ON(…)OFF

GALERIA BWA ZIELONA GÓRA, JANUARY 2012

Sound accompanying the exhibition is a test screen signal heard after the end of a regular TV transmission. With the headphones viewers can focus on a selected exhibit and isolate themselves. Everyone decides whether to use them or not. TV images – motion pictures taken out from the archive of events – are visual reflections of the external world. The key element of the exhibition is impression on “Bottle Rack”, a readymade of 1914, artistically presented by Marcel Duchamp. Instead of becoming the most outstanding painter of his times, Duchamp made a radical gesture of undermining the status of art. From that moment, the scope of artistic creation began to widen, and radical counter-cultural views defined Dadaism, second avant-garde and all critical movements originating from the 1960s revolution. Duchamp is one of the most important symbols of the modernity. Sound, touch, image, emotions… – Multi-sensual perception of world is common; all you need to do is go to a shopping centre or one of big museums to see that. Painting, which is my basic medium, often was an element of bourgeois décor or a formal game detached from reality. Yet, a good painting is energy effective beyond linguistic and conceptual standards contained on flat surface – something that can be compared to jazz improvisations, where meaning of time and space is disturbed. It is a very universal being and very mysterious as well. Once, Joseph Beuys commented the lack of commitment and artistic activity of Duchamp by saying that his silence is overrated. For me it is still important, though.