, such as United World, Gravity Room or Transit11 in which objects, most often furniture, appliances and travel bags are stacked in various arrangements or situated to create a topsy-turvy, but nonetheless strictly organised world. Transit is especially interesting since it integrates a stack of old-fashioned travel bags with a series of colour-coded monochrome paintings. Once again, the borders between various forms of art — painting and installation, for example — are blurred. These are works that recur in Kozłowski’s oeuvre in various forms. Taken alone, they are models of the art experience described above.

Seen over time, with their various permutations and situational adjustments we have a heightened sense of the experimental nature of Kozłowski’s art. We sense the artist’s exercise in controlled variance, one time arranging things in this way, another time in that way.

With the turn to Dewey and the notion of art as experiment I believe we now have all we need to confront Jarosław Kozłowski’s art, and we can even return to our earlier remarks regarding references to Emerson and Whitman rather than Wittgenstein.

Jarosław Kozłowski’s art, in all its various forms — painting, installations, teaching and even an obsessive repetition of performance — may be viewed as an aesthetic experiment. Just like an experiment in a laboratory, the effort involves the controlled construction of a situation, but then chance and both the laws and vicissitudes of nature take over. These experiments involve not rats and labyrinths, but art works and their viewers, and just as in any other experiments, the subjects of the experiment, in this case art viewers, have as much as or more to do with the results than the experiment’s creator. As such, the entire experiment — or art work — is an exercise in democracy, a situation of freedom whose actors determine its results and its lessons to be learned. This experimental quality is what distinguishes the Kozłowski art experience from the run-of-the-mill experience we may encounter in the reception of any contemporary art. It is an open-endedness perhaps best expressed by Kozłowski’s constant return to similar elements and forms in his work, such as clocks, newspapers or furniture. The experience is based on being presented not with an art object, but with an art situation.

So why not stay with Wittgenstein to describe this situation? After all, as with much in life, circles close, and at some point we may surmise that Wittgenstein, Whitman and Emerson ultimately arrive at very similar conclusions. All three battle the often alleged duality of body and spirit, and this is an effort not unknown to Kozłowski, such as when he notes that he would ‘not make such a clear-cut distinction 9

John Dewey, Art as Experience, in Later Works vol. 10 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1934), p. 323. Regarding the viewer’s participation in the art work and his or her consequent involvement as an artist in effect but not actually indeed cf. also pp. 336–37.

10 11

Ibid ., p. 329. Emphasis mine.

Transit is especially important here since it quite openly involves the efforts of Kozłowski’s Amsterdam students, who provided text for the monochrome paintings presented in the installation. The link between his teaching activities and creating art is thus unquestionably confi rmed and united in this work. (Although the artist refuses to provide details regarding the content of the suitcases also presented, I suspect that his students also provided various items placed in the sealed suitcases.)

between object and idea’.12 Body and spirit, the physical and the ethereal world, deed and thought are inseparable. To a significant degree, however, these thinkers come to similar conclusions from opposite ends. While Wittgenstein might claim that the physical world around us is dependent on language and its concomitant thought, Emerson and Whitman might make a contrary claim that action begets spirit and that Kozłowski is clearly a man of action.

Furthermore, Whitman and Emerson represent to some degree the swan song of a bygone day when the various domains of knowledge and experience were not seen as being as segregated as they are today.

The spheres of art, aesthetics, psychology, philosophy and science were not nearly as mutually exclusive as they most often are in our time. Whitman and Emerson represent a tradition where there was still room for science in the field we still tellingly refer to as the liberal arts. The creative arts for such thinkers still play an epistemological role in life’s experience which is perhaps most clearly defined in Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s seminal notion of the term aesthetics.13 In this context, hardly an eyebrow would be raised by comparing a visual artist with the initiator of a scientific experiment.

Wittgenstein, on the other hand, may be viewed as the darling of postmodern artists who, rightly or wrongly, are often seen as relativising and segregating our notions of knowledge. The most obvious example of this may be seen in the use or misuse of Wittgenstein in the work of writers such as Thomas Pynchon. The true genius of Kozłowski’s work lies in the fact that it harkens back to a classical conception of a more uniform epistemology and perhaps precisely for this reason makes room for a potentially contrary thinker like Wittgenstein. The consistency of this approach is astounding, for a failure to embrace Wittgenstein would be a weakness in an aesthetic which epistemologically bridges the expanse between fine arts and science. This link and sense of inclusion from Baumgarten to Emerson and Whitman and to Wittgenstein is precisely the characteristic which prevents Kozłowski from degenerating into a dinosaur of a forgotten day and allows him to stand shoulder to shoulder with the very postmodern artists who might call the relevance of his efforts into question.

Wrapping up here may involve an anecdote regarding Kozłowski’s battle against the statusof an aesthetic dinosaur. Without unfairly giving too much away to those who have never seen Kozłowski’s oft repeated Continuum performance, probably the high point of this art event involves an audience watching a just-washed blackboard dry. With Continuum XXII I was most impressed to see a crowded room of around 60 art lovers silently contemplating the empty blackboard for several minutes. Fidgeting and even coughing were absent. At the conclusion of the performance, a painter asked me if such a ‘performance of the sixties’ remained relevant in our much faster information age. To say the least, I was taken aback.

Continuum, in my mind is as relevant today as the first time it was performed, if not more so. It is also symptomatic of Kozłowski’s approach to art. Especially in an age in which we are so bombarded with information that we hardly have time to filter it or examine it critically (until it is ‘too late’), the creation of a situation in which we silently ponder the world around us in the physical presence of dozens of our fellow citizens seems to me to play a valuable role in our society. For me, Continuum is the creation of an — albeit artificial — situation which forces us to think . . .

12

Kozłowski, Ludwiński, ‘Conversation’, p. 207.

13

Baumgarten’s work, unfortunately, seems to have fallen into neglect recently. For a valuable, succinct summary in German of his output, see Stefan Majetschak, Ästhetik zur Einführung (Hamburg: Junius Verlag, 2007), pp. 19–39. The distinctions drawn here are complicated by the turn to Dewey, who is, after all, a contemporary of Wittgenstein. No doubt the fragmentation of a ‘uniform’ epistemology is, of course, already evident in Dewey’s work (cf. e.g. Art as Experience, chapter 13 ‘Criticism and Perception’, pp. 302–328.) The contention here, however, would be that this epistemological turn is still nonetheless mitigated by the inescapable influence of Emerson on Dewey’s thought. It is also apparent to me that Wittgenstein might come off here somewhat worse than I would hope, since I do, in fact, respect his work. For a criticism of his thought which is not irrelevant to the effort here, cf. Jürgen Peper, ‘Zu einer demokratischen Ästhetik’, Working Paper no. 78, 1995, John F. Kennedy-Institut für Nordamerikastudien, Freie Universität Berlin, pp. 26–31, http://www.jf ki.fu-berlin.de/research/publications/workingpapers/ workingpaper078.pdf (accessed 14 November 2010). Interestingly, Peper also has much of use to say about Whitman and Emerson in this text.

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With that comment, coming full circle allows a simple conclusion here — the juxtaposition of the text of Continuum with the conclusion of the Whitman poem cited at the start of this essay.

First Whitman: You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.14

Then Kozłowski: Continuum could be characterised as: Found as well as chosen Hermetic as well as obvious Complex as well as simple Abstract as well as figurative Physical as well as conceptual Emotional as well as rational Visible as well as secret Monumental as well as minimal Discreet as well as spectacular Ephemeral as well as tangible Pathetic as well as lyric Formal as well as existential Personal as well as public Contextual as well as autonomous Original as well as conventional Essential but, perhaps, unimportant

That sounds like man thinking: a challenge for our times . . .

14

Whitman, ‘Song of Myself’, verse 52.

the use of painting

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special services in search of the philosopher’s stone Muzalewska Gallery Poznań, 2002

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3:10 to kabul Muzalewska Gallery Poznań, 2002

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masks Profile Foundation Warsaw, 2010

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masks Starmach Gallery Cracow, 2006

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curtains Starmach Gallery Cracow, 2006

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transit Emerson Gallery Berlin, 2005

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transit National Museum in Warsaw, 2010

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RED ELEPHANTS ON BEIJING STREETS BLUE ELEPHANTS ON LONDON STREETS BLACK ELEPHANTS ON WARSAW STREETS WHITE ELEPHANTS ON MOSCOW STREETS YELLOW ELEPHANTS ON TOKYO STREETS GREEN ELEPHANTS ON NEW YORK STREETS SILVER ELEPHANTS ON BERLIN STREETS

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11.

RECYCLED NEWS Bożena Czubak

Both repetition and novelty are key categories in the history and critique of art. Jarosław Kozłowski, using the dialectic of newness and newness repeated, has combined these contradictory notions in Recycled News — a project ongoing since 2007, consisting of thousands of newspaper pages, overpainted, often completely, with bright watercolours.

In fact, juxtaposed or contradictory elements have often appeared in his works in dupli- or triplicate, sometimes actually announced by names such as Double Agent, Double Identity, Double Image. In these latter installations, forming the Mythologies of Reality series from the eighties, the author’s intention was to address some myths related to the functioning of art and the expectations of viewers, whom he then ensnared in opposing or mutually subversive meanings.1 This kind of mental duality can be found also in his earlier practice, as indicated by Jerzy Ludwiński who refers, by way of example, to the painting Double Presence completed in 1967.2 In the case of Recycled News the duality can be taken as involving both the newspapers and painting itself — that of becoming outdated and renewed. It might seem surprising that an artist so strongly identified with the conceptualist canon has turned towards painting techniques. Nevertheless, Kozłowski, at least once previously, decided to ‘pitch himself against painting’ — gesture which in 2002 resulted in several watercolours for the exhibition Hot News,3 and which, on a much grander scale, was repeated four years later in twenty-two big-format watercolours for Curtains.4 Moreover, it was by no means Kozłowski’s first encounter with painting, a fact pointed out by Jaromir Jedliński, who in his talk with the artist recalls a series of ‘drawn/painted watercolours’ completed for the exhibition Vision and Unity. Strzemiński and 9 Contemporary Polish Artists (1989).5 By the artist’s own admission, he had for years refrained from painting as it gave him ‘too much pleasure’, making him lose ‘the necessary detachment and critical approach to artistic procedures’, not to mention the obvious problem of a long history of painting, which has been excessively celebrated and overgrown with exaggerated mythology’.6 Among the reasons for his recent return to the paintbrush, he stressed a kind of perverse reaction to the oppressive presence of multimedia and the insistent diagnosis whereby painting as a medium was exhausted and nearing its end. He countered these widespread views by pointing out that the technique can be brought up to date, and showing, moreover, that the line which divides conceptual practice from painting procedures is in itself something relative.

Of course, this kind of relative perspective has also been adopted in the past; the most notable example provided by Art & Language, a group of British orthodox conceptualists, who in the late seventies exploited 1 2

Cf. ‘Quotation Marks’, Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Bożena Czubak, in this book, pp. 23–24.

Cf. Jarosław Kozłowski. Podwójne naświetlenie / Double Exposure, exh. cat. (Warsaw: Galeria ZPAP na Mazowieckiej, Fundacja EGIT, 1992), p. 20.

3

Hot News, Muzalewska Gallery, Poznań.

4

Curtains, Starmach Gallery, Cracow.

5

Vision and Unity. Strzemiński and 9 Contemporary Polish Artists, exhibition at the Van Reekum Museum, Apeldoorn.

6

Cf. Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Andrzej Szczepaniak, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Zasłony / Curtains, exh. cat. (Cracow: Galeria Starmach, 2006), p. 32.

362

red–blue–yellow 1987 Van Reekum Museum Apeldoorn, 1989

conventional styles of painting and its traditional subject matter. Obviously, these creators of pictures with their simulated spontaneity and coldly calculated expression, were not inquiring whether a return to painting after conceptual art is possible; rather, they asked if analytical and critical reflection on painting was a viable proposition within the domain of painting itself. Staunchly believing in a tautological concept of art, they did not see the subsequent return to painting as a regression, but as a continuation of previously undertaken analyses of modernist art history.7 Undoubtedly, Kozłowski’s return to painting is also a continuation of his analytical leanings, demonstrated, for example, in Wall Paintings (1978–80), a cycle realised in several versions in various public locations and private homes. The author writes: Wall Paintings were made to order and paid for according to the established rates. From that moment, they became the property of their patrons. The patrons also individually selected the time, size, painting technique, choice of particular colours and composition. Decisions about the maintenance and duration of Wall Paintings I–VIII are the owners’ alone. The maker takes no responsibility whatsoever for their current condition.

Exhibitions of Wall Paintings (Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań 1979; Galerie René Block, Berlin 1979; X Gallery, Wrocław 1980) showed documentary samples of colours used in individual realisations together with the above text by the artist. Painting itself disappeared, so to speak, from the field of vision; in its place the artist presented its modes of functioning and the ways in which the structure of a work can involve the conditions of its production and exploitation. Such a conceptualisation of the work caused a shift of attention towards the so-called framing as a part of a contract agreed in advance.

In Recycled News, or the earlier Curtains, the question of exploitation gives way to the question of perception; above all, there is the returning question of painting itself: ‘whether that classical idiom, condemned by so many to silence, still retains the capacity to express current subject matter’.8 To these self-formulated questions the artist does not provide unambiguous answers, as this would confine painting within the closed circle of modernist conventionalisation. On the contrary, through his interest 7

When comparing Art & Language from the late sixties and seventies we must keep in mind that the group underwent some personnel changes. Texts published in Art & Language were written principally by Terry Atkinson and Michael Baldwin, but since 1976 the group lent its name mainly to shows by Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden..

8

Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Andrzej Szczepaniak, p. 32.

363

in this medium he manages to distance himself from the stereotype which sets painting procedures against conceptual practice. This stereotype, firmly established by the artistic antagonisms of the eighties, is situated by Isabelle Graw within still another pair of opposites (conception and expression), implying two dramatically different notions of subjectivity as an expressive category: the first grounded in the belief that the subject articulates his emotions and passions directly through painting; and the second, which maintains that ideas and systems reduce the significance of the subject so that he is no longer a player in the process of art production.9 This opposition, claims the German scholar, turns out to be a simplification of negligible operative value, contradicted both by instances of expression conceptualised in painting, and by conceptual practices where expression is powerfully present. Indeed, strong expressive impact may be achieved by means of systemic action, or the application of industrial methods to works that do not invoke emotion and bear no trace of the artist’s hand, which of course does not imply that the subject’s participation in their creation can be ruled out. On the other hand, the kinds of expression found in neoexpressionist painting often rescind their pretence to be ‘genuine and authentic’, and their methods of depiction only emulate directness through the mediation of painting signs. This problem is in fact related to yet another simplification, namely, that sources of expression lie in the art subject and the translation of his emotional states, expression itself being the measure of his ‘authenticity’.

Another debatable question is whether painting should be perceived in an absolute way, ‘painting as such’, instead of being differentiated into various painting procedures. Kozłowski’s interest in painting does not concern its ‘essence’, but its language — in fact, its various languages. The sheets of newsprint in Recycled News are overpainted in very different styles, ranging from free painting strokes and flowing forms to the disciplined order of geometric divisions, from nearly monochromatic surfaces to an intense palette of contrasting colours. It is obvious that the expressive power of these works is achieved by definite techniques, where consecutive watercolours seem to multiply modes of depiction and, even more importantly, styles of reception. In the words of the cited German scholar, it is impossible to assume control over the expression paradigm, especially at the level of reception, as that which was deliberately arranged is sometimes taken to be a ‘certificate of authenticity’.10 But Kozłowski does not even try to control the reading of his works — on the contrary, his curiosity about painting is to a large extent a curiosity about the way it is received: In our perception of a picture, say a watercolour, painted freely but preserving a certain order, how much is a result of what we actually see, and how much is a projection of our mind with its ingrained cultural clichés? Which part of our interpretation follows from the act of perception, reading what is given to our eyes, and which is an imaginary construct, a specific confabulation?11

In his own particular way, Kozłowski sets this idea of specificity against Jacques Rancière’s reservation that ‘art does not exist without the look which sees the art in it’.12 Moreover, in paintings he finds the same fundamental ambivalence as the French philosopher sees in their ‘visibility’ and ‘discursiveness’, their ‘severe presence and encoded history’.13 Kozłowski poses but does not resolve the question as to which of the two is more crucial: the things ‘given to our eyes’ or viewers’ ‘projections’. He is more interested in the determinants of perception and their impact on interpretation, asking: ‘To what extent does the work’s name channel the way it is “read” 9

Cf. Isabelle Graw, ‘Conceptual Expression: On Conceptual Gestures in Allegedly Expressive Painting, Traces of Expression in Proto-Conceptual Works, and the Significance of Artistic Procedures’, in Art after Conceptual Art, ed. Alexander Alberro and Sabeth Buchmann (Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press; Vienna: Generali Foundation, 2006), pp. 119–33.

10

Ibid., p. 132.

11

Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Jaromir Jedliński, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Hot News, ex. cat. (Poznań: Galeria Muzalewska), p. 35.

12

Jacques Rancière, ‘Los obrazów’, in idem, Estetyka jako polityka (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2007), p. 93.

13

Ibid., p. 54.

English edition: Jacques Rancière, The Future of Image, trans. Gregory Elliot (London: Verso, 2007).

and what is its role in the decoding of meanings?’14 The final answer he leaves to the viewer, giving the 2002 watercolours eloquent names like Hot News, Long Hot Summer, Special Services in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, 3.10 to Kabul.

An even stronger appeal for participation, as well as an insight into viewers’ projections, is provided in the Curtains series, where onlookers are reflected in the glass and thus find their figures superimposed over the painted images. Faced with this interplay of painting and reflected non-painting, we might well ask what, in fact, do Curtains cover — or uncover? Of course, this question is addressed principally to the viewer, who sees revealed in Curtains the superimposed image of himself.

This game is continued and developed within the spatial structure of Screen (2009) where the space behind the screen could be viewed on small monitor displays, showing images registered by cameras placed on its reverse side. The three-part Screen, obscuring, simultaneously unobscured; moreover, it also displayed all the things reflected in the surfaces of the side wings, great constructions of doublesided monochromatic watercolours set in plexiglas.

Multiplying reflections position themselves also on the painted newspapers of Recycled News, intensifying the effect of their uselessness, their failure as an information medium. Especially in the second series, where whole sheets of newsprint are methodically covered with a single colour, avoiding only the first-page headlines. This systematic manner of painting on hundreds of consecutive pages seems to conceptualise expression rather than exclude it. The first such example of conceptualised expression was seen in automatic writing, which, according to André Breton, required a systematic approach to applied repetitive procedures.15 Also, psychoanalytic diagnosis views methodically reproduced actions as a realisation of the compulsion syndrome.

The work Set (1970–71), first shown in 1971 at the Elbląg Dreamers Congress, reduced Kozłowski’s method of repetitive procedures nearly to the absurd. The work consisted of constructions and deconstructions of a square and its diagonal, resulting in over 8000 combinations. Diagrams drawn on A4 sheets of paper, arranged in vertical columns of 7, stretched for about 36 metres; the module of constructed and deconstructed 2cm squares covered a huge area of over 70 square metres. The task of drawing the successive variations of the set took the artist about 18 months to complete. Expression was achieved through systematic repetition, by the increasing tension of rhythmically recurring variations, paper sheets and consecutive columns.

Whatever the later analytic definition of repetitive compulsion, it has always been viewed as a problem of the subject. Luiza Nader, analysing Kozłowski’s books written in the seventies, mentions the solipsistic subject: in one text, which the author calls ‘an intimate journal’, she discovers the ‘self’ in the very structure of the text, the ‘compulsive habit of recording, repeating, and rewriting’.16 The question of the subject will constantly return in the artist’s early and late projects, not necessarily conforming to the categoricity of ‘conceptual laws’.17 More than anything else, the subject here is not expressed through immediate presence or translation into form, but exists outside form, as if ‘underwritten’. In several realisations relating to the figure of the author even the methods of its manifestations are put into question, like, for example, the phantoms of his alleged person in Arrangement (1967), with the x-ray photos of a skull, an enlarged shadow outline on the floor and a recorded depersonalised voice, monotonously repeating the word ‘obecny’ [present].18 The subject is significant through its absence: his presence, if important at all, makes itself known where 14

Kozłowski in conversation with Jaromir Jedliński, p. 35.

15

Cf. Graw, p. 131.

16

Cf. Luiza Nader, ‘Język, rzeczywistość, ironia. Książki artystyczne Jarosława Kozłowskiego’, Artium Questiones (Poznań), vol.

XVI, 2005, pp. 203–5, English edition: ‘Language, Reality, Irony: The Art Books of Jarosław Kozłowski’, in Art after Conceptual Art, pp. 111–12.

17

For a categorical subversion of the role of subject cf., e.g. Sol LeWitt, ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art’, in Open System. Rethinking Art c. 1970, ed. Donna de Salvo (London: Tate Modern, 2005), pp. 180–81.

18

Arrangement, odNowa Gallery, Poznań, 1967. Author’s reconstruction presented at the exhibition Galeria odNowa 1964–1969, National Museum in Poznań, 1993.

364

365

recycled news ii Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Cracow, 2009

it is not expected, or, much too obviously, in the props reeking of the trite stereotypes of artistic mythcreation, like the personal accessories laid at the foot of a golden column in Opus I (1983).19 The problem of presence was formulated in a simple though hardly final way in an early series of drawings (1970), consisting of 10 sheets of paper filled with the word ‘obecny’ [present] in different handwritings. This testimony to presence, recorded by hand and referring to the author in direct contradiction to the semantics of the word, was relativised by means of the changing handwriting.

The signifier, in each instance different, as the apparent carrier of the signified tended to confuse the problem of the latter; even if the changing signifier, much impaired in its transparency and credibility, had not abandoned the signified, it could not attest to his existence. Presence, no longer expected in the written record and the relation signifier–signified, could now only be found in multiple repetition, in the recurring recording procedure.

Series of empty pages, each bearing a brief trace of presence, might be associated with signature samples. This practice of signing one’s name, while attesting authorship, seems to be much more ambiguous as a confirmation of presence. In Jacques Derrida’s opinion, a signature by definition presupposes both the non-presence and the presence of the signatory, thus uniting ‘absolute uniqueness’ with ‘pure reproducibility’.20 The dialectic of the unique and the repeated, returning in force in Recycled News, where no recurring element is like any other, had a no less spectacular precedent in the 1971 work Apparatus, consisting of hundreds of photographic shots of the same view. The 1296 contact prints ‘exhausted — in the words of the author — all the possible camera settings for shutter, aperture and focus control’. The same cityscape, different in every instance of registration, substantiated, in its singular way, the dialectic of difference and identity, a recurrence which always implies otherness, as indeed does every repetition, associated by Derrida with the Other. Sameness, rhythmically repeated on 27 plates, and described each time through different data, could well illustrate the philosopher’s argument about repetition causing change in the repeated.21 In Recycled News, later by several decades, repetition no longer involves sameness; each newspaper is different and painted in a different way. Nevertheless, rows of repeating newssheets in identical 19 20

Opus I, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań, 1983.

Cf. Jacques Derrida, ‘Sygnatura zdarzenie kontekst’, in Pismo filozofii (Cracow: inter esse, 1993), pp. 278–82. English edition: Jacques Derrida, ‘Signature Event Context’, in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), pp. 308–30.

21

Cf. ibid.

frames, stretching along the gallery walls, strike the viewer with their insistent rhythm. Reaching, in various configurations, for recurrent modernist painting techniques, Kozłowski performs a kind of reconfiguration of the modernist ‘aesthetic economy’ with its elimination of the repeated in favour of the original.22 In Recycled News, conversely, the repeated supplants the original, although individual works may bear some references to pictorial uniqueness. References, let us add, absent in the second series of Recycled News, where successive sheets are covered with the same flat, monochromatic colours, changing only through the appearance of a different title. In the exposition of this work, Kozłowski takes care to keep harmonious order and colour arrangement, ‘an ironic task — he says — as it concerns something which is mute and has no meaning at all’.23 By arranging such colour schemes, he initiates a game of reference-repetition, typical for serial realisations, where individual elements, signs, refer only to each other — a game which suspends any relationships beyond the internal reference system.

What Rosalind Krauss, speaking about modernist painting, calls ‘the bottomless pit of successive repetitions’ and ‘constantly rediscovered stereotype’,24 in Recycled News could also be said of the press, the mass distribution of information, which like mass production, maintains the myth of diversity. The multilanguage collection present in Kozłowski’s work includes titles from all over the world: Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Intenational Herald Tribune, Le Monde, Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Fakt, The Times, The Independent, Buenos Aires Herald, The Mirror, Corriere della Sera, The Pakistani Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Izviestia, Die Welt, Der Kurier, Mittelbayerische Zeitung, Der Morgen, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Moskovskij Komsomolec. Language, place of publication and political leanings notwithstanding, these newspapers are all similarly framed, similarly dependent on the rhythmand-repetition aesthetics, and similarly illegible. The accumulation of newspapers from all over the world, and above all, their aesthetisation, permits the artist to reveal a consensual quality to media operation.25 Newspapers have been important components of Kozłowski’s works on several previous occasions.

In Soft Protections (1994–95),26 pieces of furniture were cut into fragments and then clumsily joined together again; piles of newspapers, placed under a lame chair or table leg, upheld a precarious balance of disfunctional objects. Neutralising all incompatibilities, they ‘softly protected’ unmatched parts from colliding, and provided a metaphor for the mediating role of the press, both bringing the world closer and making it fade away. In Soft Protection. Museum Version (1994),27 such a neutralising and tensionreducing agent was found in the art journals which mediate the reception of art and engage it in museum discourse. Note that the relationship of art and the press, dating back to the early 19th century, not only puts forward their complementary ideological and educational functions, but also their still relevant role in providing the pleasure of symbolically acquiring the inaccessible.28 To media-related problems Kozłowski returned in Rhetorical Figures, especially in the third version (2007) — a monstrous structure of cardboard boxes, covered with newspapers painted with black glue, with print sometimes showing through. The looming geometrical mass gained meaning when 22

Cf. Rosalind E. Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986).

23

‘Quotation Marks’, in this book, s. {?}.

24

Cf. Krauss.

25

According to Gianni Vattimo the creation of consensus by the media is a purely aesthetic function; cf. Koniec nowoczesności (Cracow: Universitas, 2006), p. 47. English edition: Gianni Vattimo, The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991).

26

Kozłowski realised several versions of Soft Protection, e.g.: Soft Protection. Polish Version, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, 1994; Soft Protection. Swiss Version, c/o Suti, Bern, 1994; Soft Protection. Danish Version, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, 1994; Soft Protection. The Great Britain and Northern Ireland Version, Matt’s Gallery, London, 1995; Soft Protection. Russian Version, Garage Center for Contemporary Art, Moskwa, 2010.

27

Soft Protection. Museum Version, exhibition Europa, Europa, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, 1994.

28

Cf. Chantal Georgel, ‘The Museum as Metaphor in Nineteenth-Century France’, in Museum Culture. Histories. Discourses.

Spectacles, ed. Daniel J. Sherman and Irit Rogoff (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 119–21.

366

367

present 1967 collage

viewed against a wall clock with a painted face and an electronic display on the neighbouring wall, announcing: ‘No news from . . . ’ repeated for twenty three cities ‘from Moscow to Johannesburg and Sydney’. Dailies from different countries, outdated and useless; cardboard cartons minus their function of ‘containing something they aren’t’ and selected precisely for this ‘unsignificance’;29 a ticking clock which does not show the time; and a newsboard displaying no news — in Rhetorical Figures III we are dealing with a perverse game of simultaneous deficiency and excess. The growing, aggressively invasive form becomes pointedly rhetorical as a visual reference to modernist composition; no less pointed is the ‘information silence’ contradicting the various information media (press, newsboard, clock) which, contrary to expectation, are either illegible or communicate nothing at all.

A similar ‘suspension of content’ confronts us in an earlier work Libraries (1995), a series of installations of unreadable books, with pages glued together or painted white.30 Deficiency coupled with excess — a paradox close to the relativisation of meanings and scepticism towards accepted truths and universal principles typical for other Kozłowski works. Books which cannot be read become mere stage props, and should be distrusted, especially in the view of a library’s authority. And institutional authority has been the target of the artist’s suspicion more than once; in the first, ‘archive’, version of Personal Files, he alludes to the ambiguous role the archive plays in the storing and expunging of memories, in the second version, designed for a museum space, he plays with its ambiguous dialectic of ‘reification and reanimation’31.

Rhetorical Figures III employ the dialectic of too much and too little; the lack of information speaks with a rhetoric of silence, in eloquent contrast with the rampant visual rhetoric of the modernist art 29

Cf. Rhetorical Figures, Jarosław Kozłowski in conversation with Bożena Czubak, a leaflet for the exhibition Jarosław Kozłowski.

Rhetorical Figures III, Le Guern Gallery, Warsaw, 2007.

30

The fi rst Library installation was presented in Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo 1995, but heaps of books with glued pages fi rst

31

The fi rst version was realised in the former archive in The Hague, 1993, the second was shown in the National Museum in

appeared as part of project 1993 at HCAK, The Hague, 1993, and in the work Reading Room, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, 1994.

Poznań, 1997.

forms. Actually, both deficiency and excess can be viewed as a single rhetorical figure, existent both in the persistently revealed ‘unsignificance of autonomous art forms’, and in the categorical denial of unceasing ‘No news . . . — the denial of media uproar, of power and politics, and of the politicallytainted rhetoric which art seems to cultivate. By way of Rhetorical Figures Kozłowski, not for the first time, speaks of his irritation with ‘utility, functionality, practicality, pragmaticality’ encumbering art.32 But seeking its justification elsewhere — at any rate, outside the pressure of political contexts — he still does not deny the existence of these contexts; rather, he prefers to draw upon the resources of rhetorical argument to situate the problem of autonomous art, resistant to political argument, within the realm of politics. In the space of Rhetorical Figures III, he suspends all objections — attributed by Rancière only to ‘to futile debates on the autonomy of art versus its subordination to politics’33 — and, like the French philosopher, liberates art from all pragmatic criteria, so that it can become ‘emancipated and emancipating precisely when it stops trying to emancipate us’.34 Even in 1982 he quarreled with the expectation of political declarativity, showing Green Wall Beyond Political Context, an ostentatious play with the equally declarative rhetoric of political neutrality35.

In the case of a Central European artist, engaged in conceptual reflection in the sixties and seventies, a sustained ‘dialectic of an apolitically political work of art’ must be read within the context of real political and artistic processes, which gave all activity, however apolitical, some political meaning.36 However, recent decades have rendered this dialectic irrelevant; furthermore, in Kozłowski’s artistic practice, especially in his critical analyses, the problem of politics is no longer affected by the anathema of ‘ideosis’, as it is no longer the problem of choosing between politics and the autonomy of the art work. Note that in Rhetorical Figures III, both politics and art in its postmodernist version are rhetorical figures; Kozłowski, in his own way, acts out creative scenarios outlined by Rancière, ‘playing autonomy against heteronomy and heteronomy against autonomy’37. In his view, his most ‘political’ work is not the cycle Standards or United World with its obvious references to ideological and political topics, but rather Counting-Out Rhyme (2005), showing a set of 15 abstract watercolours, a set of 15 bowls of dried paint, and a text listing 15 locations of major tragic events, with the phrase ‘won’t be’ repeated in each line (‘Baghdad won’t be’, Beslan won’t be’). The buildup of tension in this work is achieved through rhythmic recital and methodical counting-out, not by simple oppositions. Multiplying the latter is often a game of mere rhetoric, as demonstrated by the work Empathy of Mr. Hitler towards Mr. Stalin and Vice Versa, presented at the artist’s last solo exhibition.38 Once, when revoking the opposition between object and idea, Kozłowski spoke about ‘constant change of place; the transformation of one into the other’, and ‘multipyling quotation marks’. ‘There opens a kind of “crack”, through which we may gain insight into what is usually hidden, inaccessible, camouflaged’.39 This ‘elsewhere’ or ‘otherwise’ was in his view associated with the concept of the ‘third ring’, invoked in conversation with Jerzy Ludwiński: The first one is the domain of reality, both social and material, such as we experience it. The second one would be the domain of art, such as it is usually conceived . . . . The third one would also involve art, but conceived quite 32 33

Cf. Rhetorical Figures.

Cf. Jacques Rancière, Dzielenie postrzegalnego. Estetyka i polityka (Cracow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2007), p. 77. English edition: Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, trans. Gabriel Rockhill (London and New York: Continnum, 2006).

34

‘Sztuka tego, co możliwe’, Fulvia Carnevale and John Kelsey in conversation with Jacques Rancière, in Rancière, in Estetyka jako polityka, p. 150. Originally published as ‘The Art of the Possible’, Art Forum, March 2007.

35

Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań, 1982.

36

Cf. Piotr Piotrowski, Sztuka według polityki / Art after Politics, in Negocjatorzy sztuki. Wobec rzeczywistości / Negotiators of Art. Facing Reality, ed. Bożena Czubak, exh. cat. (Gdańsk: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia, 2000), pp. 140–41.

37

Cf. Rancière, Dzielenie postrzegalnego. Estetyka i polityka, p. 145.

38

Empatia–Empathy, Muzalewska Gallery, Poznań, 2010.

39

Jarosław Kozłowski, Jerzy Ludwiński, ʻConversationʼ, in Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, exh. cat. (Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994), p. 94.

368

369

differently . . . . It would contain elements of the first ring — that of reality, as well as of the second ring — that of art. In both cases, however, these elements would not be ‘borrowings. They would not involve any dependence on the contexts from which they have been taken’.40.

In Kozłowski’s works, various objects — slashed, punctured, coupled in strange configurations, borrowed for the length of the exhibition when they are ‘no longer themselves’ – become an object of experience ‘alien to itself’, like Rancière’s object, ‘aesthetic inasmuch as it is not, or not only, art’.41 The paradox of ‘art which is art as long as it is also non-art’, where heterogenic sensuality is combined with autonomy, provides grounds for an experience wherein art touches upon politics. It is an experience which, in the political dimension, means reconfiguring the perceived, visualising the invisible, violating the boundaries separating ‘that which can be seen (heard, said) and that which is impossible to see (hear, say)’.42 Recycled News, with its repetition of the same in one way or another, is just such a reconfiguration of the modes of perception. Obsolete painting in its modernist forms, coupled with outdated newspapers, constitutes a double recycling, where aesthetics is linked with art, becoming part of a ‘concealing and reupdating script’.

Kozłowski has been working in series almost from the beginning of his artistic practice; he works and reworks different themes in cycles of drawings, drawing actions, installations. In the eighties cycle Mythologies of Art he took art to pieces, looked at it from all sides — but he started in 1967, with Arrangement. Typical is the way he stops and returns — to drawing, to painting, to different objects and topics — the way he reworks and verifies his earlier choices, the way he questions, again and again, his old solutions. It is a kind of ceaseless recycling process, through which the artist reinterprets his own practice and its situation in a changing context.

The work, ongoing in Recycled News, on painting and newspapers, the former supposedly ‘doomed to silence’, the latter ‘withdrawn from circulation’, involves reconsidering the context of art and politics, as well as their relationship, unmediated by mutual obligations but still interpenetrating. Kozłowski, speaking of ‘art’ and ‘politics’ in parentheses, offers no simple oppositions, no explicit relationships between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ — not unlike the title of his big exhibition last year, Non-Truths/Non-Lies.43.

40

Ibid., p. 101.

41

Cf. Rancière, Estetyka jako polityka, p. 33.

42

Gabriel Rockhill, ʻJacques Rancière i jego polityka percepcjiʼ, in Rancière, Estetyka jako polityka, p. 185. Originally published as ʻJacques Rancière’s Politics of Perceptionʼ, in Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics.

43

Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki, Cracow, 2009.

non-truths / non-lies

372

wall-paintings 1978 Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Cracow, 2009 wall-paintings i–iii Galerie RenÊ Block Berlin, 1979

373

colour Pawilon Gallery Cracow, 1978

green surfaces Galerie Vor Ort Hamburg, 1982

374

FOUR GREEN SURFACES OUT OF ANY (DEFINED) CONTEXT * *

E.G. POLITICAL

375

green wall, its picture, its illusion and its image Akumulatory 2 Gallery Poznań, 1982

white wall l’Espace lyonnais d’art contemporain (ELAC) Lyon, 1992

376

grey wall The New Museum of Contemporary Art New York, 1990

377

GREY WALL OUT OF ANY POLITICAL CONTEXT E.G. MUSEUM

378

BAGDADU NIE BĘDZIE BIESŁANU NIE BĘDZIE BUKAVU NIE BĘDZIE DARFURU NIE BĘDZIE GAZY NIE BĘDZIE GROZNEGO NIE BĘDZIE KABULU NIE BĘDZIE KASZMIRU NIE BĘDZIE MONROVI NIE BĘDZIE MOGADISHU NIE BĘDZIE NADŻAFY NIE BĘDZIE RWANDY NIE BĘDZIE SREBRENICY NIE BĘDZIE TYBETU NIE BĘDZIE WYSPY HOBSONA NIE BĘDZIE

THERE WILL BE NO BAGHDAD THERE WILL BE NO BESLAN THERE WILL BE NO BUKAVU THERE WILL BE NO DARFUR THERE WILL BE NO GAZA THERE WILL BE NO GROZNY THERE WILL BE NO KABUL THERE WILL BE NO KASHMIR THERE WILL BE NO MONROVIA THERE WILL BE NO MAGADISH THERE WILL BE NO NAJAF THERE WILL BE NO RWANDA THERE WILL BE NO SREBRENICA THERE WILL BE NO TIBET THERE WILL BE NO HOBSON'S ISLAND

379

counting-out rhyme AT Gallery Poznań, 2005

no news Lublin, 2009

no news ARTER Space for Art Istanbul, 2010 rhetorical figures ii 47th October Salon Belgrade, 2006

380

381

rhetorical figures iv Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Cracow, 2009 rhetorical figures iii Le Guern Gallery Warsaw, 2007

382

383

rhetorical figures Oko/Ucho Gallery Poznań, 2006

recycled news Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Warsaw, 2008

384

385

386

recycled news ii Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki Cracow, 2009

387

mr hitler’s empathy for mr stalin and vice versa Muzalewska Gallery Poznań, 2010

388

389

empathy of the singular to the plural and vice versa Muzalewska Gallery Poznań, 2010

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Born in 1945 in Śrem. In the years 1963–69, he studied painting at the State School of Visual Arts in Poznań (today the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań), where he has also taught (painting and drawing) since 1967. In the years 1981–87, he was the rector of the State Academy of the Visual Arts in Poznań. In 1971, he initiated the NET project — an international artistic exchange. From 1972–90, he founded and then ran the Akumulatory 2 Gallery. In 1991–93, he was programme curator at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, in Warsaw. A holder of grants from The British Council in London and DAAD in Berlin. A professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań. Lives and works in Poznań.

Solo exhibitions 2010 Empatia–Empathy, Muzalewska Gallery, Poznań The Screen. Luxury Version, BWA Gallery in Olsztyn 2009 Non-Truths/Non-Lies, Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki, Cracow Screens, Profile Foundation, Warsaw 2008 What’s New?, Signum Foundation, Poznań 2007 What’s Going On?, Emerson Gallery, Berlin The Library of Time, Kalisz Museum, Kalisz Rhetorical Figures III, Le Guern Gallery, Warsaw 2006 Rhetorical Figures, Oko/Ucho Gallery, Poznań Curtains, Starmach Gallery, Cracow Cistern of Time, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw 2005 Greetings from Berlin, Emerson Gallery, Berlin United World. Alternative Version II, XX1 Gallery, Warsaw Counting-Out Rhyme, AT Gallery, Poznań 2004 United World. Alternative Version I, Neuer Kunstverein Regensburg 2002 Hot News, Muzalewska Gallery, Poznań Exercises in Drawing, R Gallery, Poznań 2001 United World. Democratic Version, BWA Gallery, Zielona Góra 2000 Objects and Installations, The Brno House of Art, Brno Deposit, Kameralna Gallery, Słupsk 1999 European Standards, Matt’s Gallery, London Screens, Rotunda Gallery, Poznań Time Vacuum, The Arbaer Museum, Reykjavik European Standards. Polish Version II, AT Gallery, Poznań European Standards. Polish Version,

Potocka Gallery, Cracow 1997 Temporary Object(s), Stadtgalerie Bern Spaces of Time, National Museum in Poznań Episodes, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw Colours and Spaces, BWA Stara Gallery, Lublin 1995 Soft Protection. The Great Britain and Northern Ireland Version, Matt’s Gallery, London Gravity Room and Other Works, Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo Drawings and Spaces, BWA, Wrocław 1994 Red-Blue, Arsenał Gallery, Białystok Things and Spaces, Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi Soft Protection. Danish Version, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen 1993 1993, HCAK, The Hague Personal Files, Archief, The Hague 1992 Mouvements délicats, Galerie l’Ollave, Lyon Sharp Objects, Tapko, Copenhagen Double Exposure, ZPAP on Mazowiecka Gallery, Warsaw Eyewitness, BWA Stara Gallery, Lublin 1991 Double Image, Potocka Gallery, Cracow 1990 Sleep Well, Kunstverein Giannozzo, Berlin Double Agent, Ośrodek Działań Plastycznych, Wrocław In Yellow, Matt’s Gallery, London 1989 Dark Blue, Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense Cover Your Face, Archipel, Apeldoorn Simple Geometry, Royal Le Page Building, Edmonton 1988 Blue Fragments II, ON Gallery, Poznań Żółty Time, Rote Czas, Blue Zeit, Potocka Gallery, Cracow 1987 Die schwarze Rose, RR Gallery, Warsaw Blue Fragments, Piwna 20/26 Gallery, Warsaw 1986 The Room, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin Fata Morgana, Galerie Gruppe Grün, Bremen The Garden of Art, HAH, Copenhagen The Academy, Matt’s Gallery, London 1985 The Show, daadgalerie, Berlin The Exhibition, daadgalerie, Berlin The Auction, daadgalerie, Berlin Wall-Paper Drawings, Kastrupgårdsamlingen, Copenhagen 1984 3–153, Zakład nad Fosą, Wrocław Piece for Two and One, RR Gallery, Warsaw Still Life with Wind and Guitar, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań 1983 Light-and-Shade Drawings and Their Pictures, Galerie Kanal 2, Copenhagen Easy Drawings II, Piwna 20/26 Gallery, Warsaw Opus II, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań Opus I, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań 1982 Easy Drawings, Matt’s Gallery, London

1981

1980

1979

1978

1977

1976 1975

1974

1973

1972 1971 1968 1967

Green Surfaces, Galerie Vor Ort, Hamburg The Green Wall, its Picture, its Illusion and its Image, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań Reconstruction of the Exhibition, FotoMedium-Art Gallery, Wrocław Small Drawings, Piwna 20/26 Gallery, Warsaw 18 Pieces in Watercolour, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań Object- and Post-Object Drawings, Galerie Vor Ort, Hamburg Caledonian Road Series, Matt’s Gallery, London Time-, Weight- and Quantity Drawings, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań Wall Paintings I–VIII, X Gallery, Wrocław Object Drawings, Piwna 20/26 Gallery, Warsaw Annexation of the Gallery, Krzysztofory Gallery, Cracow Transmission of the Exhibition, FotoMedium-Art Gallery, Wrocław Wall-Paintings I–V, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań Wall-Paintings I–III and Wall-Sculptures III–V, Galerie René Block, Berlin Drawing Facts, Galerie 38, Copenhagen Wall-Sculptures V–IX, Galerie S:t Petri, Lund Colour, Pawilon Gallery, Cracow Wall and Paper Drawings, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań Exercises in Ethics, Galerie S:t Petri, Lund Exercise in Semiotics, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań Exercises in Aesthetics, Foksal Gallery, Warsaw Lesson, Fiatal Művészet Klubjanok, Budapest Modal Drawings, Gallery Akumulatory 2, Poznań -ics, Foksal Gallery, Warsaw Grammar, Klub Związków Twórczych, Wrocław Realidade, Vesta Sagrada Organisação Creativa, Rio de Janeiro Physics, Foksal Gallery, Warsaw Lesson, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań Metaphysics, Foksal Gallery, Warsaw Set, A Gallery, Gniezno Points, Krzysztofory Gallery, Cracow Camera, Foksal Gallery, Warsaw Situation, Pod Moną Lizą Gallery, Wrocław Paintings, odNowa Gallery, Poznań Arrangement, odNowa Gallery, Poznań

Selected group exhibitions 2010 The New Décor, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow Things Evoke Feelings. Selected Narrations for the CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw

2009

2008

2007

2006

Conceptual Art and the Photographic Medium, Museum of City Łódź, Łódź Fluxus East, Henie Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden Home. The Way of Existence, 7th Triennale of Sacrum Art, City Gallery of Art, Częstochowa Vinyl. Records and Covers by Artists, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow Starter. Works from the Vehbi Koç Foundation, ARTER Space for Art, Istanbul Mediators, National Museum in Warsaw Vinyl. Records and Covers by Artists, La Maison Rouge, Paris Open City, Centre for Intercultural Creative Initiatives ‘Crossroads’, Lublin Fluxus East, Kunsthallen Nikolaj, Copenhagen Round and Round Again 1989–2009, Centennial Hall, Wrocław Difference Beyond Difference, Stary Browar, Poznań Ideas, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw Vinyl. Records and Covers by Artists, Museu Serralves, Porto Drawing Deliberations, BWA Labirynt Gallery, Lublin Un coup de dés, Generali Foundation, Vienna Food for Thought, Sukkerfabrik, Stege A Story Differently Told, Centre for Contemporary Art Łaźnia, Gdańsk; Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw To Be Continued, Edition Block, Berlin Fluxus East, Ludwig Múzeum — Kortárs Művészeti Múzeum, Budapest Mediations Biennale, Poznań Third Act, Museum of Architecture in Wrocław Fluxus East, KUMU Kunstimuseum, Tallinn For a Special Place, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York Dialogues, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin 8784h Project, XRay Gallery, Luboń Ist gleich (=), Galerie Nord, Berlin Words — Forms — Meditations, BWA Grodzka Gallery, Lublin Fluxus East, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Polnisches Institut, Berlin Art, Life and Confusion, 47th October Salon, Belgrade … und so hat Konzept noch nie Pferd bedeutet, Generali Foundation, Vienna How to Live Together? 27th São Paulo Art Biennial, São Paulo In Poland That Is Where?, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw Ars Baltica, Burgkloster zu Lübeck, Lübeck

2005

2004

2003

2001

2000

1999

Vinyl. Records and Covers by Artists, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona Occupying Space, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb Vinyl. Records and Covers by Artists, Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen, Bremen Schrift, Zeichen, Geste, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Chemnitz Sicht der Dinge, Ostdeutsche Galerie und Museum, Regensburg Ankunft, Emerson Gallery, Berlin Warsaw–Moscow/Moscow–Warsaw 1900– 2000, Tretyakowska Gallery, Moscow Egocentric, Immoral, Outmoded.

Contemporary Images of Artists, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw Habitat, National Museum in Szczecin Polonium 209, Forum des Cordeliers, Toulouse Beyond Geometry, Los Angeles Museum of Art, Los Angeles Alphabet, AT Gallery, Poznań Collected Views from East or West, Generali Foundation, Vienna Warsaw–Moscow/Moscow–Warsaw 1900– 2000, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw EuroArt, 1st Art Biennale, Koszary Sztuki, Świnoujście Family Counters. Art in Family/Family as an Art, Samara Art Museum, Samara Reading Spaces, Plastyfikatory Gallery, Luboń 2000+ Arteast Collection. The Art of Eastern Europe in Dialogue with the West, Orangerie Congress, Innsbruck Hommage à Jerzy Ludwiński, R Gallery, Poznań Negotiators of Art. Facing Reality, Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki, Cracow Negotiators of Art. Facing Reality, Centre for Contemporary Art Łaźnia, Gdańsk Visual Art — Simple Life, Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg Arte Conceitual, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo 2000+ Arteast Collection. The Art of Eastern Europe in Dialogue with the West, Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana Changes of Order, National Gallery, Prague To From, Kraków Meeting 2000, Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki, Cracow Time and Moments, Stara Gallery, Labirynt 2 Gallery, BWA, Lublin Samizdat. Alternative Kultur in Zentralund Osteuropa — die 60er bis 80er Jahre, Akademie der Künste, Berlin Conceptual Reflection in Polish Art. Experiences of Discourse: 1965–1975,

1998 1997

1996

1995 1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

1989

Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw Chronos and Kairos, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel Mediations, Inner Space, Poznań Tapko — Sunday Morning Walk, Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense Sternkarte, Stadtgalerie Bern, Bern Lengyelország Művészet 1945–1996, Műcsarnok Szépművészeti Múzeum, Ludwig Múzeum — Kortárs Művészeti Múzeum, Budapest Haltungen, Dresdener Schloss — Georgenbau, Dresden Oikos, Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum, Bydgoszcz Photography — Vehicle of Art, Material of Art, Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki, Cracow Orient-Action, 4th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul Europa, Europa. Das Jahrhundert der Avantgarde in Mittel- und Osteuropa, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn Klimata, Berner Galerie, c/o Suti Galerie, Bern Contemporary Polish Art, National Museum in Poznań Art-huts, Malmö odNowa Gallery 1964–1969, National Museum in Poznań The Vector of Art, Arsenał City Gallery, Poznań Listening to Art, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw Books and Pages, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw Polnische Avantgarde 1930–1990, Kunsthalle NBK, Berlin Łódź–Lyon. Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi 1931– 1992. Collection — Documentation — Actualité, Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, l’Espace lyonnais d’art contemporain (ELAC), Lyon Hovedet Gennen Muren, Statens Museum, Copenhagen Eyeshot, Kunsthallen Nikolaj, Copenhagen Doppelte Identität. Polnische Kunst zu Beginn der neunziger Jahre, Landesmuseum, Wiesbaden Der Raum des Werte, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel The Readymade Boomerang, 8th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney Rhetorical Image, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Kunst, Zennsur und Xerox, Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf Fluxus, Henie Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden Vision and Unity. Strzemiński and 9 Contemporary Polish Artists, Van Reekum Museum, Apeldoorn

1988

1987 1986 1985 1983 1981 1980

1978

1977

1976

1975

1974

1973

1972

1971 1970

1969

Broken Music, Berlin, Grenoble, Sydney, Amsterdam, Montreal On/Over, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw Diffuse Photography, Arsenał City Gallery, Poznań Freiraum, Kunststation, Kleinsassen Polnishe Kunst, Sprengel Museum, Hanover Dem Frieden eine Form geben, Kunstverein, Hamburg Triptychon, Kampnagelfabrik, Hamburg Libres d’artista, Galerie Metronom, Barcelona Individual Mythologies, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań Art of the 1970’s, BWA Labirynt Gallery, Lublin Private Opinions, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań The Seventies, Museo Universitario de Arte, Mexico City X Biennale de Paris, Paris 02/03/02, Institut d’Art Contemporain, Montreal Peace Please, Huset, Copenhagen Facts, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań Pan-Conceptuals, Maki Gallery, Tokyo Actualities, National Museum in Poznań The Media Exhibition, Moderna Museet, Stockholm Signifying, The Kyoto Museum of Art, Kyoto Contemporanea, Villa Borghese, Rome Cracow Meetings, BWA, Cracow The Decade of the 70-ies, CAYC, Buenos Aires Perspective 74, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo The World Uprising III, ISRC, Nagano-ken Six Artistas Conceituas, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo Omaha Flow Systems, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha The World Uprising II, ISRC, Nagano-ken Art for All, Cheap Thrills Gallery, Helsinki Espace — Situation ’72, Galerie Impact, Lausanne Arte de sistemas, CAYC, Buenos Aires Communications, Hours Gallery, Sydney Dreamers Congress, IV Biennale of Forms, EL Gallery, Elbląg 8th Meeting of Artists and Art Theoreticians, Osieki Symposium Wrocław ’70, Wrocław Exhibition of Young Art, Bałtycka Art Gallery, Sopot Exhibition of the Professors of State School of Visual Arts in Poznań, National Museum in Poznań The Youngest Generation in Polish Art, Współczesna Gallery, Warsaw

Drawing Activities 2009 Continuum XXIX, Profile Foundation, Warsaw Continuum XXVIII, Kunsthallen Nikolaj, Copenhagen 2008 Continuum XXVII, KUMU Kunstimuuseum, Tallinn Continuum XXVI, Ludwig Múzeum — Kortárs Művészeti Múzeum, Budapest Continuum XXV, Barak Sztuki, Poznań 2006 Continuum XXIV, Generali Foundation, Vienna Continuum XXIII, Oko/Ucho Gallery, Poznań Expedition (1969– ), Studio Alternatywne, TVP Kultura 2005 Continuum XXII, Emerson Gallery, Berlin 2004 Continuum XXI, Forum des Cordeliers, Toulouse 2002 Continuum XX, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna 2001 Continuum XIX, Centro de Experimentação e Informação de Arte, Belo Horizonte 2000 Continuum XVIII, National Gallery, Prague Continuum XVII, The Brno House of Art, Brno 1999 Continuum XVI, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw 1997 Continuum XV, National Museum in Poznań 1996 Continuum XIV, Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam 1995 Continuum XIII, Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo Continuum XII, BWA, Wrocław Continuum XI, Academy of Fine Arts, Poznań 1994 Continuum X, Statens Kunstakademi, Oslo 1993 Continuum IX, HCAK, The Hague Continuum VIII, State School of Visual Arts, Poznań 1991 Continuum VII, The Museum of Modern Art Oxford, Oxsford 1990 Continuum VI, The University of New South Wales, Sydney Continuum V, Byam Shaw School of Art, London 1989 Continuum IV, Archipel, Apeldoorn Continuum III, Royal Le Page Building, Edmonton Continuum II, Concordia University, Montreal 1988 Continuum I, BWA Gallery, Zielona Góra 1980 Here and Now, as part of the exhibition Art of the 1970s, BWA Labirynt Gallery, Lublin Demonstration, as part of the Presentation, Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg Drawing with Commentary, as part of the exhibition Drawing and Commentaries, District Museum, Radom

Individual Mythologies, as part of the exhibition Individual Mythologies, Akumulatory 2 Gallery, Poznań 1979 Mona Lisa in the Fourth Dimension, as part of the symposium Fourth Dimension, Osieki 1978 Leda with the Swan, as part of the symposium New Art and New Values, Jankowice The Cavalryman and the Girl, as part of the symposium SytuARTacje, Jankowice

BIBLIOGRAPHY Artistic books by Jarosław Kozłowski (in chronological order) ▹ A–B. Poznań: ZPAP, 1971. ▹ Bez tytułu. Cracow: Galeria Krzysztofory, 1971. ▹ Deka-log. Published by J. Kozłowski. Poznań, 1972. ▹ Language / Język. Warsaw: Galeria Foksal PSP, 1972. ▹ Nazwa pusta / Empty Name. Gniezno: Galeria A, 1972. ▹ Reality. Poznań: ZPAP, 1972. 2nd edition, London: Matt’s Gallery, 1978. 3rd edition, London: Matt’s Gallery, 1979. ▹ Propositions. Oldenburg: International Artist’s Cooperation, 1973. ▹ Lesson. Devon: Beau Geste Press, 1975. ▹ Three Points. Kassel: Visuelle Komunikation, 1975. ▹ Ćwiczenie z estetyki / Exercise of Aesthetics. Warsaw: Galeria Foksal PSP, 1976. ▹ Grammar / Gramatyka. Poznań: Galeria Akumulatory 2, 1978. ▹ Kolor. Cracow: Galeria Pawilon, 1978. ▹ The Academy. London: Matt’s Galery, 1986. ▹ Fata Morgana. Bremen: Galerie Gruppe Grün, 1986. ▹ Three Thirty and Fifty One. Odense: Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, 1989. ▹ Grey Thoughts. London: Matt’s Gallery, 1990. ▹ Time Vacuum / Próżnia. Zielona Góra: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 2001. ▹ Figury retoryczne / Rhetorical Figures. Poznań: Galeria Oko/Ucho, 2006. ▹ Kon-tekst / Con-text. Cracow: Bunkier Sztuki, 2009.

Texts by Jarosław Kozłowski (in chronological order) ▹ ‘Collages’. Odra, no. 11, 1968. ▹ ‘NET. Sztuka i cywilizacja’. Argumenty, no. 6, 1970. ▹ ‘Sprzeczność i niesprzeczność’. In Sympozjum “Interwencje”, Pawłowice. Poznań: SZSP Zarząd Wojewódzki w Poznaniu, 1975. ▹ ‘Sztuka. Papierowe tygrysy racjonalizmu’. In Artycypacje, Dłusko, edited by Andrzej Matuszewski.

Poznań: SZSP Zarząd Wojewódzki w Poznaniu, 1976. ▹ ‘Kruk krukowi itd . . . ’. In RelARTacje. Dni autorskie — Dłusko. Poznań: SZSP, Zarząd Wojewódzki w Poznaniu, 1977. Reprinted in Biuletyn Rady Artystycznej Związku Polskich Artystów Plastyków, no. 3/4, 1977, pp. 37–39. ▹ ‘Introduction’. In Humanistic Perspectives on Contemporary Art. Lund: Galerie S:t Petri, 1978, p. 10. ▹ ‘Ułan i dziewczyna’. In SytuARTacje. Jankowice 2–11 luty 1978. Poznań: Oficyna, 1978. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski, ʻCzas aktualny sztuki i cywilizacji pośpiechu. Czy istnieje więź bezkolizyjna?ʼ. In SytuARTacje. Jankowice 2–11 luty 1978. Poznań: Oficyna, 1978. ▹ ‘Galeria pozainstytucjonalna’. Integracje. Zeszyty Ruchu Kulturalnego i Artystycznego SZSP, no. 12, 1980, pp. 69–71. ▹ ‘Ausserinstitutionelle Galerien’. Zweitschrift, no. 7, 1983. ▹ ‘Discreet Views’. In Discreet Views, pp. 1–6.

Odense: Forlaget Brandts Klædefabrik, 1987.

▹ ‘Galeria Akumulatory 2’. In II Biennale Sztuki Nowej, edited by Zenon Polus. Zielona Góra: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 1987. ▹ ‘Lekcja sztuki’. Przegląd Wielkopolski, no. 2, 1987, pp. 17–22. ▹ ‘Introduction / Inleiding’. In Vision and Unity: Strzemiński 1893–1952 , pp. 137–155. Apeldoorn: Muzeum Sztuki Lodz, Van Reekum Museum, 1989. ▹ [Untitled]. In The Readymade Boomerang. Certain Relations in 20th Century Art, The Eighth Biennale of Sydney, pp. 330–331. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1990. ▹ ‘Drawing Beyond Categories’. The Works. A Visual Arts Celebration, 22.06–04.07.1990, pp. 12–13. ▹ ‘Drawing Beyond Categories’. Artetact, vol. 1, no. 2, 1990. ▹ ‘On Poland’. Kunst & Museum Journal, no. 3, 1990, pp. 31–33. ▹ ‘Inny konstruktywizm’. Tumult. Przegląd Ideograficzny, 1990, pp. 38–41. ▹ ‘(…) czyli o tzw. rozumieniu i pułapkach Mandrupa’. Tumult. Przegląd Ideograficzny, no. 10, 1991, pp. 26–28. ▹ [Introduction]. In Kolekcja1 / Collection One. Warsaw: CSW Zamek Ujazdowski, 1992. ▹ ‘A Lesson of Art’. In II International Forum of Contemporary Art Theory, pp. 48–50. Guadalajara: Foment Arte Contemporaneo, 1994. ▹ ‘Inne galerie / Other Galleries’. In Lekkość rzeczy / The Lightness of Things. Galeria AT Poznań 1982– 1997. Cracow: Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Bunkier Sztuki, 1996. ▹ ‘Prolegomena do Reality’. Zeszyty Artystyczne, no. 9, 1996. ▹ ‘Doświadczenia “Aparatu”’. In Fotografia: realność medium, edited by Alicja Kępińska, Grzegorz Dziamski and Stefan Wojnecki, pp. 111–116. Poznań: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Poznaniu, 1998. ▹ ‘Andrzej Bereziański: wspomnienie’. Gazeta Malarzy i Poetów, no. 2/3, 1999, pp. 38–39. ▹ ‘Other Galleries’. In Controlling the Means of Production, edited by Gardar Eide Einarsson and Matias Faldbakken, pp. 15–39. Bergen: Bergen Museum for Samtidskunst, 2000. ▹ ‘O sztuce konceptualnej’. Arteon, no. 1, 2000, pp. 6–7. ▹ ‘Prawdziwa prawda o sztuce polskiej lat 60i 70-tych’. Gazeta Malarzy i Poetów, no. 1, 2000, pp. 31–32. ▹ ‘Time Vacuum / Próżnia’. In Jarosław Kozłowski, Time Vaccum / Próżnia. Zielona Góra: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 2001. ▹ ‘Wstęp (1976)’. In Publiczna przestrzeń dla sztuki? / Öffentlicher Raum für Kunst?, edited by Maria Anna Potocka. Cracow: Bunkier Sztuki, Inter Esse; Vienna: Triton Verlag, 2003. ▹ ‘Art Between the Red and the Golden Frames’. In Curating with Light Luggage, edited by Liam Gillick and Maria Lind, pp. 41–49. Munich: Kunstverein München; Frankfurt am Main: Revolver Books, 2005. ▹ ‘Przynieście swoje budziki’. Ziemia Kaliska, no. 8, 2007. ▹ ‘On Dialogues’. In Dialogues. Berlin: Haus am Lützowplatz, 2007. ▹ ‘Ćwiczenia z semiotyki, 1977’. In Kolekcja sztuki XX

i XXI wieku. Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, 2009. ▹ ‘Zamiast wstępu’. In Jerzy Ludwiński, Sztuka w epoce postartystycznej i inne teksty, edited by Jarosław Kozłowski. Poznań: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Poznaniu; Wrocław: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 2010.

Interviews with Jarosław Kozłowski (in chronological order) ▹ ‘Sztuka jest możliwością’. Interview by Grzegorz Dziamski. Student, no. 20, 1978. ▹ ‘Uprawomocnienie wyboru’. Interview by Włodzimierz Braniecki. Głos Wielkopolski, no. 73, 1982. ▹ ‘O sztuce, uczelni i galerii’. Interview by Wiesława Wierzchowska. Zeszyty Artystyczne, no. 2, 1985, pp. 57–68. ▹ ‘Realizować wolność w sztuce’. Interview by Iwona Rajewska. Sztuka, no. 1, 1986, pp. 5–7. ▹ ‘Rozmowa’. Interview by Peter Mandrup Hansen.

Zeszyty Artystyczne, 1988, pp. 23–51. ▹ ‘Doświadczenie’. Interview by Tomasz Wilmański, edited by Piotr Bosman. Student, no. 6/7, 1990, pp. 6–7 ▹ Bruce Ferguson [survey]. In Rhetorical Image. New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990. ▹ ‘Jaroslaw Kozlowski’. Interview by Trevor Gould.

Harbour. Magazine on Art and Everyday Life, no. 2, 1991, pp. 50–54. ▹ ‘Rozmawiamy o pieniądzach’ [survey]. Gazeta Wielkopolska, 14.12.1991, p. 4. ▹ ‘Kunst: Mehr Prozess als Resultat. Das Samstagsinterview, Alastair MacLennan und Jaroslaw Kozlowski’. Interview by Marcus Moser. Der Bund, 14.05.1994, p. 7. ▹ ‘Green, Everything talks with Jaroslaw Kozlowski’.

Interview by Keith Ball. Everything. London Artist Magazine, no. 14, 1994, pp. 8–9. ▹ ‘Rozmowa / Conversation’. Interview by Jerzy Ludwiński. In Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, pp. 62–77, 89– 103. Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994. Reprinted in Notes from the Future of Art. Selected Writings by Jerzy Ludwiński, edited by Magdalena Ziółkowska, pp. 199–221. Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, Veenman Publishers, 2007. ▹ ‘Inne narzędzia’. Interview by Izabela Pikosz and Agata Jakubowska. Czas Kultury, no. 1, 1995, pp. 51–55. ▹ ‘En Samtale / A Conversation’. Interview by Audun Eckhoff. Terskel / Threshold (Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo), no. 15, 1995, pp. 25–58. ▹ ‘Przede wszystkim odpowiedzialność’. Interview by Łukasz Krzywda. Gazeta Malarzy i Poetów, no. 1, 1995, pp. 9–11. ▹ ‘Fra Poznan, Polen’. Interview by Sossa Jorgensen and Geir Tore Holm. Kitsch (Kunstakademiet, Trondheim) no. 11, 1996, pp. 14–21. ▹ ‘Rozmowy o sztuce (VI)’. Interview by Jaromir Jedliński. Odra, no. 9, 1997, pp. 88–93. ▹ [Untitled]. Interview by Bożena Czubak. In Negocjatorzy sztuki. Wobec rzeczywistości / Negotiators of Art. Facing Reality, edited by Bożena Czubak. Gdańsk: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia, 1999.

▹ ‘Jarosław Kozłowski. Szkoła powinna się zmieniać’.

Interview by Rafał Jakubowicz. In Retrospektywa 1919–1999, pp. 92–103. Poznań: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Poznaniu, 2000. ▹ ‘Alternatywna rzeczywistość. Akumulatory 2.

Historia Galerii Akumulatory 2 opowiedziana przez Jarosława Kozłowskiego’. Interview by Jacek Kasprzycki. Arteon, no. 3, 2000, pp. 38–40; no. 4, 2000, pp. 38–39. ▹ ‘Rozhovor s Jarosławem Kozłowskim / Interview with Jarosław Kozłowski’. Interview by Pavel Liška. In Jarosław Kozłowski. Objekty a instalace / Objects and Installations, edited by Pavel Liška, pp. 33–45. Brno: The Brno House of Arts, 2000. ▹ ‘Badanie świata’. Interview by Agnieszka Balewska.

Arteon, no. 12, 2001, pp. 12–13. ▹ ‘Dobrze określone ognisko anarchii’. Interview by Magdalena Ujma and Paweł Polit. Kresy, no. 1, 2002, pp. 191–211. ▹ ‘The United World’. Interview by Tomasz Wilmański. Mare Articum, no. 2, 2002, pp. 70–75. ▹ [Unitled]. Interview by Jaromir Jedliński. In Jarosław Kozłowski. Hot News, pp. 23–40. Poznań: Galeria Muzalewska, 2002. ▹ ‘Idea świata’. Interview by Przemysław Jędrowski.

Arteon, no. 10, 2004, pp. 32–36. ▹ ‘Rozmowy o sztuce (XIV)’. Interview by Jaromir Jedliński. Odra, no. 2, 2005, pp. 79–85. ▹ [Untitled]. Interview by Andrzej Szczepaniak. In Jarosław Kozłowski. Zasłony / Curtains, edited by Andrzej Szczepaniak, pp. 5–18. Cracow: Galeria Starmach, 2006. ▹ ‘Gry ze sztuką i życiem’. Interview by Ewa Obrębowska-Piasecka. Poznański Informator Kulturalny i Sportowy i Turystyczny, no. 10, 2007, pp. 22–23. ▹ ‘Figury retoryczne III’. Interview by Bożena Czubak.

Warsaw: Galeria Le Guern, 2007 [leaflet]. ▹ ‘Sztuka bezużyteczna’. Interview by Joanna Daszkiewicz. Metropolia, 01.11.2007, pp. 74–75. ▹ ‘Czas indywidualny’. Interview by Jacek Kasprzycki and Paweł Łubowski. Artluk, no. 1, 2009, pp. 62–63. ▹ ‘Sztuka, jak krawat, jest niefunkcjonalna’. Interview

by Maciej Mazurek. Arteon, no. 8, 2009, pp. 16–21. ▹ ‘Akademia powinna pozostać elitarna’. Interview

by Ewa Wójtowicz. Zeszyty Artystyczne, no. 19, 2010, pp. 77–88. ▹ ‘Aspekty teraźniejszości’. Jerzy Ludwiński interviewed by Jarosław Kozłowski and Grzegorz Dziamski. In Sztuka w epoce postartystycznej i inne teksty, edited by Jarosław Kozłowski. Poznań: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Poznaniu; Wrocław: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 2010. ▹ Nie-Prawdy/Nie-Kłamstwa. Interview by Bożena Czubak. www.obieg.pl/prezentacje/12488 (accessed 29.10.2010) Solo exhibition catalogues (in chronological order) ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Aparat (a camera). Warsaw: Galeria Foksal PSP, 1972. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Methaphysics. Warsaw: Galeria Foksal PSP, 1972. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Physics. Warsaw: Galeria Foksal PSP, 1974.

▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Ics, Galeria Foksal PSP, Warsaw 1974 [leaflet]. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. The Catalogue. Edited by Inge Liendemann and René Block. Berlin: daadgalerie, 1985. ▹ Jaroslaw Kozlowski. The Academy. London: Matt’s Gallery, 1986. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Naoczny świadek / Eyewitness.

Lublin: Galeria Stara BWA, 1992. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Podwójne naświetlenie / Double Exposure. Warsaw: Galeria ZPAP na Mazowieckiej, Fundacja Egit, Wydawnictwo Hotel Sztuki, 1992. ▹ Jaroslaw Kozlowski. Personal Files. The Hague: Haags Centrum voor Aktuele Kunst, 1993. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. The Hague: Haags Centrum voor Aktuele Kunst, 1993 [leaflet]. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces. Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Rysunki i przestrzenie / Drawings and Spaces. Wrocław: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 1995. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Epizody / Episodes. Edited

by Ewa Gorządek. Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, 1997. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Kolory i przestrzenie / Colours and Spaces. Lublin: Galeria Stara BWA, 1997. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Przestrzenie czasu / Spaces of Time. Poznań: Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, 1997. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Parawany / Screens. Poznań: Galeria Rotunda, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych, 1999 [leaflet]. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Objekty a instalace / Objects and Installations. Edited by Pavel Liška. Brno: The Brno House of Arts, 2000. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Hot News. Poznań: Galeria Muzalewska, 2002. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Figury retoryczne / Rhetorical Figures. Poznań: Galeria Oko/Ucho, 2006. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Zasłony / Curtains. Edited by Andrzej Szczepaniak. Cracow: Galeria Starmach, 2006. ▹ Jarosław Kozłowski. Nie-Prawdy/Nie-Kłamstwa / Non-Truths/Non-Lies. Cracow: Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Bunkier Sztuki, 2009.

Group exhibition catalogues (in chronological order) ▹ ‘Facts in the Gallery 1971–1972, Jarosław Kozłowski „A Camera”’. In Two, June 1972, p. 17. Warsaw: Galeria Foksal PSP, 1972. ▹ Montreux Espace Situation 72. Lausanne: Galerie Impact, 1972. ▹ Signifying. Language Thing / With the Manifestation of Attitude. Kyoto: The Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, The Jujiya Music Salon at Kyoto, 1974. ▹ Prospectiva 1974. São Paulo: Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, 1974. ▹ Romantyzm i Romantyczność w sztuce polskiej XIX i XX wieku. Edited by Zofia Gołubiew. Cracow: Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, 1975. ▹ Sympozjum „Interwencje”, Pawłowice. Edited

by Andrzej Matuszewski. Poznań: SZSP Zarząd Wojewódzki w Poznaniu, 1975. ▹ Artycypacje, Dłusko. Edited by Andrzej

Matuszewski. Poznań: SZSP Zarząd Wojewódzki w Poznaniu, 1976. ▹ 03 23 03, Premiéres rencontres internationales d’art contemporain. Montréal: Médiart et Parachute éditeurs, 1977. ▹ RelARTacje. Dni autorskie — Dłusko. Edited

by Andrzej Matuszewski. Poznań: SZSP Zarząd Wojewódzki w Poznaniu, 1977. ▹ 10 Biennale de Paris. Paris: Palais de Tokyo, Musée d’Art Moderne, 1977. ▹ SytuARTacje. Jankowice 2–11 luty 1978. Edited by Andrzej Matuszewski. Poznań: Oficyna, 1978. ▹ Triptychon — Aufhebung einer Bildform. Hamburg: Kunst im öffentlichen Raum, Kulturbehörde Hamburg, 1983. ▹ Lone Arendal, Jaroslaw Kozlowski, Peter Mandrup.

Edited by Jette Kjaerboe. Kastrup: Tårnby Kommune Kastrupgårdsamlingen, 1985. ▹ Zugehend auf eine Biennale des Friedens, Hamburger Woche fur Bildende Kunst. Hamburg: Kunsthaus und Kunstverein, 1985. ▹ Artyści Poznania 1945–1985. Edited by Wojciech Makowiecki. Poznań: Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 1986. ▹ II Biennale Sztuki Nowej. Edited by Zenon Polusa.

Zielona Góra: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 1987. ▹ Discreet Views. Odense: Forlaget Brandts Klædefabrik, 1987. ▹ Freiraum. Vier Generationen konstruktivistischer Strömungen in der polnischen Kunst. Kleinsassen: Kunststation, 1987. ▹ Kolekcja artystów — Muzeum artystów. Cracow: Biuro Kongresowe Sympozjum KBWE, Fundacja Kultury Polskiej, Fundacja Wyzwolenia Kultury, 1987. ▹ Otwarcia/Zamknięcia. Wybrane działania w sztuce lat 1960–1987 / On/Over. Selected Actions in the Art of 1960–1987. Edited by Dorota Folga-Januszewska et al. Warsaw: Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, 1988. ▹ Polska fotografia intermedialna lat 80-tych.

Fotografia rozproszona / Polish Inter-Media Photography of the Eighties. Diffuse Photography.

Edited by Wojciech Makowiecki. Poznań: Galeria BWA Poznań, Stary Rynek-Arsenał, Galeria Wielka 19, Salon Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Fotograficznego, Galeria ON, 1988. ▹ Pracownia. Edited by Jarosław Kozłowski and Andrzej Syska. Zielona Góra: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 1988. ▹ Broken Music. Artists Recordworks. Edited by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeler. Berlin: Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, gelbe Musik Berlin, 1989. ▹ Vision and Unity. Strzeminski 1893–1952 and 9 Contemporary Polish Artists. Apeldoorn: Muzeum Sztuki Łódź, Van Reekum Museum, 1989. ▹ The Readymade Boomerang. Certain Relations in 20th Century Art, The Eighth Biennale of Sydney.

Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1990. ▹ Rhetorical Image. New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990. ▹ Der Raum der Wort. Polnische Avantgarde und Malerbucher 1919–1990. Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej; Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel im Malerbuchkabinett der Bibliotheca Augusta, 1991.

▹ Doppelte Identität — Polnische Kunst zu Beginn der neunziger Jahre. Edited by Hanne Dannenberger and Konrad Matschke. Wiesbaden: Landesmuseum Wiesbaden, 1991. ▹ Eyeshot. Copenhagen: Kunsthallen Nikolaj, 1991. ▹ Kolekcja sztuki XX w. w Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi.

Warsaw: Galeria Zachęta, 1991. ▹ Hovedet gennem Muren / Mit dem Kopf durch die Wand / Head through the Wall. Edited by Elisabeth Delin Hansen and René Block. Copenhagen: Statens Museum for Kunst, 1992. ▹ Piotr Rypson. Książki. Polska książka awangardowa i artystyczna 1919–1992. Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, 1992. ▹ Polnische Avantgarde 1930–1990. Berlin: Neuen Berliner Kunstverein, Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, 1992. ▹ Galeria odNowa 1964–1969. Edited by Piotr Piotrowski. Poznań: Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, 1993. ▹ Kolekcja artystów 1973–1993 / Artist’s Collection 1973–1993. Cracow: Galeria Potocka, Fundacja Wyzwolenia Kultury, 1993. ▹ Malarstwo, rzeźba, książka, instalacja. Poznań: Związek Polskich Artystów Plastyków Okręg w Poznaniu, Galeria Miejska Arsenał w Poznaniu, Fibak Press, 1993. ▹ Europa, Europa. Das Jahrhundert der Avantgarde in Mittel-und Osteuropa. Bonn: Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1994. ▹ Galeria Labirynt 1974–1994 / Labirynt Gallery 1974–1994. Edited by Andrzej Mroczek and Jolanta Męderowicz. Lublin: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 1994. ▹ Grønningen. Copenhagen: Udstillingsbygningen ved Charlotenborg, 1994. ▹ Piwna 20/26. Edited by Maryla Sitkowska. Warsaw: Muzeum ASP w Warszawie, 1994. ▹ 4. Uluslararasi Instanbul Bienali / 4th International Istanbul Biennial. Istanbul: Instambul Kültür ve Sanat Vakfi, 1995. ▹ Lekkość rzeczy / The Lightness of Things. Galeria AT Poznań 1982–1997. Cracow: Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Bunkier Sztuki, 1996. ▹ Fotografia — wehikuł sztuki, tworzywo sztuki / Photography — Vehicle of Art, Material of Art. Cracow: Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Bunkier Sztuki, 1996. ▹ Oikos w budowie. Bydgoszcz: Muzeum Okręgowe im. Leona Wyczółkowskiego, 1996. ▹ Osteuropa Mail art im Internationalen Netzwerk.

Edited by Kornelia von Berswordt-Wallrabe, Kornelia Röder and Guy Schraenen. Schwerin: Staatliches Museum Schwerin, 1996. ▹ Anne Moeglin-Delcroix. Esthétique du livre d’artiste 1960–1980. Paris: Jean Michel Place, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 1997. ▹ Haltungen. Dresden: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresdner Schloss, Georgenbau; Wrocław: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych Wrocław, 1997. ▹ Lengyelorsźag Művészet 1945–1996 / Poland. Art 1945–1996. Budapest: Műcsarnok Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Ludwig Múzeum — Kortárs Művészeti Múzeum, 1997. ▹ Jaroslaw Kozlowski. Temporary Object(s). In Stadtgalerie Bern 1997. Bern: Stadtgalerie Bern, 1997. ▹ Tapko — Sunday Morning Walk. Odense:

Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, 1998. ▹ ASP 1919–1999. Przestrzeń obecności — obecność w przestrzeni. Wystawa jubileuszowa. Poznań: Galeria AT, 1999. ▹ Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski w Warszawie 1988–1998 / Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw 1988–1998. Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, 1999. ▹ Gnieźnieńska Galeria ABC. 1967–1972, 1973–1975, 1981. Gniezno, 1999. ▹ Mediacje / Mediations. Poznań: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Inner Spaces Multimedia, 1999. ▹ Negocjatorzy sztuki. Wobec rzeczywistości / Negotiators of Art. Facing Reality. Edited by Bożena Czubak. Gdańsk: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia, 1999. ▹ Czas i chwile / Time and Moments. Edited by Jolanta Męderowicz and Andrzej Mroczek. Lublin: Galeria Stara, Galeria Labirynt 2, BWA, 2000. ▹ Do Od, Spotkania Krakowskie 2000 / To From.

Cracow Meeting 2000. Edited by Bożena Gajewska.

Cracow: Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Bunkier Sztuki, 2000. ▹ Galerie ASP 1996–1999. Edited by Małgorzata Jaskólska-Klaus. Poznań: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Poznaniu, 2000. ▹ Proměny řádu (chaos a řád) / Changes of Order.

Prague: Národní galerie, 2000. ▹ Refleksja konceptualna w sztuce polskiej.

Doświadczenia dyskursu: 1965–1975 / Conceptual Reflection in Polish Art. Experiences of Discourse: 1965–1975. Edited by Paweł Polit and Piotr Woźniakiewicz. Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, 2000. ▹ Retrospektywa 1919–1999. Wydawnictwo jubileuszowe. Poznań: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Poznaniu, 2000. ▹ 2000+ Umetnost Vzhodne Evrope v dialogu z Zachodom. Od 1960. Let do danes / The Art of Eastern Europe in Dialogue with the West. From the 1960s to the Present. Edited by Zdenka Badovinac.

Ljubljana: Moderna galerija, 2000. ▹ 2000+ Arteast Collection: The Art of Eastern Europe Europe in Dialogue with the West. Edited by Zdenka Badovinac and Peter Weibel. Innsbruck: Orangerie Congress; Vienna and Bolzano: Folio Verlag, 2001. ▹ Kontury Siemii. Iskusstwo w siemie/Siemia kak iskusstwo / Family Counters. Art in Family/Family as an Art. Samara: Samara Art Museum, 2002. ▹ Mirada y contexto. Trama 2000. Buenos Aires: Proyecto Trama Fundacion Espigas, 2002. ▹ Galeria AT 1982–2002. Poznań: Galeria AT, 2003.Buch, Medium, Fotografie / Book, Medium, Photography. Edited by Sigrid Schade and Anne Thurmann-Jajes. Bremen: Universität Bremen, 2003. ▹ Labirynt. Wystawa z okazji trzydziestolecia realizacji programu galerii / The Exhibitin to Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Gallery’s Programme Realization.

Edited by Andrzej Mroczek. Lublin: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 2004. ▹ Labirynt. Wystawy w galeriach BWA Lublin / Labirynth. Exhibitions in BWA Galleries Lublin.

Edited by Andrzej Mroczek. Lublin: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 2004.

▹ Jarosław Kozłowski, Andrzej Okińczyc, Robert Rumas, Robert Sobociński. 4 Polen. Regensburg: Kunst- und Gewerbeverein Regensburg, 2004. ▹ Książka i co dalej 5 / Book and What Next 5, Alphabet. Edited by Tomasz Wilmański. Poznań: Galeria AT, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Poznaniu, 2004. ▹ Curating with Light Luggage. Edited by Liam Gillick and Maria Lind. Munich: Kunstverein München; Frankfurt am Main: Revolver Books, 2005. ▹ Egocentryczne, niemoralne, przestarzałe.

Współczesne wizerunki artystów / Egocentric, Immoral, Outmoded. Contemporary Images of Artists. Edited by Bożena Czubak. Warsaw: Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, 2005. ▹ Ogląd rzeczy / Sicht der Dinge. Regensburg: Ostdeutsche Galerie, 2005. ▹ Guy Schraenen. Vinyl Records and Covers by Artists.

Bremen: Neuen Museum Weserburg Bremen; Barcelona: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), 2005. 2nd edition, 2006. ▹ Como viver junto / How to Live Together. 27a Bienal de São Paulo Guia / Guide. Ed. Lisette Lagnado and Adriano Pedrosa. São Paulo: Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, 2006. ▹ Ars Baltica. Kunst aus Danemark, Deutschland, Finnland, Polen / Art from Denmark, Germany, Finland, Poland. Lübeck: Burgkloster zu Lübeck, 2006. ▹ Art, Life & Confusion, 47th October Salon / Umietnost, żiwot, pamietnia. Belgrade: Kulturni Centar, 2006. ▹ Habitat. Edited by Wojciech Ciesielski. Szczecin: Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie, 2006. ▹ W Polsce, czyli gdzie?/ In Poland, That Is Where?.

Edited by Bożena Czubak. Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, 2006. ▹ Dialogues. Berlin: Haus am Lützowplatz, 2007. ▹ Die Balkan-Trilogie / The Balkans Trilogy. Edited

by René Block and Marius Babias. Kassel: Kunsthalle Fridericianum, 2007. ▹ Fluxus East. Fluxus-Netzwerke in Mittelosteuropa / Fluxus Networks in Central Eastern Europe. Berlin: Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2007. ▹ For a Special Place. Documents and Works from the Generali Foundation Collection. New York: Austrian Cultural Forum, 2007. ▹ Labirynt 2007. Wystawy w Galeriach BWA Lublin / Exhibitions in BWA Galleries. Lublin: BWA, 2007. ▹ Wreszcie nowa! Małopolskie kolekcje sztuki nowoczesnej. Cracow: Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Bunkier Sztuki, 2007. ▹ Mediations Biennale Poznań 2008. Poznań: Centrum Kultury Zamek, 2008. ▹ Opowiedziane inaczej / A Story Differently Told.

Edited by Bożena Czubak. Gdańsk: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia, 2008. ▹ Psycho Buildings: Artist Take on Architecture.

London: Southbank Centre, The Hayward, 2008. ▹ Un coup de dés. Bild gewordene Schrift. Ein ABC der nachdenklichen Sprache / Writing Turned Image. An Alphabet of Pensive Language. Edited by Sabine Folie.

Vienna: Generali Foundation; Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008. ▹ U-Turn. Kvadriennale for samtidskunst /

Quadrennial for Contemporary Art. Edited by Pernille Albrethsen. Copenhagen, 2008. ▹ Małgorzata Jackiewicz-Garniec and Grażyna Prusińska. Moc sztuki. Kolekcja WarmińskoMazurskiego Towarzystwa Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych w Olsztynie 2005–2009. Olsztyn: WarmińskoMazurskie Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych, 2009. ▹ Na okrągło: 1989–2009 / Over and Over Again: 1989–2009. Edited by Aneta Szyłak and Jan Sowa.

Wrocław: BWA Wrocław Galerie Sztuki Współczesnej; Cracow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2009. ▹ Dom. Droga istnienia. 7. Triennale Sztuki Sacrum. Częstochowa: Miejska Galeria Sztuki w Częstochowie, 2010. ▹ Mediatorzy / Mediators. Poznań: Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Centrum Kultury Zamek, 2010. ▹ Starter. Wehbi Koç Vakfi Çağdaş Sanat Koleksiyonu’ndan Işler / Works from the Vehbi Koç Foundation Contemporary Art Collection. Edited by René Block. Istanbul: ARTER Space for Art, 2010. ▹ The New Décor. London: Hayward Gallery; Moscow: Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, IRIS Foundation, 2010.

Fluxus. Høvikodden: Henie Onstad Art Centre, 2010.

Critical texts on Jarosław Kozłowski (in alphabetical order) ▹ Block, René. ‘Jarosław Kozłowski’. In Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces. Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994. ▹ Block, René. [Introduction]. In Jarosław Kozłowski.

The Catalogue, edited by Inge Liendemann and René Block. Berlin: daadgalerie, 1985. ▹ Czartoryska, Urszula. ‘Gry Jarosława Kozłowskiego / Jarosław Kozłowski’s Games’. In Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, pp. 26–35. Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994. ▹ Czartoryska, Urszula. ‘Kozlowski’. In Vision and Unity, Strzeminski 1893–1952 and 9 Contemporary Polish Artists, pp. 137–139. Apeldoorn: Muzeum Sztuki Łódź, Van Reekum Museum, 1989. ▹ Czubak, Bożena. ‘Nie-Prawdy, Nie-Kłamstwa / NonTruths, Non-Lies’. In Jarosław Kozłowski. Nie-Prawdy/ Nie-Kłamstwa / Non-Truths/Non-Lies. Cracow: Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Bunkier Sztuki, 2009. ▹ Czubak, Bożena. ‘Recycled News’. In Opowiedziane inaczej / A Story Differently Told, edited by Bożena Czubak, pp. 48–83. Gdańsk: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia, 2008. ▹ Goździewski, Marek. [Untitled]. In Jarosław Kozłowski. Naoczny świadek / Eyewitness. Lublin: Galeria Stara BWA, 1992. ▹ Jedliński, Jaromir. ‘Wprowadzenie / Introduction’.

In Jarosław Kozłowski. Rzeczy i przestrzenie / Things and Spaces, pp. 26–35. Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 1994. ▹ Kępińska, Alicja. ‘Gespräch’. In Jarosław Kozłowski.

The Catalogue, edited by Inge Liendemann and René Block, pp. 8–14. Berlin: daadgalerie, 1985. ▹ Kępińska, Alicja. ‘Jarosław Kozłowski’. In Sztuki plastyczne w Poznaniu, edited by Teresa Kostyrko.

Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 1987. ▹ Ciesielski, Wojciech. ʻKu “trzeciemu kręgowi” / Towards the “Third Circle”’. In Habitat, edited by

Wojciech Ciesielski, pp. 39–43. Szczecin: Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie, 2005. ▹ Ludwiński, Jerzy. [Untitled]. In Jarosław Kozłowski.

Podwójne naświetlenie / Double Exposure. Warsaw: Galeria ZPAP na Mazowieckiej, Fundacja Egit, Wydawnictwo Hotel Sztuki, 1992. ▹ Nader, Luiza. ‘Język, rzeczywistość, ironia. Książki artystyczne Jarosława Kozłowskiego’. In Luiza Nader, Konceptualizm w PRL. Warsaw: Fundacja Galerii Foksal, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2009. ▹ Nader, Luiza. ‘Heterotopy. The NET and Galeria Akumulatory 2’. In Fluxus East. Fluxus Networks in Central Eastern Europe, pp. 111–22. Berlin: Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2007. ▹ Nader, Luiza. ‘Język, rzeczywistość, ironia.

Książki artystyczne Jarosława Kozłowskiego’.

Artium Quaestiones, vol. XVI, 2002, edited by Piotr Piotrowski i Wojciech Suchocki. pp. 187–214. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 2005. ▹ Nader, Luiza. ‘Language, Reality, Irony: The Art Books of Jarosław Kozłowski’. In Art after Conceptual Art, edited by Alexander Alberro and Sabeth Buchmann, pp. 101–17. Vienna: Generali Foundation; Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press, 2006. ▹ Peters, Philip. ‘Het individu in het gesloten circuit / The Individual in the Closed Circuit’. In Jaroslaw Kozlowski. Personal Files. The Hague: Haags Centrum voor Aktuele Kunst, 1993. ▹ Piotrowski, Piotr, ‘Ambivalensens Kunstner / Man among Ambivalences’. Terskel / Threshold (Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo), no. 15, 1995, pp. 7–24. ▹ Piotrowski, Piotr. ‘Artysta i historia. W stronę granicy współczesnej sztuki polskiej’. In Rysa w przestrzeni. Sztuka po 1945 roku w Czechach, Niemczech, Polsce i Słowacji. Warsaw: Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Zachęta, 1995. ▹ Piotrowski, Piotr. ‘Człowiek wśród ambiwalencji’.

Magazyn Sztuki, no. 6/7, 1996. Reprinted in Balkon, no. 1/2, 1997. ▹ Piotrowski, Piotr. ‘Meblowanie pokoju. O sztuce Jarosława Kozłowskiego / Furnishing a Room. On the Art of Jarosław Kozłowski’. In Jarosław Kozłowski.

Przestrzenie czasu / Spaces of Time. Poznań: Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, 1997. ▹ Polit, Paweł. ‘Wyzwalanie przedmiotów z opresji znaczenia. O jednym z wątków twórczości Jarosława Kozłowskiego’. Magazyn Sztuki, no. 27, 2001, pp. 36–43. ▹ Polit, Paweł. ‘Záchytné body. O umění Jarosława Kozłowského / Anchoring Points. On Art of Jarosław Kozłowski’. In Jarosław Kozłowski. Objekty a instalace / Objects and Installations, edited by Pavel Liška. Brno: The Brno House of Arts, 2000. ▹ Potocka, Maria Anna. ‘Kolor’. In Jarosław Kozłowski.

Kolory i przestrzenie / Colours and Spaces. Lublin: Galeria Stara BWA, 1997. ▹ Potocka, Maria Anna. ‘Som Jarosław Kozłowski / Takim jak Jarosław Kozłowski / Such as Jarosław Kozłowski’. In Eyeshot, pp. 27–29. Copenhagen: Kunsthallen Nikolaj, 1991. ▹ Rottenberg, Anda. Względność banału [São Paulo, 2006]. Open Art Projects, http://www. openartprojectp.org/files/pdf/Sao-PauloBiennale2006.pdf [accessed 19 October 2010].

▹ Schauer, Lucie. ‘Jaroslaw Kozlowski. Das Auge des Künstler / Jaroslaw Kozlowski. The Eye of the Artist’.

In Polnische Avantgarde 1930–1990, pp. 113–22.

Berlin: Neuen Berliner Kunstvereins, Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, 1992. ▹ Turowski, Andrzej. ‘Aranżacja Jarosława Kozłowskiego’. In Galeria odNowa 1964–1969, edited

by Piotr Piotrowski, pp. 41–42. Poznań: Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, 1993.

Books (in alphabetical order) ▹ Awangarda w plenerze: Osieki i Łazy 1963–1981 / Avant-Garde in plein-air. Osieki and Łazy 1963–1981.

Edited by Ryszard Ziarkiewicz. Koszalin: Muzeum w Koszalinie, 2008. ▹ Brogowski, Leszek. Sztuka w obliczu przemian.

Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1990. ▹ Controlling the Means of Production. Edited by Gardar Eide Einarsson and Matias Faldbakken.

Bergen: Bergen Museum for Samtidskunst, 2000. ▹ Dziamski, Grzegorz. Lata dziewięćdziesiąte.

Poznań: Galeria Miejska Arsenał, 2000. ▹ Dziamski, Grzegorz. Szkice o nowej sztuce. Warsaw: Młodzieżowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1984. ▹ Essaying Essays. Alternative Forms of Expositions.

Edited by Richard Kostelanetz. London: Out of London Press, 1975. ▹ Fisher, Jean. Matt’s Gallery. London: Matt’s Gallery, The Serpentine Gallery, 1984. ▹ Fotografia: realność medium. Edited by Alicja Kępińska, Grzegorz Dziamski and Stefan Wojnecki.

Poznań: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Poznaniu, 1998. ▹ Freire, Cristina. Arte Conceitual. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Editor, 2006. ▹ Freire, Cristina. Poeticas do processo. Arte Conceitual no Museu. São Paulo: Editora Iluminuras, 1999. ▹ Geiger 5. Antologia. Edited by Adriano and Maurizio Spatola. Turin: Edizioni Geiger, 1972 [limited edition]. ▹ Gibbs, Michael. Some Volumes From The Library Of Babel. Amsterdam: Editions Ex Libris, 1982. ▹ Groh, Klaus. Aktuelle Kunst in Osteuropa — ČSSR, Jugoslawien, Polen, Rumänien, UdSSR, Ungarn.

Cologne: DuMont Schauberg, 1972. ▹ Groh, Klaus. Fünfmal Kunst. Nuremberg: Institut für Moderne Kunst, 1975. ▹ Guzek, Łukasz. Sztuka instalacji. Zagadnienie związku przestrzeni i obecności w sztuce współczesnej.

Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Neriton, 2007. ▹ Huebler, Douglas. Duration Piece #8. New York: Castelli Gallery, 1973. ▹ Humanistic Perspectives on Contemporary Art. Lund: Galerie S:t Petri, 1978. ▹ Kępińska, Alicja. Energie sztuki. Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, 1990. ▹ Kępińska Alicja. Nowa sztuka. Sztuka polska w latach 1945–1978. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, Auriga Oficyna Wydawnicza, 1981. ▹ Kępińska, Alicja. Sztuka w kulturze płynności.

Poznań: Wydawnictwo Galerii Miejskiej Arsenał w Poznaniu, 2003. ▹ Kostołowski, Andrzej. Sztuka i jej meta-. Teksty

z lat 1968–2003. Cracow: Bunkier Sztuki, Inter Esse, Galeria Miejska Arsenał, 2004. ▹ Lachowski, Marcin. Awangarda wobec instytucji.

O sposobach prezentacji sztuki w PRL-u. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2006. ▹ Ludwiński, Jerzy. Epoka błękitu. Edited by Jerzy Hanusek. Cracow: Otwarta Pracownia, 2009. ▹ Ludwiński, Jerzy. Sztuka w epoce postartystycznej i inne teksty. Edited by Jarosław Kozłowski. Poznań: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Poznaniu; Wrocław: Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, 2010. ▹ Nader, Luiza. Konceptualizm w PRL. Warsaw: Fundacja Galerii Foksal, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2009. ▹ Oliveira, Nicolas de, Nicola Oxley and Michael Petry. Installation Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994. ▹ Perneczky, Géza. The Artists’ Books in European VieIn The Soul of Books or the Third Generation?.

Cologne, 1987. ▹ Piotrowski, Piotr. Awangarda w cieniu Jałty. Sztuka w Europie Srodkowo-Wschodniej w latach 1945–1989.

Poznań: Dom Wydawniczy Rebis, 2005. ▹ Piotrowski, Piotr. Dekada. O syndromie lat siedemdziesiątych, kulturze artystycznej, krytyce, sztuce — wybiórczo i subiektywnie. Poznań: Obserwator, 1991. ▹ Piotrowski, Piotr. Sztuka według polityki. Od Melancholii do Pasji. Cracow: Universitas, 2007. ▹ Piotrowski, Piotr. Znaczenia modernizmu. W stronę historii sztuki polskiej po 1945 roku. Poznań: Dom Wydawniczy Rebis, 1999. ▹ Publiczna przestrzeń dla sztuki? / Öffentlicher Raum für Kunst?. Edited by Maria Anna Potocka.

Cracow: Bunkier Sztuki, Inter Esse; Vienna: Triton Verlag, 2003. ▹ Röder, Kornelia. Topologie und Funktionsweise des Netzwerks der Mail Art. Bonn: Verlag Bild-Kunst, 2008. ▹ Ronduda, Łukasz. Sztuka polska lat 70. Awangarda.

Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, Polski Western, 2009. English edition: Polish Art of the 70s, Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, Polski Western, 2009. ▹ Rypson Piotr. Książki i strony. Polska książka awangardowa i artystyczna w XX wieku. Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, 2000. ▹ Shifting Map. RAIN Artists’ Initiatives Network / Platformas de artistas y estrategias para la divesidad cultural / Platformes d’artistes et stratégies pour la diversité culturelle. Rotterdam: Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten Amsterdam, NAi Publishers, 2003. ▹ Shiomi, Mieko. Fluxus Balance. Osaka, 1993. ▹ Shiomi, Mieko. Spatial Poem. Osaka, 1976. ▹ Sympozjum Plastyczne Wrocław ’70. Edited by Danuta Dziedzic and Zbigniew Makarewicz. Wrocław: Ośrodek Teatru Otwartego “Kalambur”, 1983. ▹ Turowski, Andrzej. Awangardowe marginesy.

Warsaw: Instytut Kultury, 1997. ▹ Wasilewski, Marek. Czy sztuka jest wściekłym psem?. Poznań: Stowarzyszenie Czasu Kultury, 2009. ▹ Wasilewski, Marek. Seks, pieniądze i religia. Poznań: Galeria Miejska Arsenał, Wydawnictwo Obserwator, 2001.

▹ Wierzchowska, Wiesława. Współczesny rysunek polski. Warsaw: Auriga Oficyna Wydawnicza, WAiF, 1982.

Press (features, reviews, interviews, news) (in chronological order) ▹ Jae, Jus. ‘Jarosław Kozłowski’. Gazeta Poznańska, no. 251, 1967. ▹ Jerzy Ludwiński. ‘Pokaz Jarosława Kozłowskiego’.

Odra, no. 11, 1968. ▹ Ignacy Witz. ‘Przechadzka malarska’. Życie Warszawy, no. 264, 1968. ▹ ‘Naśladowcy Al Capone’a’. Słowo Polskie, no. 283, 1968, p. 4. ▹ Tadeusz Buski. ‘Zwierzenia nad warsztatem’.

Gazeta Robotnicza, no. 292, 1968, p. 3. ▹ ‘Młodzi przed startem / Young before the Start’.

Projekt, no. 5/6, 1969, p. 91. ▹ ‘O co chodzi w Galerii pod Moną Lisą?’. Słowo Polskie, 5–6.01.1969. ▹ Andrzej Turowski. ‘Aranżacje J. Kozłowskiego’.

Współczesność, no. 4, 1969. ▹ ‘Niefortunne zmartwychwstanie’. Fotografia, no. 12, 1970, pp. 269, 281. ▹ Bożena Kowalska. ‘Spór o sztukę niemożliwą’. Życie Literackie, no. 51, 1970. ▹ M. Grudniewska. ‘Drabina i humanizm’. Głos, no. 240, 1970, p. 7. ▹ ‘Salon Jubileuszowy’. Magazyn, 19.12.1970, p. 5. ▹ Andrzej Ekwiński. ‘Zjazd marzycieli’. Argumenty, no. 43, 1971, p. 8. ▹ Andrzej B. Krupiński. ‘Sztuka albo nic’. Student, no. 12, 1971. ▹ Maria Hussakowska. ‘Punkt i labirynt’. Echo Krakowa, 29.09.1971. ▹ Anna Lechicka, ‘. . . widziała: na wernisażu w Galerii PSP wystawę pod nazwą Metafizyka’. Szpilki, no. 51, 1972. ▹ Wojciech Krauze. ‘Przegląd galerii warszawskich 16.02–15.04.1972’. Przegląd Artystyczny, no. 4, 1972, p. 60. ▹ Andrzej Ekwiński. ‘Idea i forma’. Argumenty, no. 9, 1972. ▹ Andrzej Osęka. ‘Pojęcie aktualności’. Kultura, no. 40, 1972. ▹ Turowski Andrzej. ‘Polska ekspozycja na Biennale młodych w Paryżu’. Argumenty, no. 9, 1972. ▹ Jacques D. Rouiller. ‘Espace/Situation 72 à Montreux’. La Gazzette litteraire, 2–3.09.1972. ▹ ‘Montreux: Espace-Situation 1972’. 24 heures feuille d’art de Lausanne, no. 77, 1972. ▹ ‘Kant e a realidade’. Jornal do Brasil, 25.02.1973, p. 7. ▹ Frederico Morais. ‘O que é a realidade’. Visuais, Fevereiro 1973. ▹ Jose Roberto Teixeira Leite. ‘Exposiçõ da Semana’.

O Globo, 26.02.1973, p. 7. ▹ ‘Jaroslaw Kozlowski’. Contacts, no. 4, 1973. ▹ ‘Jarosław Kozłowski. Einbildungskraft’. Hangups Und. Visuell, Konkret, International, no. 11/12, 1973. ▹ ‘Nelle Gallerie’. Domus, no. 521, 1973, p. 47. ▹ ‘Publications’. Avalanche, winter/spring 1973, pp. 6–7. ▹ Andrzej Kostołowski. ‘Sztuka i język’. Muzealnictwo, no. 22, 1974.

▹ David Zack. ‘Books’. Art & Artists, 09.1974, pp. 47–49. ▹ Ken Friedman. ‘Editorial’. Source, no. 11, 1974. ▹ ‘Jarosław Kozłowski. Strefa wyobraźni, An Apparatus, Meta-Physics’. Die Mitteilungsblätter (Institut fur Moderne Kunst, Nuremberg), no. 11, 1975. ▹ ‘Jaroslaw Kozlowski. Meta-Physics’. General Schmuck, no. 5, 1975. ▹ Zygmunt Korus. ‘Spotkania prekursorów i eklektyków awangardy’. Student, no. 3, 1976, pp. 10–11. ▹ Maciej Gutowski. ‘Wystawy warszawskie’. Kultura, 18.04.1976, p. 13. ▹ Anna Lechicka. ‘. . . odwiedziła Galerię Foksal’.

Szpilki, no. 11, 1976. ▹ Jerzy Madeyski. ‘Nie nudzić!’. Życie Literackie, no. 1246, 1976. ▹ Magowski Krzysztof. ‘Pokochajcie Kozłowskiego’.

Spojrzenia, 03.1976, p. 7. ▹ Alicja Kępińska. ‘Między teorią i praktyką / Between Theory and Practice’. Projekt, no. 2, 1977, pp. 54–56. ▹ Anda Rottenberg. ‘Nie mamy żadnych kompleksów’. Kultura, 20.11.1977, p. 12. ▹ ‘Vad ser ni Har…? Anka eller Kanin?’. Fredagen Deem, 14.01.1977, p. 24. ▹ Wiesława Wierzchowska. ‘10e biennale de Paris’.

Projekt, no. 1, 1978, pp. 44–46. ▹ Grzegorz Dziamski. ‘Przeciw galeriom’. Politechnik, no. 32, 1978, pp. 6–7. ▹ Piotr Piotrowski. ‘Akumulatory 2’. Literatura, 18.05.1978, p. 13. ▹ Piotr Piotrowski. ‘Foksal: wahania awangardy’.

Kultura, 5.08.1979. ▹ Bodil Schrewelius. ‘„Vägghål” som konst på Galerie S:t Petri’. Lundbladed Tisdag, 18.12.1979. ▹ Jean Fisher. ‘Jaroslaw Kozlowski, Caledonian Road Series’. Aspects. A Journal of Contemporary Art, no. 10, 1980. ▹ John Roberts. ‘Ellsworth Kelly at the Hayward, Mario Merz At the Whitechapel, Jaroslaw Kozlowski at Matt’s Gallery, Ian Bourn at the London Filmmakers Co-op, William Stok at All Saints site, Middlesex Poly’. Artscribe, no. 22, 1980, pp. 57–59. ▹ Elisabeth Jappe. ‘Jaroslaw Kozlowski, Polen.

Ausserinstitutionenelle Galerien’. Zweitschrift, no. 7, 1980, pp. 51–55. ▹ Edwarda Opoczyńska. ‘Jak to dobrze, że wszystko można zniszczyć’. Tygodnik Społeczno-Polityczny, no. 14, 1980. ▹ ‘Kunst auf Abriss’. Wohen — Journal, no. 274, 1983, p. 4. ▹ Zbigniew Makarewicz. ‘Świat skonstruowany logicznie przez Jarosława Kozłowskiego’. Nowe Życie.

Dolnośląskie Pismo Katolickie, no. 14, 1984, pp. 9–11. ▹ Wojciech Makowiecki. ‘Artyści Poznania’. Wprost, no. 19, 1986, pp. 25–26. ▹ Iwona Rajewska. ‘Galeryjne życie Poznania’. Sztuka, no. 2, 1986, pp. 48–50. ▹ B. Burns. ‘Jarosław Kozłowski’. Aspects, no. 33, 1986. ▹ D.W. ‘Kraftfelder’. Weserkurier, no. 25, 1986, p. 18. ▹ Heinz Thiel. ‘Galerie Gruppe Grün’. Kunstforum International, no. 84, 1986, pp. 302–4. ▹ Piotr Piotrowski. ‘Autokomentarz destrukcyjny’. Res Publica, no. 10, 1988, p. 53–58.

▹ Elizabeth Beauchamp. ‘Art as Performance Probing’. Edmonton Journal, no. 29, 1989. ▹ Mogens Damgaard. ‘Kurver og svimmel tid’. Fyens Stiftstidende Fredag, 3.02.1989, p. 19. ▹ Øystein Hjort. ‘En vekselvirkning mellem rummet og tiden’. Politiken, 03.02.1989. ▹ Joseph Reeder, ‘Jarosław Kozłowski. Installation/ Performance’. The Works. A Visual Arts Celebration, 23.06–04.07.1989, p. 31. ▹ Hilary Robinson. ‘Artists in Poland’. Artists Newsletter, 09.1989, pp. 26–28. ▹ Allan Shepard. ‘Polish Artist concerned with Freedom and Time’. Praire Link, 07–08.1989, p. 17. ▹ Gerdien Verschoor. ‘De Poolse erfenis van Malevich’. Beelding. Maandblad Voor Kunsten, no. 6, 1989, pp. 16–19. ▹ Bob Weber. ‘Art in Poland Thrives Despite Politics’.

Red Deer Advocate, 23.06.1989, p. 4B. ▹ Dorota Folga-Januszewska. ‘Prywatne muzea w Polsce?’. Obieg, no. 5, 1990. ▹ Elisabeth Beauchamp. ‘Drawings That Defy Definition’. The Journal, 26.06.1990. ▹ James Hall. ‘Rage against the Shining of the Light’.

The Sunday Correspondent, 25.02.1990. ▹ Jeff Instone. ‘Logical Paradox and the Colour of Time’. Art Monthly, no. 134, 1990, pp. 24–25. ▹ ‘Jaroslaw Kozlowski’. CV. Journal of Art and Craft, vol. 3, no. 2, 1990, p. 35. ▹ Alan Kellog. ‘Dissenting Voice from Poland’. The Edmonton Sunday Journal, 24.06.1990. ▹ Kim Levin. ‘Art that Intervenes’. The Village Voice, 15.01.1990, p. 84. ▹ David Lillington. ‘Jarosław Kozłowski. Matts’s Gallery’. Time Out, no. 1019, 1990. ▹ ‘The Works. Drawing Beyond Categories’. The Works.

A Visual Arts Celebration, 22.06–04.07.1990, p. 12. ▹ Joseph Reeder, ‘Drawing Beyond Categories’. The Works. A Visual Arts Celebration, 22.06–04.07.1990, pp. 12–13. ▹ James Roberts. ‘Jaroslaw Kozlowski Matt’s’.

Artscribe, summer 1990, p. 75. ▹ CVH, ‘Doppelte Identität: Neun polnische Künstler in Wiesbaden’. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 06.03.1991. ▹ ‘Dialog zwischen zwei Richtungen’. Wiesbadener Tagblatt, 02.03.1991. ▹ ‘Die „Doppelte Identität” als Installation’.

Wiesbadener Tagblatt, 02.03.1991. ▹ Verena Flick, ‘Mystik der einfachen Formen, Vieldeutigkeit der Gesichte’. Wiesbadener Kurier, 06.03.1991. ▹ Christian Huther. ‘Avantgardistische und traditionelle Formen’. Mennheimer Morgen, 28.03.1991. ▹ Christian Huther. ‘Doppelte Identität’. Südkurier, no. 77, 1991, p. 8. ▹ Kim Levin. ‘Rhetorical Image’. Choices. The Village Voice, 8.01.1991, p. 86. ▹ Brigitta Melten. ‘Der “Dialog” basiert auf den Kontrasten’. Wiesbadener Tagblatt, 06.03.1991. ▹ Maria Anna Potocka, ‘Podwójny wizerunek — Wielokrotna para’. Tumult. Przegląd Ideograficzny, no. 10, 1991, pp. 34–35. ▹ Christa von Helmot. ‘Metaphysiker und Formalisten’.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15.03.1991. ▹ Ken Friedman. ‘The Head through the Wall’. Siksi,

no. 3, 1992, pp. 52–53. ▹ Lars Grambye. ‘Brutale invitationer’. Information, no. 15, 1992. ▹ Jot. ‘Konceptualne oko’. Gazeta Wyborcza, no. 84, 1992. ▹ Zbigniew Taranienko. ‘Poszukiwania artystów.

Muzyka plastyki’. Nowa Europa, no. 69, 1992, p. 24. ▹ Christoph Blasé and Joanna Kiliszek. ‘Virulente Orte. Blicke auf Kunst und Kunstlet in Polen’. Neue Bildende Kunst, no. 1, 1993, pp. 4–8. ▹ Lars Grambye. ‘The Temporary Topographies of Tapko’. Tapko Magazine, no. 1, 1993. ▹ Angelika Stepken. ‘Polnische avantgarde 1930– 1960’. Neue Bildende Kunst, no. 1, 1993, pp. 65–66. ▹ Marzena Bomanowska. ‘Nie-porozumienia’.

Tygodnik Kulturalny, no. 27, 1994, p. 7. ▹ Krystyna Czerni. ‘Zszywanie Europy’. Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 24, 1994. ▹ Magnus Gatemark. ‘Byt stämning i konsthytten’.

Sydsvenskan, 8.08.1994, p. C6. ▹ ‘Instalacje Jarosława Kozłowskiego’. Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 50, 1994. ▹ Dorota Jarecka. ‘Propozycja bez puenty’. Gazeta Wyborcza, no. 266, 1994. ▹ Michael Krethlou. ‘Das Klima am Rand Europas’.

Bernen Zeitung, 11.05.1994. ▹ Marcus Moser. ‘“Klimata”: Kunst Und Herkunft’.

Berner Woche, 29.04–05.05.1994. ▹ Kristian Romare, ‘Fältet vidgas åt öst’. Sydsvenskan, 21.06.1994, p. A4. ▹ WB. Gazeta Łódzka, 22–23.10.1994, p. 2. ▹ Jan Brokman. ‘Forord / Foreword’. Terskel / Threshold (Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo), no. 15, 1995, pp. 4–5. ▹ ‘Dokmentasjon / Documentation. Jaroslaw Koslowski’. Terskel / Threshold (Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo), no. 16, 1996, pp. 102–12. ▹ Jaromir Jedliński. ‘Bałka i Kozłowski w galeriach Londynu’. Odra, 1995, no. 9. ▹ Simen Midgaard. ‘Opphøyet til ideal’.

Morgenbladet, 22–28.09.1995, p. 6. ▹ Håkon Moslet. ‘Han kødder med Newton’.

Dagbladet, no. 251, 1995. ▹ Lotte Sandberg. ‘Virkelighetens tvetydige verden’.

Observer. Norske Argus, 27.09.1995. ▹ Adrian Searle. ‘Jaroslaw Kozlowski, Matt’s’. Time Out, London’s Weekly Guide, 26.04–03.05.1995, p. 49. ▹ ‘“Something very else” from prizewinning Matt’s Gallery’. East and Life, 1.05–7.05.1995, p. 8. ▹ Urszula Szulakowska. ‘Jaroslaw Kozlowski, Matt’s Gallery, London April 7 to May 28’. Art Monthly, no. 187, 1995, pp. 40–41. ▹ Maria Anna Potocka. ‘Słyszenie sztuki’. Tumult.

Przegląd Ideograficzny, no. 12, 1996, pp. 30–31. ▹ Mariusz Rosiak. ‘Sztuka jako sztuka. W pracowni Jarosława Kozłowskiego’. Poznański Informator Kulturalny. Sportowy i Turystyczny, 12.1996, p. 6. ▹ Gregory Volk. ‘New Sculpture in the New Central Europe. Poland’. Sculpture, 12.1996, pp. 19–23. ▹ Agnieszka Balewska. ‘Czas wypatroszony’. Gazeta Malarzy i Poetów, no. 3, 1997, pp. 20–21. ▹ Barbara Gałężewska. ‘Klatki czasoprzestrzeni’. Pro Arte, jesień 1997, pp. 21–22. ▹ Mariusz Hryciuk. ‘Światy odwrócone’. Gazeta Wyborcza, no. 221, 1997, p. 15.

▹ Dorota Jarecka, ‘Światy odwrócone’. Gazeta Wyborcza, no. 221, 1997. ▹ György Karvázy. ‘Epizody’. Wiadomości Kulturalne, no. 47, 1997. ▹ Maciej Kosakowski. ‘Czas uwięziony’. Gazeta Wyborcza (Gazeta Wielkopolska), 24.05.1997, p. 4. ▹ Krzysztof Mazur. ‘Czas zmieniać sztukę’. Pal. Przegląd Artystyczno-Literacki, no. 7/8, 1997, pp. 77–80. ▹ Stach Szabłowski. ‘Tykanie — ćwiczenia z czasoprzestrzeni’. Art & Business, no. 6, 1997, pp. 63–64. ▹ Marek Wasilewski. ‘Przestrzenie czasu — przestrzenie sztuki’. Czas Kultury, no. 3, 1997, pp. 76–77. ▹ Ewa Wieczorek. ‘Kocham plastik’. Gazeta Wyborcza, no. 220, 1997. ▹ Bente Dalgaard. ‘Et bidrag til tidens Kunst’. Aalborg Stiftstidende, 30.01.1998. ▹ Bente Dalgaard. ‘Kunst til stedet’. Morgenposten Fyens Stiftstidende, 06.02.1998. ▹ Bente Dalgaard. ‘På lystvandring’. Morgenposten Fyens Stiftstidende, 16.02.1998. ▹ Marianne Hein. ‘Sondagsfest med morgenstemning’. Fyns Amts Avis, 12.02.1998. ▹ Karsten R. S. Ifversen. ‘Den fortabte søn’. Politiken, 07.04.1998. ▹ Jaromir Jedliński. ‘Visual Investigations of Jaroslaw Kozlowski’. Krasnogruda, 1998, pp. 81–86. ▹ Uta Przyboś. ‘Oglądanie sztuki obmywa oczy’.

Arkusz, no. 2, 1998, p. 5. ▹ Malene la Cour Rasmussen. ‘Vandring mellen drømme’. Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, 06.03.1998. ▹ Anne Ring Petersen. ‘Sunday Morning Walk’.

Berlingske Tidende, 06.02.1998. ▹ ‘Sztuka instalacji’. Rzeźba Polska (Centrum Rzeźby Polskiej, Orońsko), vol. VII, 1994–1995 (1998), pp. 17– 19, 58, 62, 115, 149, 185, 190, 193, 213, 214, 220. ▹ Birger Thogersen. ‘Kunsten er et fag’. Politiken, 07.04.1998. ▹ ‘Udstilling’. Information (Up), 05.02.1998. ▹ Donna Varrica. ‘Polish Artist Brings New Point of View to Fine Arts’. The Thursday Report, no. 13, 1998, pp. 1, 10. ▹ Torben Weirup. ‘Ad drømmenes boulevard’.

Berlingske Tidende, 19.03.1998. ▹ Regina Bärthel. ‘Chronos & Kairop. Von der Kunst, die Zeit zu bestimmen’. Kunsthalle + Kunstverein. Das Fridericianum Magazin, no. 3, 1999. ▹ Agnieszka Balewska. ‘Polerowanie ciepłej barwy’.

Gazeta Malarzy i Poetów, no. 5, 1999, p. 20. ▹ Piotr Bernatowicz. ‘Standardy absurdu — wersja poznańska’. Gazeta Wyborcza (Gazeta Wielkopolska), 14.10.1999, p. 5. ▹ ‘Emocje kontrolowane’. Alicja Kępińska interviewed

by Tomasz Wilmański. Żywa Galeria, no. 2, 1999. ▹ ‘Na Mediacje — spojrzenie raczej techniczne’. Żywa Galeria, no. 3, 1999. ▹ ‘Jarosław Kozlowski. Tímatóm (Time Vacuum)’.

Lesbók Morgunbladsins / Firma ’99, 21.08.1999, p. 2. ▹ Jaromir Jedliński. ‘Dociekania wizualne Jarosława Kozłowskiego’. Format, no. 2/3, 1999, pp. 54–57. ▹ ‘Í tíma og Ótíma’. Midvikudagur, no. 25, 1999, p. 12. ▹ ‘Nicowanie wartości’. Dom i Wnętrze, no. 9, 1999, pp. 78–79.

▹ Ewa Obrębowska-Piasecka. ‘Oczy w labiryncie świata’. Gazeta Wyborcza, 09.06.1999. ▹ Monika Polak. ‘Rysowanie świata’. Gazeta Wyborcza”(Gazeta Wielkopolska), 17.05.1999, p. 5. ▹ Ewa Sierocińska. ‘Wanna i drabina z ironią’.

Kulturalne Życie Stolicy, 28–29.08.1999, p. 5. ▹ Anna Sigriður Einarsdóttir. ‘Leitast við að vera gagnrýninn á sjálfan mig’. Morgunbaldid, 12.09.1999, p. 18. ▹ Nina Dvořakova. ‘Instalace žijí v reálném čase’.

Rounost, 7.03.2000 ▹ ‘Kozlowski Natáhl pět set budíků’. Mf Dnes, 1.03.2000, p. 18. ▹ Luboš Mareček. ‘Kozlowski umí stvořit umění z harampádí’. Mf Dnes, 01.03.2000, p. 3. ▹ Monika Polak. ‘Nie do czytania’. Gazeta Wyborcza (Gazeta Wielkopolska), 21.06.2000, p. 8. ▹ Simona Polcarová. ‘Jaroslaw Kozłowski se dočkal první výstavy u nás’. Brněnský a juhomoravský Den, no. 51, 2000. ▹ Zbigniew Warpechowski. ‘Smutna prawda’. Gazeta Malarzy i Poetów, no. 2, 2000, pp. 42–43. ▹ AB, ‘Tożsamość poszukiwana’. Gazeta Wyborcza (Gazeta w Krakowie), no. 34, 2001. ▹ AN, ‘Negocjatorzy sztuki’. Dziennik Polski, no. 35, 2001, p. 6. ▹ Anna Bugajska. ‘Tożsami z prowokacją’. Gazeta Wyborcza (Gazeta w Krakowie), 23.02.2001. ▹ Magda Huzarska-Szumiec. ‘Negocjowanie ze sztuką’. Gazeta Krakowska (Echo Krakowa), no. 36, 2001, 12.02.2001. ▹ Richard Kammerlings. ‘Krieg als Kienderspiel, Korper als Ornament: Polnische Kunst der neuziger Jahre in einer Krakauer Ausstellung’. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 43, 2001, p. 52. ▹ Paweł Majerski. ‘Konkret, koncept, znaki’. Opcje, no. 5, 2001, pp. 48–52. ▹ MSZ. ‘“Łaźnia” Kozyry, “Eroica” Libery . . .’. Gazeta Krakowska + Echo Krakowa, no. 35, 2001. ▹ OW. ‘Negocjatorzy sztuki?’. Aktivist (Cracow), no. 14, 2001. ▹ ‘Wobec rzeczywistości / Seeing the Reality’.

Kaleidoscope, no. 2, 2001. ▹ Jarosław Mulczyński. ‘Galeria Akumulatory 2, 1972– 1990’. Gazeta Malarzy i Poetów, no. 1, 2002. ▹ Paweł Polit. ‘Punkty zaczepienia. O sztuce Jarosława Kozłowskiego’. Kresy. Kwartalnik Literacki, no. 49, 2002, pp. 202–203. ▹ Jiří Valoch. ‘Rozvinuti konceptualnych hledisek’.

Atelier, no. 7, 2002. ▹ ‘Radość wizualna nie jest niewinna’. Jaromir Jedliński interviewed by Rafał Jakubowicz. Czas Kultury, no. 1, 2003, pp. 111–16. ▹ ‘Moderne polnische Kunst aus Posen’. Regensburg, 26.07.2004. ▹ Michael Scheiner. ‘Regensburg fangt Dickens fisch: “4 polen”’. Regensburg, 26.07.2004. ▹ BU. ‘Brisantes in der Schnupfe’. Rundschau, 29.05.2005. ▹ ‘Das Monument aus der Froschperspektive’.

Berliner Zeitung, no. 46, 2005. ▹ Ines Kohl. ‘Interesse am konkreten Gegenstand’.

Bayerische Staatzeitung und Bayericher Staatsanzieger, no. 32, 2005. ▹ Ines Kohl. ‘Poln. Stud. Sucht Arbeit im Haushalt’.

Straubinger Rundschau, 8.08.2005. ▹ Raab Harald. ‘Heisse Diskussian erwünscht: Kunst macht frei’. Mittelbayerische Zeitung, 28.07.2005. ▹ SB. ‘Werke über die Zweispälte der Welt’.

Donaupost, 27.06.2005. ▹ Michael Scheiner. ‘Wie frai macht die Kunst?’.

Regensburg, 5.08.2005. ▹ Marianne Sperb. ‘Provokation unter Kreuzrippen’.

Mittelbayerische Zeitung, 23.06.2005. ▹ SR. ‘Kunst zwischen Kapital und Katholizismus’.

Donaupost, 30.07.2005. ▹ SW. ‘Wyliczanka Kozłowskiego’. Gazeta Wyborcza.

Co Jest Grane?, 14–20.01.2005. ▹ Piotr Woźniakiewicz. ‘Zjednoczony świat Jarosława Kozłowskiego w XX1’. Obieg, 2005, http://www.obieg. pl/recenzje/2402 (accessed 20.11.2010). ▹ ‘Voll auf Achse: Jaroslaw Kozlowski: “Grüsse aus Berlin”’. Kulturprogramm des Berliner Tagesspiegels, 17–23.02.2005. ▹ ‘12 Sonnabend, Finisage Jarosław Kozłowski’. Berlin & Potsdam, 03.03–16.03.2005. ▹ AN. ‘Zasłony i maski’. Dziennik Polski, no. 132, 2006. ▹ Katarzyna Bik. ‘Kozłowski nas zadziwi?’. Gazeta Wyborcza (Cracow), 09.06.2006. ▹ KN. ‘Artyści podbijają Brazylię’. Dziennik, 7–8.10.2006. ▹ Roman Lewandowski. ‘Biblioteka znaków / The Libraries of Signs’. Exit, no. 3, 2006, pp. 4160–71. ▹ Zbigniew Makarewicz. ‘Nie przychodzimy znikąd’.

Dyskurs. Zeszyty Naukowo-Artystyczne Akademii Sztuk Pięknych we Wrocławiu, no. 5, 2006/2007, pp. 7, 212–13, 220–21. ▹ Anda Rottenberg. ‘Utopia globalnej wioski’.

Dziennik. Kultura, 13.10.2006. ▹ BS. ‘W pułapce czasu’. Ziemia Kaliska, 9.03.2007. ▹ Thea Herold, ‘Die Wiederbelebung der bunten Elefanten, „Berliner Zeitung” 2007, no. 170. ▹ Andrzej Kostołowski. ‘Żyć razem’. Format, no. 53, 2007. ▹ Bartosz Łukaszonek. ‘Miejsce i czas Jarosława Kozłowskiego’. Obieg, 17.03.2007, http://www.obieg. pl/cal2007/07031502.php (accessed 20.11.2010). ▹ AN. ‘Nie-prawdy, nie-kłamstwa . . .’. Dziennik Polski, no. 146, 2009. ▹ Majka Justyna. ‘Trochę sztuki, trochę kiczu’. Gazeta Wyborcza. Co Jest Grane (Cracow), no. 142, 2009. ▹ Łukasz Gazur. ‘Przeprowadzka’. Sztuka.pl. Gazeta Antykwaryczna, no. 7/8, 2009, pp. 118–19. ▹ Aneta Rostkowska. ‘Ćwiczenia konceptualne’.

Dwutygodnik, no. 10, 2009, http://www.dwutygodnik. com/artykul/369-cwiczenia-konceptualne.html (accessed 20.11.2010). ▹ Piotr Stasiowski. ‘Kwadratura tarczy budzika’.

Art & Business, 2009, no. 7/8, pp. 50–52. ▹ Anna Theiss. ‘Najlepsze wystawy w mieście: Parawany’. Dziennik. Kultura, no. 184, 2009. ▹ Anna Theiss. ‘Złudzenia ze stróżówki’. Dziennik.

Kultura, no. 172, 2009, p. 29. ▹ Tadeusz Piersiak. ‘Nasze ciągłe wędrowanie’.

Gazeta Wyborcza (Częstochowa), 6–7.03.2010, p. 4. ▹ ‘Rozmowa ma trwać’. Alicja Kępińska interviewed

by Ewa Wójtowicz. Zeszyty Artystyczne, no. 19, 2010, pp. 67–76.

Unpublished ▹ Bogatko, Jakub. Przestrzeń i czas książki artystycznej. Master’s thesis, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, 2010. ▹ Brandt, Natalia. Nieokreśloność a kolor. Master’s thesis, Academy of Fine Arts, Poznań, 2009. ▹ Cembrzyńska, Patrycja. ‘Świat — wersja nomadyczna’, chapter in Wieża Babel. Nowoczesny projekt porządkowania świata i jego dekonstrukcja.

PhD diss., Jagiellonian University, Faculty of History, Cracow, 2009. ▹ Dziamski, Grzegorz. Nowa sztuka w poszukiwaniu wartości, 2004. Typescript in Profile Foundation archives. ▹ Janczewski, Andrzej. Reformy Jarosława Kozłowskiego oraz jego filozofia uczenia sztuki.

Master’s thesis, Academy of Fine Arts, Poznań, 2003. ▹ Jaroslaw Koslowski, Academy of Fine Arts, Poznan.

Interview by Guy Schraenen, October 30, 1981.

Typescript in Profile Foundation archives. ▹ Półtawska, Maria. Interview with Jarosław Kozłowski, in Moralny aspekt sztuki. Cztery wywiady.

Master’s thesis, State School of Visual Arts (now Academy of Fine Arts), Poznań, 1993. ▹ Wilmański, Tomasz. Okno na świat sztuki.

Wspomnienie o Galerii Akumulatory 2 w 30 rocznicę jej powstania, 2002. Typescript in Profile Foundation archives.

QUOTATION MARKS JAROSŁAW KOZŁOWSKI edited by Bożena Czubak graphic design: Iwo Rutkiewicz. translations: Ewa Kanigowska-Giedroyć, Andrea K. Lerner, Krystyna Mazur, Barbara Ostrowska, Barbara Kopeć-Umiastowska, Marcin Wawrzyńczak copyediting: Małgorzata Jurkiewicz illustrations selected by Bożena Czubak and Jarosław Kozłowski biographical note and bibliography: Maja Kokot proofreading: Benjamin Cope printed by Akapit, Lublin © Profile Foundation, Warsaw 2010 Publication supported by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland

The works reproduced in the book come from the following collections: Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, pp. 282, 292 Generali Foundation, Vienna, pp. 16, 54, 80, 81, 92, 93, 102, 245 Signum Foundation, Poznań, pp.17, 146, 263, 284 René Block Collection, pp. 260, 261, 381 Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum in Bydgoszcz, pp. 152, 316 National Museum in Poznań, pp. 148, 149, 222 Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, pp. 96, 97, 305 District Museum in Konin, p. 147 Museum of Contemporary Art, Cracow, p. 329 Arbaer Museum, Reykjavik, pp. 236, 251, 270, 271 Wielkopolskie Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych, Poznań, p. 276 Warmińsko-Mazurskie Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych, Olsztyn, pp. 198, 358, 359 Dolnośląskie Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych, Wrocław, p. 301 private collections: pp. 88, 89, 140, 141, 169, 243, 346, 347, 362, 389 Photographs courtesy of: René Block: p. 381 Natalia Brandt: pp. 14, 43, 89, 98, 106–121, 124, 128, 137, 202, 275–277, 291, 323, 327–328, 338, 348, 353, 354–357, 372, 388, 389 Manuel Citak: p. 317 Michał Diament: p. 75 Foksal Gallery: p. 88 Galerie Impact: p. 90 Robin Klassnik: p. 10 Kinga Kozłowska: pp. 30, 31, 79, 94 Jarosław Kozłowski: pp. 13, 16, 17, 26, 29, 47, 50–54, 61–63, 65, 67, 74, 78, 80, 81, 84, 85, 87, 93, 95, 101, 102, 122, 125, 126, 128, 131, 133, 135, 136, 138–141, 143–169, 207–214, 216–236, 243, 245, 246, 248, 250–252, 255–267, 269–274, 278–280, 282–284, 293–295, 298–305, 308–313, 320–322, 324–326, 329–332, 334, 345–347, 349–352, 360, 362, 367, 373–377, 379, 383–385 Tomasz Kula: pp. 286, 287 Pavel Liška: p. 37 Hanna Łuczak: pp. 10, 18, 38, 215, 332, 333, 337, 365, 371, 382, 386, 387 Magda Materna: pp. 40, 44, 306 Mariusz Michalski: pp. 268, 296, 314–316, 318, 319 Helmut Nickels: pp. 32, 240 Jerzy Nowakowski: pp. 22, 71–73, 83, 92 Andrzej Paruzel: pp. 25, 39, 358, 359, 382 Jerzy Patan: p. 82 Planet Foto: p. 292 Tadeusz Rolke: p. 77 Jadwiga Rubiś: p. 134 Jerzy Sabara: p. 142 Waldemar Tatarczuk: p. 380 Morten Thorkildsen: pp. 297, 307 Edward Woodman: pp. 8, 19 If you believe an image in this publication lacks copyright compliance, please contact Profile Foundation