AKCJOMAT Events

Agnieszka Szablikowska, 2013-06-03

We wanted to stress the variety of ephemeral artistic activities devised especially by young artists through organising a series of events entitled Akcjomat. Presented actions originated from both the visual arts and those also coming from the disciplines of theatre, music or dance. Probably the strongest experiences were the situations which affected many senses and engaged the audience not only visually, but also through sounds, tastes and smells.

During the first Akcjomat in November, four young artists presented their performances. The main element of many actions turned out to be extraordinary sounds and aromas. The Monster Hurricane Wihajster group featuring Mr and Ms Wińczyk presented a performance that referred to their personal histories. They used a phrase "I love you Mum" repeated like a mantra and recorded live. In the recordings they also used the sounds produced by the audience, which were then distorted by the sounds of tapes and walkmans. The whole action was accompanied by a strong fragrance of valerian drops.

Intriguing sounds were also produced by the playing of a bottle gourd by Konrad Juścinski. In a mysterious atmosphere boosted by a smell of burned soil, Juściński was crawling on the floor. He patted down the soil in the shape of a mound and used organic delicate objects made of dandelions’ seeds which could have resembled living creatures or primitive organisms of supernatural size.

During the performance by Hubert Wińczyk, the sound poetry was confronted with war poetry. Shooting, bombing, hitting and marching onomatopoeias attacked the observers of the event. The artist with powerful emphasis and unusual facial expressions used sounds that had their source in the anthology of poetry from the time of World War 2.

A personal story was also the basis of an action by Anka Fugazi. The gesture of taking off multiple layers of t-shirts, out of which she made a cross, was very interesting. Using such elements as seeds and flowers, she told a story about life choices and the experiences of humanity, womanhood and art.

The second – December Akcjomat was distinguished by overlapping and merging actions.

Izabela Chamczyk was lit by an irritating red roof-top sign while she was bringing items to a room in which the audience gathered. She displayed all the items which were normally hidden in the gallery office to the public: from furniture and easels to posters and pencils. This way she cleaned the space for her action, in order to paint the walls and a chair blue and eventually, like in the title of her action, sit silently like there was an oncoming thunderstorm and wait for a miracle. This meditative "remaining" of the painter was interestingly supplemented by an action by Paweł Korbus, who dressed in a fur coat first sat in darkness in a trash container in the Gallery's yard (while the temperature was a dozen or so below zero). Later – inside the Gallery he was standing or sitting and simply "was". This seemingly non-invasive character of the performance was not, however, comfortable for the artist himself. Finally, while sitting on a vice table, he screwed his hand into the tool, waiting for the reaction of the audience. In this action one could see his experience of creating set design, which was transferred to a family tale. Korbus, who is also a theatre actor, performed a true experience with a feeling of duration and the continuity of history.

The evening also included a concert by Radioda group, which melted into the space between the performances and created a sound action based on two radios. Static, crackle and the fragments of performances made a neat whole, subjected to improvisation created by the Tkacz brothers.

The third part of Akcjomat stimulated other senses. Apart from the sound and visual experience there appeared also aromas and flavours. Agata Bielska through the entire event engaged the public in her culinary action. Using mainly the items that she found in the Gallery, she created a cookhouse on the floor of the Gallery and integrated the public in common activities, conversations and cooking. Subsequent actions melted Into this home-like atmosphere. Yaryna Shumska, taking her inspiration from dance, made direct contact with the Gallery space leaving a trace of her body on the walls. She then scratched the marks left by her body with sandpaper and by doing so, she marked her way back.

Various traces of his presence were also created by Wolodymyr Topiy who extended the Akcjomat territory into a neighbouring yard. Using toy soldiers, the artist built a story and searched for the possibilities of his own body. Finally by wrapping a long yacht rope around his body, he dragged along a heavy stone making a trace which connected the yard with the Gallery. The final show during the event was a concert by Robert Gogol. The artist created sounds using an instrument that he built out of strings from a hundred year old piano buried for a year in a forest clearing. The sound of the instrument was supplemented by a synthesiser and processed by various applications.

The intentional variety of artists was reflected by the forms that their performances took in subsequent Akcjomats. The actions followed each other and created either totally separate stories and worlds, or interweaved each other, constructing a simultaneous composition of mutually complementing meanings.

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