Selected Projects

selected projects

Projekty Wybrane

Anything that exists has a certain space around it, even an idea exists within a certain space Lawrence Weiner

The book is an integral part of the exhibition.

It comprises a text section and a catalogue.

The first part will include texts presenting a series of subjects to be raised by exhibited works. The second part will form a catalogue including records from the process of creation of the exhibition. Photographs and illustrations (also texts, in justified cases) included in the catalogue shall complete the works displayed in the exhibition and shall serve as guidelines for further inquiry.

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Wojciech Kozłowski

This is a cyclic dream, repeating in different variants. It is quite pleasant, although waking up after it, is not. It’s taking place in the gallery building. In the beginning of action, it is more or less the same as the real one, which is small (it is 608 square meters in total). For most of the action, I am alone. Sometimes, I see someone passing by, barely visible, but this is not particularly important.

In the first version, action is limited to office space only – I’m finding or visiting only new, unknown to me, or recently discovered places. In one of my dreams, these are offices left after some institutions which have occupied this space earlier. Old desks, dried up flowers, old and forgotten magazines clutter the floor. Dust of desertion covering all objects is, depending on the dream, several days’ or several years’ thick. Sometimes I realize that I should have done something about it a long time ago, that I knew about the existence of these rooms, but I never had the time or money to renovate and occupy them. Sometimes, I find myself in rooms I have never been to yet, unaware of their existence. In one of my dreams, this was a second staircase leading to completely unknown rooms. Forgotten space, strange, dusty… a window with broken glass. Furniture from the 70’s, rather unimportant papers, several old books. Nothing personal, just scraps.

Each dream was filled with an exciting consciousness of the possibility of setting in new spaces for certain practical purposes. This consciousness is, however, accompanied by a kind of anxiety concerning my financial possibilities for renovating the spaces.

Each time, I felt joy in exploring and discovering something important. It turned out, however, that history would always disappear, that nothing was hiding under the layer of dust.

The genesis of this dream is obvious, since several institutions have been occupying the BWA gallery building since the beginning of its operation. The Social Found for the Reconstruction of the Capital City (‘Społeczny Fundusz Odbudowy Stolicy’) occupied the first floor due to the fact that the construction of the building was partially founded by this Fund. After several years, this storey was taken by the local department of the Polish Architects Association. When I started working at the BWA, it was open only once a week. I had been there only once before that. The first floor also housed the Association of Polish Manual Artists and Manual Art Studios. After the Association of Polish Manual Artists was suspended, PP Polish Art (‘PP Sztuka Polska’) opened in the same place, with the same staff. BWA offices were situated in two rooms in the second floor.

In the 90’s, the building also housed the office of one member of the Polish parliament and an advertising agency. It was taken over completely by the gallery in c.a. 1996.

This recurring dream is obviously also an expression of a constant sense of shortage, lack of space, inability to extend the institution. The second version of the dream concerns showrooms. In this version, I visit unknown, usually grand rooms, which I usually

enter through the back door of the “real” gallery. I am overwhelmed by a sense of surprise that I have not seen these rooms before, or by anxiety to push renovation works ahead. These rooms are always unready, but also very large, high and bright.

Sometimes they have adobe masonry walls, sometimes they are nearly finished. When I watch them, I look for potential exhibitions I will be able to organize in them. Finally, without spatial limitations. I remember the joy and relief I felt when I realized that the problem troubling me would be solved so soon.

The strength of these dreams is so immense that, after waking up, I have to think for a while and remember, whether this was only a dream or an event from past days. Only when I remember that the new room would have to be located behind the existing one, and that there is no space for such room there, since the lot ends one meter behind the storehouse wall, I realize that this is only a dream. However, I sometimes looked for these nonexistent spaces, although I seemed to know everything about the building.

The most probable theory occurring to me was about spaces hidden under the main room. In order to get there, one had to break a wall in the basement, which was a boiler room once. Nothing, however, points to the existence of this room. I have a strong relation with the BWA gallery building. Of course, I separate my work from my personal life, however, this space is something more for me than just a place for professional development. I have witnessed its transformations for 25 years. I have been the author of some of them, some of them I agreed to, some of them I couldn’t prevent, some of them I regret, and some are still ahead. Until recently, this was the only individual building built after the war, stretching from the railway station to the Market Square. Its façade has been looking the same for over 45 years, apart from the plastic windows (which are an obvious misunderstanding).

In relation to other buildings, all of them from the turn of the 19 and 20 century, the modernist shape of our building is one of sparse examples of the city authorities’ new, reasonable urban activity. Artists have been trying to give the city a shape. They were never successful in this, with the exception of such buildings as this. I sometimes dream of a part of Zielona Góra I have never been to before.

January, 2011

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BORIS GROYS, The Loneliness Of The Project

The formulation of diverse projects has now become the major preoccupation of contemporary man. These days, whatever endeavor one sets out to pursue in the economic, political or cultural field, one first has to formulate a fitting project in order to apply for official approval or funding of the project from one or several public authorities.

Should this project in its original form be rejected, it is then modified in an attempt to improve its chances of being accepted. If the revised project is dismissed out of hand, one has no alternative but to propose an entirely new one in its place. In this manner, all members of our society are constantly preoccupied with devising, discussing and dismissing an endless series of projects. Appraisals are written, budgets meticulously calculated, commissions assembled, committees appointed and resolutions tabled.

Not inconsiderable numbers of our contemporaries spend their time reading nothing but proposals, appraisals and budgets of this nature. Most of these projects remain forever unrealized. All it requires is one or another assessor to report that a project lacks promise, is difficult to finance, or is simply undesirable, and the entire labor invested in the project’s formulation has been a waste of time.

Needless to say, the degree of work invested in the presentation of a project is quite considerable and becomes more labor-intensive as time progresses. The projects submitted to various juries, commissions and public bodies are packaged in increasingly elaborate design and formulated with ever-greater detail so as to suitably impress their potential assessors. Accordingly, this mode of project formulation is gradually advancing to an art form in its own right whose significance for our society is still all too little acknowledged. For, regardless of whether or not it is actually carried out, each project in fact represents a draft for a particular vision of the future, and in each case one that can be fascinating and instructive. However, most of the projects which our civilization is ceaselessly generating often just vanish or are simply thrown away once they have been rejected. This culpably negligent treatment of the project as an art form is indeed highly regrettable since it bars us from analyzing and understanding the hopes and visions for the future that have been invested in these projects and which might offer greater insight into our society than anything else. This is clearly not the appropriate context to undertake a sociological analysis of contemporary projects. But the question one might ask at this point is what hopes are linked to the project as such?

Or, why do people want to do a project at all, instead of just living on into the future unfettered by projects?

The following answer can be given to this question: above all else, each project strives to acquire a socially sanctioned loneliness. Indeed, to lack a plan of any kind inevitably puts us at the mercy of the general flow of world events, of overall universal fate, com-

pelling us to maintain constant communication with out immediate surroundings. This is strikingly apparent in the case of events that per definitionem occur without prior planning, such as earthquakes, major fires or flooding. These sorts of events bring people closer together, forcing them to communicate with one another and act in unison. But the same also applies to any kind of personal misfortune – whoever has just broken a leg or been struck down by a virus immediately becomes dependent on outside help. But in everyday life, even when it mindlessly ticks on without purpose, people are held in a common bond by a shared rhythm of work and recreation. In the prevailing conditions of daily life, individuals who are not prepared to enter into communication at any moment with their fellow men rate as difficult, antisocial and unfriendly, and are subject to social censure.

But this situation undergoes a volte-face whenever someone can present a socially sanctioned individual project as the reason for his self-isolation and renunciation of any form of communication. We all understand that when somebody has to carry out a project, he is under immense time pressure that leaves him no time whatsoever for anything else. It is commonly accepted that writing a book, preparing an exhibition or striving to make a scientific discovery are pastimes that permit the individual to avoid social contact, to discommunicate, if not to excommunicate himself – yet without automatically being judged to be a bad person. The (agreeable) paradox about this is that the longer the project is scheduled to run, the greater the time pressure one is subjected to. Most projects that are approved in the present framework of the artistic world are scheduled to run for a period of up to five years at the most. In exchange, after this limited period of seclusion, the individual is expected to present a finished product and return to the fray of social communication, at least up to the point, possibly, when he or she submits a proposal for yet another project. In addition, our society still continues to accept projects that might preoccupy a person for the entire length of his life, as for instance in the fields of science or art. Someone in avid pursuit of a particular goal of knowledge or of artistic activity is permitted to have no time for his social environment for an unlimited duration. What is nonetheless still expected of him is that, at least by the final moment of his life, he has some form of finished product to show for – namely, a work – that will retrospectively offer social justification for the life he has spent in isolation. But there are also other kinds of projects that have no set time limit, infinite projects such as religion or the building of a better society that irrevocably remove people from their overall communicative contemporaneity and transfer them into the time frame of a lonely project.

The execution of such projects often demands collective effort. The isolation of a project thereby frequently becomes a shared isolation. Numerous religious communities and sects are known to have withdrawn from the overall communicative enclosure to pursue their own religious project of spiritual improvement. During the communist era, entire countries severed themselves from the rest of humanity in order to achieve their target of building a better society. Of course, all these projects can now be safely said

to have failed since they have no finished product to show for, and because at a certain point in history their proponents also eschewed their self-isolation in favor of stood as the constant expansion of communication, as a process of progressive secularization that disperses all states of loneliness and self-isolation. Modernization is seen as the emergence of a new society of total inclusion that rules out all forms of exclusivity. But the project as such is an altogether modern phenomenon – equally, the project to create an open, thoroughly secularized society of total communication is ultimately also still a project. And, as already mentioned, each project first and foremost amounts to a proclamation and establishment of seclusion and self-isolation. This gives an ambivalent status to modernity.

On the one hand it fosters a compulsion for total communication and total collective contemporaneity, while on the other it is constantly generating new projects that repeatedly end in the reconquest of radical isolation. This too is how we must perceive the various projects of the historical artistic avant-garde, which devised their own languages and their own aesthetic agendas. The languages of the avant-garde might have been conceived with universal application in mind, as the promise of a common future for one and all; yet, during their own time, they brought on the communicative (self-) isolation of their advocates, thus clearly branding them for all to see.

Why does the project result in isolation? The answer to this has in fact already been given. Each project is above all the declaration of another, new future that is supposed to come about once the project has been executed. But in order to induce such a new future one first has to take a period of leave or absence for oneself, with which the project has transferred its agent into a parallel state of heterogeneous time. This other time frame, in turn, is undocked from time as experienced by society: it is desynchronized. Society’s life carries on regardless thereof; the usual run of things remains unimpinged. But unnoticed somewhere beyond this general flow of time, somebody has begun working on another project. He is writing a book, preparing an exhibition or planning a spectacular act of terrorism. And he is doing this in the hope that once the book is published, the exhibition opened or the assassination carried out, the general run of things will change and all mankind will be bequeathed a different future; the very future, in fact, to which this project has anticipated and aspired. In other words, at first glance every project would appear to thrive solely on the hope of its resynchronization with the general run of things. The project is deemed a success if this resynchronization managed to steer the run of things in the desired direction. And it is deemed a failure if the run of things remains unaffected by the project’s realization. Yet, success and failure of the project both have one thing in common: both outcomes terminate the project, and both lead to the resynchronization of the project’s parallel state of time with that of the general run of things.

If one has a project – or more precisely, is living in a project – one always is already in the future. One is working on something that (still) cannot be shown to others, that

remains concealed and incommunicable. The project allows one to emigrate from the present into a virtual future, thereby causing a temporal rupture between oneself and everyone else, for they have not yet arrived in this future and are still waiting for the future to happen. But the author of the project already knows what the future will look like, since his project is nothing other than a description of this future. The key reason, incidentally, why the approval process for a project is so highly unpleasant to the project’s author is because, at the earliest stage of its submission, he is already being asked to give a meticulously detailed description of how this future will be brought about and what its outcome will be. If the author proves incapable of doing so, his project will be turned down and refused funding. Yet, should he in fact manage to deliver the stipulated precise description he will eliminate this very distance between himself and the others that constitutes the entire appeal of this project. If everyone knows from the very outset what course the project is likely to take and what its outcome will be, then the future will no longer come as a surprise to them. With that, however, the project loses its inherent purpose. For the project’s author, namely, everything in the here and now is of no consequence since he is already living in the future and views the present as something that has to be overcome, abolished or at least changed. This is why he sees no reason why he should justify himself to, or communicate with the present.

Quite the contrary, it is the present that needs to justify itself to the future that has been proclaimed in the project. It is precisely this time gap, the precious opportunity to take a look at the present from the future, that makes the life lived in the project so enticing to its author and, inversely, that makes the project’s execution ultimately so upsetting.

Hence, in the eyes of any author of a project, the most agreeable projects are those, which, from their very inception, are conceived never to be completed, since these are the ones that are more likely to maintain the gap between the future and the present for an unspecified length of time. Such projects are never carried out, never generate an end result, never bring about a final project. But this is by no means to say that such unfinished, uncompletable projects are utterly excluded from social representation, even if they could never be expected to effect a resynchronization with the general run of things through some manner of specific result, successful or not. These kinds of projects can, after all, still be documented.

Sartre once described the state of ‘being-a-project-in-progress’ as the ontological condition of human existence. According to Sartre, each person lives from the perspective of their own, individual future that perforce remains barred from the view of others. In Sartre’s terms, this condition results in the radical alienation of each individual, since everyone else can only see him as the finished product of his personal circumstances, but never as a heterogeneous project of these circumstances. Consequently, the heterogeneous parallel time frame of the project remains elusive to any form of representation in the present. Hence, for Sartre, the project is tainted by the suspicion of escapism, the deliberate avoidance of social communication and individual responsibility. So it is no surprise that Sartre also describes the subject’s ontological condition as a state of mauvaise foi or insincerity. And, for this reason, the existential hero of Sartrean

provenience is perennially tempted to close the gap between the time of his project and that of the general run of things through a violent ‘action directe’ and thereby, if only for a brief moment, synchronize both frames. But while the heterogeneous time of the project cannot be brought to a conclusion, it can, as previously observed, be documented. One could even claim that art is nothing other than the documentation and representation of such project-based heterogeneous time. Long ago, this meant documenting divine history as a project for world redemption. Nowadays, it is about individual and collective projects for diverse futures. In any case, art documentation now grants all unrealized or unrealizable projects a place in the present without forcing them to be either a success or a failure. In these terms, Sartre’s own writings could also be considered to be documentation of this kind.

In the past two decades the art project – in lieu of the work of art – has without question moved to centre stage in the art world’s attention. Each art project may presuppose the formulation of a specific aim and of a strategy designed to achieve this aim, but this target is mostly formulated in such a way that we are denied the criteria which would allow us to ascertain whether the project’s aim has or has not been achieved, whether excessive time is required to reach its goal or even if the target as such is intrinsically unattainable. Our attention is thereby shifted away from the production of a work (including a work of art) onto life in the art project; life that is not primarily a productive process, that is not tailored to developing a product, that is not ‘result oriented’.

In these terms, art is no longer understood as the production of works of art; but as documentation of life-in-the-project, regardless of the outcome the life in question has or it supposed to have had. This clearly has an effect on the way art is now defined.

Nowadays art is no longer manifested as another, new object for contemplation that has been produced by the artist, but as another, heterogeneous time-frame of the art project, which is documented as such.

A work of art is traditionally understood to be something that wholly embodies art, lending it immediacy and palpable, visible presence. When we go to an art exhibition, we

generally assume that whatever is there on display – paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, videos, ready-mades or installations – must be art. The works can of course in one way or another make reference to things that they are not, maybe to realworld objects or to certain political issues, but they do not allude to art itself, because they themselves are art. However, this traditional assumption defining visits to exhibitions and museums has proved progressively more misleading. Besides works of art, in present-day art spaces, we are now to an ever-increasing degree also confronted with the documentation of art in various guises. Similarly, here too we see pictures, drawings, photographs, videos, texts and installations, in other words: the same forms and media in which art is commonly presented. But when it comes to art documentation, art is no longer presented through these media but simply documented. For art documentation is per definitionem not art. Precisely by merely referring to art, art documentation makes it quite clear that art itself is no longer at hand and instantly visible but, instead, absent and hidden.

Art documentation thus signals the attempt to use artistic media within art spaces to make direct reference to life itself, in other words: to a form of pure activity or pure praxis, as it were; indeed, a reference to life in the art project, yet without wishing to directly represent it. Here, art is transformed into a way of life, whereby the work of art is turned into non-art, to mere documentation of this of life. Or, put in different terms, art is now becoming biopolitical because it has begun to produce and document life itself as pure activity by artistic means. Not only that, but art documentation could only have evolved at all under the conditions of our biopolitical age, in which life itself has become the object of technical and artistic creativity. So, once more we are faced with the question as to the relationship between life and art; but in an utterly novel constellation, one which is characterized by the paradox of art in the guise of the art project now also wanting to become life, instead of, for instance, simply reproducing life or furnishing it with art products. But the conventional question that comes to mind is to what extent documentation, including art documentation, can actually represent life itself? All documentation is under general suspicion of inexorably adulterating life. For

each act of documentation and archiving presupposed a certain choice of things and circumstances. Yet, such a selection is determined by criteria and values which are always questionable, and necessarily remain so. Furthermore, the process of documenting something always opens up a disparity between the document itself and the documented events, a divergence that can neither be bridged nor erased. But even if we managed to develop a procedure capable of reproducing life in its entirety and with total authenticity, we would again ultimately end up not with life itself, but with life’s death mask, for it is the very uniqueness of life that constitutes its vitality. It is for this reason that our culture today is marked by a deep malaise towards documentation and the archive, and even by vociferous protest against the archive in the name of life.

The archivists and bureaucrats in charge of documentation are widely regarded as the enemies of true life, favoring the compilation and administration of dead documents over the direct experience of life. In particular, the bureaucrat is viewed as an agent of death who wields the chilling power of documentation to render life grey, monotonous, uneventful and bloodless – in brief, deathlike. Similarly, once the artist too starts to become involved with documentation, he runs the risk of being associated with the bureaucrat, under suspicion as a new agent of death.

As we know, however, the bureaucratic documentation stored in archives does not consist solely of recorded memories, but also includes projects and plans directed not at the past but at the future. These archives of projects contain drafts for life that has not yet taken place, but as it is perhaps meant to in the future. And what this means in our own biopolitical era is not merely making changes to the fundamental conditions of life, but actively engaging in the production of life itself. Biopolitics is frequently mistaken for the scientific and technological strategies of genetic manipulation, which, theoretically at least, aim to reshape individual living beings. Instead, the real achievement of biopolitical technology has far more to do with shaping longevity itself, with organizing life as an event, as pure activity that occurs in time. From procreation and the provision of life-long medical care to the regulation of the balance between work and leisure and medically supervised, if not medically induced death, the life of each individual today is permanently subject to artificial control and improvement. And precisely because life is now no longer perceived as a primeval, elementary event of being, as fate or fortuna, as time that unravels of its own accord, but is seen instead as time that can be artificially produced and formed, life can be documented and archived before it has even taken place. Indeed, bureaucratic and technological documentation serves as the primary medium of modern biopolitics. The schedules, regulations, investigative reports, statistical surveys and project outlines that this kind of documentation consists of are constantly generating new life. Even the genetic archive that is contained in every living being can ultimately be understood as a component of this documentation; one that both documents the genetic structure of previous, obsolete organisms, yet also enables the same genetic structure to be interpreted as a blueprint for creating future living organisms. This means that, given the current state of biopolitics, the archive no longer allows us to differentiate between memory and project, between past

and future. This, incidentally, also offers the rational basis for what in the Christian tradition is termed the Resurrection and for what in political and cultural domains is known as a revival. For the archive of elapsed forms of life can at any moment turn out to be a script for the future. By being stored in the archive as documentation, life can be repeatedly re-lived and constantly reproduced within historical time, should anyone resolve to undertake such reproduction. The archive is the site where past and future become reversible.

The art project can be documented because life in the art project was originally artificial, and this life can be reproduced in time in just the same way as works of art can be reproduced in space. By this token, an unfinished, unrealized or even initially rejected project is far better suited for demonstrating the inner nature of modern life as life-in-theproject than all those projects that have been approved of and successfully concluded. Such ‘failed’ projects namely shift attention more clearly away from the project’s result and onto the processual character of fulfilling the project, ultimately focusing on the project author’s subjectivity. The art project that addresses the impossibility of being concluded offers a constantly changing definition of the figure of the author. In this case, the author is no longer the producer of an art object, but the person who is documenting – and thereby authorizing – the heterogeneous time of a life in the project, including his own life as well. But the author is not being occasioned to do this by some public body or institution that possesses the power to authorize in the sense of granting permission. Rather, this is more like an authorization provided at one’s own risk, one that not only admits the possibility of failure, but indeed explicitly celebrates it. In any case, though, this kind of authorization of life-in-the-project opens up another, heterogeneous parallel time frame – the time of desirable and socially legitimate loneliness.

The Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen invited Boris Groys to write this text following a discussion between him, Bart De Baere and Barbara Van der Linden on this topic in Essen on February 11th and 12th 2002.

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Design thinking Interview with Katarzyna Roj, curator of the Design gallery – BWA Wrocław Romuald Demidenko: Since some time I have informed you about my plans involved with the exhibition. From the beginning, the idea was to organize an exhibition about design but I preferred to invite artists instead of inviting designers. You have organized numerous exhibitions, so you have considerable experience in working with artists and designers. Are they joined with a relation of some sort? To make it clear, let’s assume that, once, at art academies, there was no such division but both disciplines have polarized over time. The Renaissance is certainly a far-fetched reference for us. I wonder how it works now, how it looks in your perspective. What kinds of goals do designers go for?

Katarzyna Roj: More and more I believe in designer teams – I can see a big potential in group work, provided that one person makes the final decision. It’s a bit like a film production. Film, similarly to design, is a very complex work requiring specialist knowledge and creativity in many fields. And indeed – we may be ready to have a controversy like the one of the „author’s theory”. The difference is that thousands of people putting their contribution to films, have their mention in the final credits. On the other hand, we know nothing of the team of designers implementing a design project.

The initial concept and its realization entail very complex processes taking into account factual, formal, ergonomic and social aspects. I am purposefully avoiding the use of terms related to object design as design has been co-operating with objects for a long time. Today, we are designing almost everything and thus there are theses of increasing „dematerialization” of the issue. To tell the truth, in Poland, little has been said about it. Design is defined for a luxury car, lounge or cell phones. Whereas, many areas of our lives are being designed in the same way as everyday objects. Commonly these are fields of innovation – business, politics, or the media. To make up solutions for these sectors, we need a so-called „design thinking” – which is a magic spell for the new century. The procedure consists of 7 steps including: defining a problem (remember that design is in this way different to e.g. art that it exceeds the critical level and proposes ready solutions, effectively), research, addressing the target (recipient) and then the process of prototyping, objectification and implementation of solutions. The seventh, important step is evaluation, a crucial moment of strict self-estimation of the realized process. When we learn how complex the process is and how many skills it requires, we can start imagining the designers themselves, as they have to be perfectly sensitive about formal or aesthetic cover and familiar with technology and materials.

A designer has to draw, since there is no better way of visualizing ideas. He is obliged to proceed with an executive design and production control. It would be good if he could negotiate with a client – understand both the aim of the project and the interest of a commissioner. If the design is complex, e.g. spatial planning – know-how should

be included, regarding iconography plus economic and social conditions. A designer is the one who can indicate when the realization is or will turn out to be a success. If it is an experiment, then he has to describe its boundary value. Many of those skills are possibly taught at art academies or technological departments, yet adepts don’t feel satisfied with the curriculum. The popularity of project teams in Poland can also be conceived as an attempt to create a „dream team”, in which a specific person is responsible for a specific issue. The dream program would then – besides a designer workshop – consist of methodology („design thinking”) and sets a designer’s job in the context of other cultural aspects. Artists are inclined to design since it is a demiurge discipline. Artists, especially from the first half of the 20th century, have not been treating art as an area of an excess thus designing the „everyday” was a part of their artistic beliefs. The situation hasn’t changed much – “artistic” ideas included in designer projects are not as convincing as artistic projects undertaking the motif of design.

RD: Perhaps this is a feature of the Polish design. Do you think that we can distinguish some of its characteristic features?

KR: Situation of the Polish design has changed, as everything after 1989. The first decade is still waiting for thorough research, only its weak sides are be mentioned but certainly many of those opinions will be verified according to the vivid interest in the 90s. Since the beginning of 21st century, a sharp boom for design is noticeable, though it is often understood in a primitive way, frequently as a kind of a formal manner. The market is growing, yet only in the biggest cities, new media and also festivals. Commonly the „designer” exhibitions take place in art institutions. Local governmental policy often supports initiatives regarding design as an innovative and urban expression.

Good times are coming for Polish design, especially because the designers started being recognized in the West. Answering your question – several attempts were made to describe Polish design, however, I couldn’t find even one satisfactory description.

Resourceful, creative, looking for a stylistic and formal continuation – it’s still too little to talk about a certain specificity. It’s not different when we look at the production process. We are renown as a leading furniture producer, even though the most popular furniture shop is still IKEA. Once, during my conversation with Bogna Świątkowska she noted that Polish design, the one presented in showrooms, on fairs and festivals, consisted mainly of lamps which designers could make themselves at home and sent to a client in a package. It’s a sardonic remark but it would be rather difficult to disagree. Therefore, instead of looking for the contiguous points, we’d better think how to create conditions for young designers to work and help them recognize the new area of functioning. After the period of „madness” and spontaneous actions between art and design, there comes a time for the new professionalization. I can observe a huge increase of consciousness among Polish designers and knowledge of the cultural context. After questioning a product and the market, you need to get your act together, in a multi-level way. The product is still important but now in a specific context. You need to consider its formal aspects from scratch– perhaps it’s no use designing „in spite” of

functions, only to prove our addiction to objects for the next time. The design process should regard the possibilities of use and eventually its „life after life”. I look forward for the growth of the so-called design-art, which is entirely involving exhibitions, curatorial work – a source of inspiration – and not ready solutions. These actions are important for the hygiene of design. Visionary, anti-system, conceptual projects are important features of the process of emerging new forms and needs.

RD: What about the program that was established once you re-opened the gallery (Design – BWA Wrocław). I’m referring to the project functioning under the name Goodbye Design (2008) and was surely aimed at expanding the field of view of designers’ roles in the social context, distracted in terms of identity. Can you explain the most crucial features of Goodbye Design?

KR: We were young and pretty. What else could I say about our delight in destruction and violence? The project opened this new program of the gallery which functioned under name „Design” for over fifteen years. It was the first municipal unit realizing the program of facilitating design – especially in 90s! Reading the archives from that time says a lot about us. Design was an unclear dream and pretension. Those pretensions after fifteen years don’t smell appetizing any longer. Thus we came up with the season saying „goodbye”. It was planned to dethrone the „proud” design, problematization, putting in frames of the current discourse. We didn’t want to open another chapter with an exhibition. We are still testing a scheme of the show which is only a background for the events. We presented „Shadows of design” (LolaDesigns) – shadows of the famous designs – e.g. London underground map, Barbie, Lego bricks. Knockoutdesign started the first of the interventions series which will finish on the courtyard garden on the back side of the gallery. Meetings and presentations were equally important. We talked about dystopias, collapse, consumerism, crisis, historical and contemporary contexts of design. One of the printed matters presented the Eames’ armchair on fire.

It was our fantasy – though I never wanted to realize it. There was a found footage to the project containing scene of destroying objects. In the course of time we began admitting the weakness of the culture. This sense of ambivalence overtakes the whole program of the Design – BWA Wrocław.

RD: Speaking of design, it is often restricted to the area of industry. Instead of a general process, it is conceived as introducing objects for serial production. It’s a bit ridiculous, since a few decades ago, Italians began to build the foundations of what we call today the anti-design.

KR: Dutch anti-design is even better known than the Italian one and this one is the most common source of inspiration for a Polish anti-designer. Bartosz Mucha admits that, and he is currently a representative of the Polish avant-garde of design. Among many proposals, the one by him is the most distinguished and consistent. You could say that Bartosz has implemented the „design-thinking” to his workshop – the projects

build an imaginary world and eventually it’s him who is a perfect user of them. And actually – it is not only about objects but relations between them. The secret „communication” by objects is a powerful aspect of him – currently more into architecture or perhaps „para-architecture”.

RD: What purposes should design fulfill today, in your opinion?

KR: Design should be aware of its double-edged force. Because something is well designed, it doesn’t mean that it is ethically „good” any longer. This is the first, crucial challenge of this discipline, which is still developing in many directions. Another thing, not less ethical, but also pragmatic – is the answer for accumulating waste supported by the fact of a cheap buy than repairing any stuff. Sustainable and responsible design has to regard this. I would like to underline the problem of exploitation during the implementation and production, environmental impact. We ought to remember that design has to apply solutions to specific problems and above all – adapting to a constantly changing world.

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a Model of interdisciplinary work Interview with Marcin Szczelina, a curator of projects related to architecture Romuald Demidenko: I’m interested in the status of architecture in modern culture, in the relation between spatial design and art. It seems that, in the past, there was a strong relation between these two disciplines – art and architecture. What does it look like today?

Marcin Szczelina: In modern times, the boundaries of art and architecture are fluid.

I think that everything that is going on in the border of these two areas is incredibly interesting. New situations are being generated there, which help us to reinterpret reality. Situations, in which the artist, through his or her actions, becomes an architect, and vice versa – situations, in which the architect, executing his or her projects, becomes an artist, are very common. A need to provide a theoretical frame and to expand the common ground is noticeable at numerous modern art exhibitions and architectural reviews. I think that exhibitions themselves may serve as a good barometer for measuring mutual relations between art and architecture. The status of architecture in the modern context is described accurately by Keller Easterling – “some of the most radical changes in the global world are not the changes saved in the letter of the law, but through the language of architecture”. This is true, particularly in light of Martin Heidegger’s words, that one of the basic processes of modern times is the conquest of the world as an image. Architecture contributes to this process substantially.

In short, Heidegger wrote about the image as visual culture. This issue is developed by Easterling, who writes that, particularly in modern times, Architecture generated as an image has enormous impact on modern culture. It is also worth mentioning the series of works by Zbigniew Libera, namely “Pozytywy”, which are based on “staged photos”, popular in the 90’s. Photographs of military actions are often staged just to make them more moving, and hence suiting the convention. Libera develops these schemes, manipulates them and unveils the mechanism of manipulation itself. “Pozytywy” is a travesty of the most famous war photos. This is the force of the image.

RD: We have thus established the ideological frame – architecture as an element of visual culture. But how does this translate into the world of art and culture – do these two merge? Maybe this happens during exhibitions?

MS: As I said earlier, visual culture plays an important, key role, in modern reality. The image, particularly the one displayed at an exhibition, is an attempt at representing this reality. However, as proven by numerous exhibitions devoted to architecture, the attempt is rather futile. The “Andrea Palladio: His Life and Legacy” exhibition which took place last year at the Royal Academy of Art in London was a complete misunderstanding. How is it possible to present Palladio in an exhibition? The curators decided

that it should be done in the usual manner – by means of projections and pictures, displayed in a dark room, since such precious drawings should not be exposed to light.

In turn, showcasing projections and models makes no sense. Le Corbusier said that we should look at a thing in itself, we should approach the essence of the object. So, if you want to see a Palladio, then go and see it for your own eyes, experience the buildings themselves. This is why we have a problem with presenting architecture. I often hear such things: what is the point of making exhibitions about architecture, and: why should we separate exhibitions into the ones about art and the ones about architecture? I think that proper terminology and a differentiation between exhibitions about art and architecture is crucial, since there is a fundamental difference between these two areas. When presenting a work of art, you are presenting this very object, whereas presenting architecture is merely representation. The basic fault committed in various exhibitions is the limitation of architecture to this visual representation, which causes a sort of flattening of the object, just like in photoshop (laughs). The language of architects – not all of them, of course – is limited, and even deformed, I would say. In this context, I appreciate the words of Aaron Betsky: “I don’t believe in showing pictures, models or drawings of buildings created somewhere else. I don’t believe in displaying the records of the process of creation. In both cases, I am convinced that, if you came to an exhibition, you came there for the objects or spaces worth seeing – and not to read texts or watch movies. There are much better places to do that. A museum or a gallery should be places of fetishization, understood as an opposition to popularization”. In simple terms, it is about true and full presentation of architecture, just as with Palladio – this exhibition should only have discussed the philosophy of the renaissance, the contemporary view of the world, which would encourage people visiting the exhibition to experience Palladio live.

RD: How, in your opinion, should an architecture exhibition look? Can the Venice biennale be an example of that?

MS: I have recently read interviews with the living directors of the architecture biennale, Rossi was thus the only one missing. All in all, except for Hollein, all of them claimed that architecture is impossible to exhibit. Two scenarios of exhibitions are noticeable – the theatrical approach, which is based on building set designs to imitate the spaces created by the buildings, usually urban spaces. The next approach is, of course, displaying representations of architecture in the form of architectural drawings and models. This category also includes the representation of problems connected with architecture, which are sociological, economic, geographical and political factors – presented in the form of diagrams, charts, texts and models. Are we able to invent something new? I don’t think so, besides, this is probably not important. What is important is the choice of the proper medium of an exhibition. Recently, Malwina Witkowska lent me a book by Beatriz Colomina, who defines architecture as a medium. She says that, according to modern principles of representation, architecture is a medium, that is the representation of architecture is a medium by itself. The Venice

Architecture Biennale is a completely separate issue. Let’s be honest, the biennale is, in fact, a big enterprise. Every time the organizers want to have something different, sometimes more intellectual, some other time they want to boast with names, as in the case of last year’s presentation supervised by Kazuyo Sejima. This has to be a show ending with success, also financial success.

RD: In the beginning, working over the concept of the exhibition, I was interested in the gallery building housing the exhibition – the BWA building in Zielona Góra. I wanted to point the viewer’s attention to this interesting example of Polish modernism. Despite numerous reconstructions and renovations, it retained the spirit of this period. The exhibition was to concern designing, and I consider architecture as being macro-scale designing. Of course, these are two different disciplines with different origins and destinations, but you will agree that we should be thinking about them together – as of spatial design.

MS: This is about building an image of some sort, about understanding what architecture really is, you know. Exhibitions always imitate space and situations created by architecture. They tend to create a kind of temporary para-architecture, which exists for a moment. It may be more or less authentic. We could talk for hours about this, but, in most general terms, the creation of exhibition space is about feeling, living, experiencing…the essence of objects in themselves, as Le Corbusier said. This is the thing that spatial design in missing, and this results in a lack of authenticity. Giddens once said that: “language is the main and basic tool in understanding time and space, which raises human activity above the immediacy and directness of the animal experience”, hence, if the language of architecture is space created through electronic means, then exhibitions should present space through space, or discuss global issues influencing the character of space.

RD: Could you provide some examples of successful cooperation between architects and artists?

MS: In my opinion, a great example of such cooperation is the WuWa (Wohnungsund Werkraumausstellung Exhibition, 1929). It was really fascinating how architects cooperated with representatives of various areas in designing interiors, e.g. design for the kitchen was preceded with consultations with housekeeper’s clubs, which, based on their experiences, provided architects from the National Academy of the Arts and Handicraft with valuable guidelines, and then these architects designed furniture. I am fascinated most by what is happening at the boundaries of various areas, particularly art and architecture. That is why I like to confront them with one another, and that is why all exhibitions I have attended or organized were multidisciplinary. I particularly like the “Architecture is Art” / “Architektura to Sztuka” festival organized by myself and a group of friends about 6 years ago. The festival had only two editions and was a rather small event, but even then we emphasized the interdisciplinary character of

architecture. We invited architects, artists, art curators, who discussed the relation between architecture and art. Monika Sosnowska, Krzysztof Nawratek, Marcin Kwietowicz, Jerome Jacqmin from Philippe Rahm’s studio, and Gabriella Świtek are just a few of the speakers from our exhibition. One of the greatest examples of a merge of art and architecture is the design practice of the New York studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro, or the Paris studio Mesarchitecture. I think that the most inspiring architects generating new phenomena in modern architecture and adapting to varying requirements of modernity are those working in interdisciplinary teams, e.g. the Grupo Aranea, with which I have recently cooperated. This group employs botanists, biologists, sociologists and landscape architects. Didier Fiuza Faustino, who I think is one of the most talented and creative modern architects. He cooperates with artists, acoustics, sociologists, philosophers, critics, fashion designers, etc. This model of practice makes sense today.

RD: And is this model of interdisciplinary work popular in Poland?

MS: I doubt it. I haven’t heard of any Polish architectural studio working permanently in an interdisciplinary team.

RD: Maybe architects were more open and creative in the past than they are nowadays. I lived for two years opposite Witold Lipiński’s house. It was an igloo house.

MS: The igloo house is an icon of Polish architecture! Polish designers Aleksandra Machowiak and Daniel Mizieliński recently recalled Lipiński in a funny way. They wrote a very original book entitled (D.O.M.E.K.), which presented the igloo house, among others. I still remember the great Oskar Hansen exhibition at the Foksal Gallery Foundation in Warsaw, which presented the “Warsaw Dream” installation. The exhibition took place in 2005, but if it was organized today, it would still be very fresh. There are too few such exhibitions. Lately, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw reminded us about the work of Stanisław Zamecznik. This was a very good exhibition. I’m glad that we are finally starting to bring up the most outstanding and original, but forgotten creators.

RD: I remember browsing through old architecture magazines and reading in one of them – that we are a country of great architects and very bad architecture. This referred to problems related to long project realization procedures, material shortages, etc. It seems that very little has changed from that time.

MS: Architecture is in a very specific situation in Poland – architects are usually preoccupied with their profession and they rarely seek advice from artists, curators, sociologists and representatives of other disciplines. It is getting better, though. I mean,the situation is still bad, but young architects and curators are slowly trying to introduce international practices in Poland. However, architecture in Poland is still the art of building, devoid of the entire intellectual sphere. I’m wondering how many architects or theoreticians there are participating in international exhibitions or conferences, ini-

tiating new creative processes or working in interdisciplinary teams? … Still too few.

RD: Attempts are made to achieve such balanced development in architecture. But shouldn’t architecture be continually redefined?

MS: But this is happening as we speak! Recently, I had a chance to view partial effects of an urban experiment concerning nineteen cities in Saxony – one of the regions most affected by population slump, which was the result of political and economic changes after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The results were depopulating cities, large, empty housing estates, closed factories and enterprises, deserted and ruined houses, which led to a decline of social, economic, urban and cultural infrastructure. This is why, in 2002, Saxony authorities decided to initiate an experimental project named “International Building Exhibition Urban Redevelopment Saxony - Anhalt 2010”. The effects of this experiment are really astonishing. A long-term architectural and urban project was developed as a response to the arising crisis. It was inspiring to see the actions initiated under this project, from ephemeral artistic interventions (murals and artistic installations in Aschersleben) to larger, urban works, such as placing green squares in spaces left after demolishing buildings in Dessau-Rosslau. I am recalling this for a purpose. Since architecture is particularly affected by the lapse of time, it is necessary to redefine it continuously. However, in order to introduce these changes wisely, we need a huge intellectual background and cooperation with experts from other disciplines.

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Romuald Demidenko, Selected projects

In art, architecture, and other disciplines, the word „project” stands for a certain assignment given to a team of specialists to be executed in a definite period of time.

Usually, such project must have a certain effect, used for a particular purpose. It is, however, often only a trial. Nevertheless, we are always interested in trying to create something, something that will perform a useful function or allow for attaining a desired effect, a change.

The works presented in the exhibition may be generally divided into three areas – project stages. The basic goal was to recognize the subject, which is why the history of the spot was so important. The next problem to be solved was the role of the artists and designers invited to the project, who, based on their knowledge and using proper tools, would support history, modernity, or would try to solve a particular problem. The third and final stage is an attempt to think about the problems of the future, such as interdisciplinary, multi-level design aware of the influence on natural environment, or the problem of balanced development.

The starting point was the building of the BWA gallery in Zielona Góra and its history.

Its form relates to the best examples of architecture of late modernism. Immediately after its opening, it became the center for important artistic events in 20th century Poland.

The Space and expression exhibition took place here two years after the opening of the BWA, in 1967. Apart from local artists, the exhibition was also attended by members of the Groupe International d’ Architecture Prospective from Paris, and Zofia and Oskar Hansen. Works, which are nowadays compared to the most innovative spatial experiments realized all over the world at that time, were exhibited in the renovated interiors of the neighboring museum and all over the city. In the same year, an outstanding creator evading all definition – Henryk Berlewi – presented his works at the BWA, and this was one of the few exhibitions of this brilliant artist.

Selected projects are projects created specially for the exhibition and already existing works. Apart from the works of young artists, we are displaying paintings by two classics, nowadays considered one of the most renown creators, whose creative experiments successfully exceeded the frames of traditional objects, or artistic projects.

One of the best examples may be the Chromatic composition by Henryk Stażewski, presented at BWA. Since the 50’s, the artist replaced his typical painting techniques with the relief. Ten years later, he became particularly interested in the square, which was the basic module in creating compositions.

Kajetan Sosnowski is recognized through his experimental paintings created with the use of non-standard methods. In textile-based compositions entitled Equivalent systems, he emphasizes technical and geometrical precision of his sewed works. One of the early examples of this cycle is presented in the exhibition. This leads us to a new work created for this exhibition. Daniel Malone, a New Zealand artist living in Warsaw for several years, presents an installation relating to the Equivalent systems cycle. His interpretation of one of Sosnowski’s compositions in green and blue surrounds a grate supporting the lighting of the main room, directing viewer’s attention to the unusual construction which, as it turns out, is a remnant of the removed openwork ceiling.

The building changed more than we think. Similarly to other buildings erected at that time, also this one proved non-functional with time. As a result of several renovations, a large display window with a view on the garden was removed – in the winter, it let in cold air, and in the summer – hot air. A considerably small storeroom proved insufficient with time, and offices in the first floor proved too small. Let us assume that buildings, and objects in general, change their functions in some point and they require repair. Let us assume that we could think this way about everything that has been designed. Objects and buildings are never perfect, the preferences of users change with time, and such projects are often deemed to be forgotten. Not everything can be foreseen, and materials and technologies prove to be barriers for the creation of the perfect form. Despite this fact, attempts at creating the perfect form are made, or rather reproduced all the time.

A housing estate built in Berlin in the 50’s has been functioning in an unchanged form.

This, of course, refers to the Hansaviertel district, which was a part of the Interbau international exhibition. The most renown, classic architects were invited to this event – Alvar Aalto, Walter Gropius, Arne Jacobsen, Oscar Niemeyer (not to mention Le Corbusier, who built “a machine to live in” several kilometers from the spot, specially for the occasion). Today, this inconspicuous housing estate in one of many places to live, with good locations and lots of greenery. A film by a German artist, Michaela Schweiger entitled City of tomorrow is a short feature film presenting the residents of Hansaviertel.

The film is an interesting commentary on the subject of exhibition.

However, if we understand architecture in the fundamental way, being a mere shelter, then we are probably touching an interesting issue, which should be widely discussed.

An important statement is presented by Franciszek Orłowski. He discusses the problem which is usually omitted in reflections upon architecture – the problem of isolation and seclusion. The object, created as a result of numerous talks between us and the actions of the artist himself is an installation in the form of a tent for one. The tent is certainly not an architectural form, since it is a fragile object, which may only become a temporary place to live. The work is even more complicated by the fact that the materials used for the production of this work may evoke extreme reactions in viewers. The installation was created on the basis of second use of second-hand clothes.

The pieces of clothing were acquired as a result of a difficult process, which ended with what the creator called it, an act of balance – the artist gave his clothes to a homeless person and put on their clothes. The place is welcoming, but entrance turns out to be impossible.

An installation by Bartosz Mucha from his collection of para-architectural projects was realized in the context of temporary architecture. Slide house is a kind of a staircase with a hidden hiding place – a slide. The installation seems familiar and calls up associations with places one has already visited. The project is assumed to be presented in the gallery for a longer while.

On the opposite side, in the reading room, we will see a clump of extraordinary pieces of furniture by Oskar Zięta, an internationally recognized designer from Zielona Góra.

His unusual forms are the results of special production and unique technology applied.

One of his special projects has recently been presented at the design festival in London – at the courtyard of the Victoria & Albert Museum. As his project, Zięta arranged a large installation comprising metal coils filled with compressed air. The large room will also house an installation which bases on Non-Euclidean Geometry (Architonic Concept Space) and a video recording of the process of creation.

To complete the issue of the process, we will present an installation built by Alicja Bielawska, which allows a designer to stop at a certain stage and recall its moment of creation. This work, built specially for the exhibition, is a combination of plywood walls and a metal ring – it resembles an oversized model. The project is accompanied by drawings presented in the catalogue, as in the case of the majority of works by this artist.

When speaking about designing, we mean a way of thinking about designing for a specific, utilitarian destination, which is particularly popular nowadays. Considering this, the work created by Katarzyna Przezwańska seems particularly important. The artist is known for her earlier painting installation realized on the temporary office of the Museum of Modern Art (as part of the first Warsaw under construction festival) and last year’s interventions of similar character in Zielona Góra urban space. For our exhibition, we chose an element coming from her studio. A desk designed by the artist, divided into functional zones marked with proper colors (shades of green) becomes a utility object. At the same time, we know that this is an object belonging to the author and used by the author in a specific way, which makes it even more individual.

In the very beginning of the 20th century, artists strived to wipe the boundaries of art displayed in galleries and everyday life. The architecture created became a place for social participation. Manifests of neo-plasticists and constructivists started to be implemented in housing architecture. Multi-functional oases, housing units and estates were to satisfy technological requirements of advanced modernity. Architecture exhibitions

led to the construction of housing estates and even entire cities. The buildings constructed were to create a spatial painting composition, immersed in the sun and in the green. “Let’s introduce color, a living necessity like water and fire. Let’s arrange it wisely, let it be a psychological value, and not only pleasure” – wrote Fernand Léger in 1942 – “Let’s use beautiful materials: stone, steel, gold, silver, bronze, let’s avoid all dynamism”, he continued. Today’s look of cities, buildings and interiors is generally the achievement of visionaries, designers.

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01 Alicja Bielawska Room, 180 x 200 x 230 cm, 2010 - 2011 Vertical and horizontal plane of plywood. When joined, they form a corner – a separate place – conventional space. A metal rod is piercing through the wall.

Cheap material and form suggest that this may be a model. The size of this object, which is suitable for humans, draws associations with indefinite functions. But this is only a plane and a line, just like in a drawing. [text Alicja Bielawska]

02 Daniel Malone Pacific Ocean (Equivalent systems), variable dimensions, 2010 - 2011 The parquet floor pattern.

In fact I have not been able to find clear information to back up my sense of similar geometric patterning in the pacific / polynesia symbolising the ocean (i.e. in tattoo and weaving) - but no matter; as you will see it has been as good a starting point as any for my rather typically diagonal line of thought...

Let me try and trace this for you to consider (and hopefully the images might help)...

Oceanic horizontality provides an alternative to the (European) Modernist Verticality the wall as support, Painting.

The Sail is also canvas, sewn like those I much admire of Sosnowski’s.

Equivalent Systems (Sosnowski’s title) might speak also to this relationship...

Horizontal-Vertical, European-Other, Northern-Southern, Transcendent-Bodily I like that the ‘southern - pacific sail’ is orientated pointing down, the opposite of the geometry ‘northern - European sail. As a geometric form the triangle also resonates most strongly with the diagonal - of dissection (equivalence - two halves of the ideal form of the square, pie-graphing the perfection of the circle). It is both horizontal and vertical (or left and right) It traverses, navigates.

An image of canvas sails, dyed (like Sosnowski’s - his ‘optimum energy’ colours being blue & green) blue for the ocean/sky, green for the Mountain.

A free-standing ‘Open’ form - spatial like a Zamecznik or Fangor.

From standing vertical in Polynesian style, falling folding geometrically to the floor, lying horizontally on the parquet - Pacific Ocean Spokojny.

Thanks for the great photo’s of the space - that ceiling is amazing, the truss! All the triangles are there, and somehow it complements the parquet perfectly - floating above it.

So, with this in mind, I would propose using the existing architecture, (the modernism of the building itself)...

The triangular frames become the frames for the clue and green canvas. (only the standard size ones - which is logical also re Equivalences).

By my count each each row has 7 of these pointing up △ (henceforth referred to as Góry) and 8 pointing down ▽ (henceforth referred to as Żagle).

Probably I will just make it 7 of each, to make the maths equivalent again, especially as there are 7 rows of truss from what I can work out.

So one row with seven green Góry, the next with 7 blues Żagle, itd...

Seven triangles, all green pointing up or blue down, in each row basically.

HOWEVER as this would mean there would be 3 rows of one and 4 rows of the other (adding up to seven), again for the sake of equivalence, I further propose leaving one row of truss empty. The first row seems most logical, but we’ll see how it looks (this could also work well in that leaves the whole truss structure visible as a given at one point).

Thus the work will consist of alternating 3 rows of 7 Góry and 3 rows of 7 Żagle.

[Notes towards the project from email correspondence and conversation – Daniel Malone, Romuald Demidenko]

03 Bartosz Mucha Slide House, 2010 - 2011 Slide House is an attempt at creating autonomous space, a sort of island, in which the user will be able to form a loop of basic activities and emotions. Hence, we have stairs – physical effort and a clear goal. The slide encompasses emotions, such as fear or joy. Inside a tube, one can take a nap and isolate from the environment. When it comes to aesthetics, the house is polished, white and neutral, dedicated for public purposes, as well as for open spaces. [text Bartosz Mucha]

04 Franciszek Orłowski 0 (zero), 50 x 95 x 240 cm, 2010 - 2011 Project “0” (zero) is the continuation and development of the subject raised in my performance from 2008, entitled “Kiss of love” (“Pocałunek miłości”). This time, I would like to elaborate on this problem, referring to the language of architecture.

I would also like to provide the recipient with the scope of experience embraced by me in the performance. With this, I would like to translate my own personal experiences into collective experience.

In some way, clothing in itself performs a similar function as architecture – it is a shelter, protection against the world, against weather conditions. It serves as protection and personal space. This is particularly visible in the case of the homeless. Clothing becomes a place one “enters” and lives in. Following this line of thinking, I would like to say that my aim is to collect pieces of clothing from homeless people. All the layers of clothes worn by them, beginning with jackets and ending with underwear and socks would be cut into pieces and sewn into a patchwork construction. This method of sewing is based on cutting fabric into small pieces and then sewing them together in random configurations. This way, I am fragmenting matter filled with existence, I am creating building material out of it. I shall use this material – the fabric to sew a classic tent for one. Such tent built out of the human mundane and everything this mundane entails, bears the traits of architecture, temporary architecture of parachutes. I would like to add here that my action penetrates the areas of emotions and existence, but does not struggle with architectural innovativeness. Clothing, which becomes a home for a man, records, condenses and saturates with all sorts of organic processes, at the same time marking the boarders of the personal zone, building a wall, a barrier, which may also be defined as a human “zero zone”, which is not very easy to enter.

The object seen at a distance does not strike us at all. One may even say that it generates the feeling of calmness, and the thing that is intriguing is the place. As one gradually approaches the object, one becomes more and more anxious, thinking, whether to go on or to go back. The recipient is introduced into an area of physical and mental impact of the environment formed by me. The recipient finds it difficult to stay in this environment. Their reactions are stimulated by me to a considerable degree. [text Franciszek Orłowski]

05 Katarzyna Przezwańska Replica of a desk, 2010 - 2011 “The desk is important to me, designing it took a long time. Before I was always designing in terrible chaos, but it disturbed me and I wasn’t able to control it. So I had to figure out what I really needed and what I needed the space for. Eventually I divided my desk into functional zones and I’m trying to keep only the most useful things. My computer desktop is organized in a similar way. There is also a shelf for dirty dishes – not too big, so I can’t accumulate too many and I have to take them away quite quickly. I follow all this, not because it’s so splendidly designed but because it is my decision to force myself to do it - everything is maximally/highly individualized here. This cabinet serves as a doghouse as well. When I was living with my parents Lufka (the dog) have found the shelf that she used to enter a lot, so I have repeated the dimensions in this cabinet. The colors of the zones are taken from nature – from a meadow”. [taken from the interview with artist – Romuald Demidenko, March 2010]

06 Michaela Schweiger City of tomorrow – revisted (Zurück in die Stadt von Morgen), DVD, 23 min., 2005 Courtesy of the artist.

Much as in relay and through a series of minimalist cameos different people take the lead through the Berlin Hansa Quarter, a neighborhood built in 1957 as the city of tomorrow. Official state descriptions merge with reviews of the utopia of the architects and future life prospects. Great utopia is referenced to chronicle happenings and stories of everyday life which are played out against a backdrop of the buildings of popular architects and become a portrait of the quarter and its inhabitants. [text michaela schweiger]

07 Kajetan Sosnowski Equivalent systems, sewed fabric, 130 x 130 cm, 1978 “It’s not about science. I’m just looking for an interesting shape, which hasn’t been discovered yet, a shape governed by clear criteria and laws. By making a seemingly simple thing, I acquired aesthetic value – imperishable, since it is a value of order.

As I said – beauty is truth, and in this case, it’s the truth of law, statistics, numbers”.

Kajetan Sosnowski produced a series of works based on chemically processed fabrics – remaining under the influence of abstract forms. Later on, the artist became interested in centrifugal division applying a square located centrally and rectangles surrounding it. He enabled a free establishment of the division of the number of fields.

Works created as a result of the application of this rule resemble one of the basic composition patterns of the heroic period of constructivism.

[Source: Kajetan Sosnowski. Equivalent systems, Centrum Sztuki Studio, Warszawa 1986] [Courtesy of Lubuska Land Museum in Zielona Góra] [Photo by Tomasz Daiksler]

08 Henryk Stażewski Chromatic composition 20 - 1969, relief, fiberboard, acrylic polymer, 60 x 60 cm, 1969 In the second half of the 50’s, Henryk Stażewski introduced a new element to his artistic language – the relief, which superseded pure painting media for nearly twenty years. A tendency to subject works of art to objective laws of science became particularly popular in 1968. The basic module in works from this period was a colorful square multiplied by the artist in different tints of the same color. This way, the artist achieved a multiplication of dimensions accompanied by an intensification of chromatic effects. Such compositions were aimed at presenting the metaphysical idea of the square.

[Courtesy of Lubuska Land Museum in Zielona Góra] [Photo by Tomasz Daiksler]

09 Oskar Zięta Architonic concept space, Variable dimensions, 2010 - 2011 Working on a concept, we began our experiments with a flat form of a rectangle. It has been deformed into a hyperbolic shape to bring a form of a tunnel. To increase stability and enhance the dynamic look of a form, the centre of a shape has been lowered. The final form has some characteristics of a form called hyperbole – a form which belongs to a group of a Non-Euclidean geometry. Basic research and analyses of these kinds of objects were undertaken in the beginning of XIX century by mathematicians: Janos Bolyai, Nikolai Ivanovitsch Lobatschevski and Carl Friedrich Gauss. Our basis to the conceptual work was a hyperbolic paraboloid. [text Oskar Zięta]

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artists

Alicja Bielawska (1980) She graduated from Art History at Warsaw University and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, participated in the European Exchange Academy in Beelitz (Germany). Her works were shown at individual and group exhibitions in the Netherlands and Poland. She creates installations, sculptures, drawings and writes poetry.

Daniel Malone (1970) Graduated from Intermedia at the University of Auckland (New Zealand). He represented New Zealand on the São Paulo Biennale (2006) and Sydney Biennale (2004). He participated in numerous individual and group shows, i.e. Center for Contemporary Art in Vilnius (Lithuania), Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and Fokus Lodz Biennale. He works in various media including painting, sculpture, performance, sound, photography. Currently lives and works in Warsaw.

Bartosz Mucha (1978) The graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow and lecturer at the Art Department of Pedagogical University in Cracow. He uses a term of the so-called functional fixation to define a disability of regarding new functions of an object which recalls familiar associations. Awarded the main prize in the second edition of the festival Lodz Design (2008).

Franciszek Orłowski (1984) Many of my works deal with the site specificity. I refer to the issue of existence, often in process of a fragmentation. I initiate processes condensated by reality. It happens that projects challenge the receiver’s senses. Graduate from the Intermedia at University of Arts in Poznan. Recently participated in exhibitions Zerreißproben in Lepiziger Kreis in Leipzig (Germany), No Sleep in BWA Zielona Góra, Do It Like This in Stereo in Poznan, and also on the occasions of art biennials in Venice (2009) and Poznan (2008).

Katarzyna Przezwańska (1984) She graduated from the faculty of painting at The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

She mainly works with painting, installation and design. Participated in many group exhibitions, e.g. Warsaw Under Construction in Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Fitting in Space in Zico House / 98 Weeks Project Space in Beirut, Lebanon, Ultra Silvam in WAS - Wonderland Art Space in Copenhangen, No Sleep in BWA Zielona Góra Gallery. Lives and works in Warsaw.

Michaela Schweiger Studied at Kunstakademie Kassel, HdK Berlin and Kunsthochschule für Medien in Koln. She is a substitute professor at Hochschule für Kunst und Design, Halle (Saale).

Currently lives and works in Berlin and Halle (Saale).

Kajetan Sosnowski (1913 – 1987) The artist produced a series of works based on chemically processed fabrics – remaining under the influence of abstract forms. Later on, the artist became interested in centrifugal division applying a square located centrally and rectangles surrounding it. He enabled a free establishment of the division of the number of fields. Works created as a result of the application of this rule resemble one of the basic composition patterns of the heroic period of constructivism. A huge selection of Sosnowski’s works is held in the essential Polish collections – likewise in the collection of Galeria 72, initiated by himself, including Joseph Albers, Max Bill, Henryk Stażewski and many more.

Henryk Stażewski (1894 – 1988) Stażewski was the pioneer of the classical Avant-garde of the 20s and 30s.

Representative of the Constructivist movement. He co-created the Geometric Abstract art movement of the 60s, 70s, and 80s; creator of reliefs, designer of interiors, stage scenery, and posters. His oeuvre is gathered in the most prestigeous art collections - Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum in New York and Sztuki Museum in Łódź.

Oskar Zięta (1975) He graduated in architecture from Polytechnic University in Szczecin (Poland). He runs Zieta Prozessdesign – a design, furniture and digital production consultancy.

He lectures at the ETH in Zurich and works between Switzerland and Poland. He experiments with new materials and technologies in design and in light constructions.

His works are collected in many galleries e.g. Moss Gallery in New York, Saatchi London. On the occasion of the latest London Design Festival he realised a big-scale installation Blow & Roll in the Madejski Garden of Victoria & Albert Museum.

This publication appears on the occasion of the exhibition Selected Projects

Selected Projects 4 – 27.2.2011 BWA Zielona Góra Alicja Bielawska Daniel Malone Bartosz Mucha Franciszek Orłowski Katarzyna Przezwańska Michaela Schweiger Kajetan Sosnowski Henryk Stażewski Oskar Zięta Curated by: Romuald Demidenko Edited by: Romuald Demidenko Texts: Boris Groys, Wojciech Kozłowski, Katarzyna Roj, Marcin Szczelina Drawings: Annemarie van den Berg Translations: Krzysztof Kościuczuk, Aleksandra Piekoszewska, Romuald Demidenko Graphic Design: Dagny Nowak & Daniel Szwed (moonmadness.eu) Printed by: Moś & Łuczak Printing House, Poznań Paper: Munken Print Cream 115 g / 150 g, Antalis Coloraction 80 g Font: Geometric, Geoslab Edition: 500 Acknowledgements: Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej w Zielonej Górze, Deco24, Rosenfeld MediaPartners: 010 Publishers, Bęc Zmiana Foundation, Architecture Snob, Object Rotterdam We would like to acknowledge the artists and associates for a huge contribution to the Selected Projects.

Special thanks to Anna Kempa and Tomasz Relewicz.

Text by Boris Groys – The Loneliness of the Project was commissioned by Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen and reprinted in this publication courtesy of the author.

Organizer: BWA Zielona Góra Director: Wojciech Kozłowski Production: Karolina Spiak & BWA Zielona Góra Architect of the gallery’s building: Zygmunt Wyczałkowski More information at: projektywybrane.tumblr.com

BWA Zielona Góra Al. Niepodległości 19 65-048 Zielona Góra www.bwazg.pl

BWA Gallery is financed by Zielona Góra City Council

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Selected Projects