Conceptual Museum of Ewa Partum

Anka Lesniak, 2011-03-13

Ewa Partum is one of the most important Polish artists. Her works, that she has created since the early 70’s, are conceptual. She is the author of ephemeral art, site specific art and visual poetry. Ewa Partum alongside with Natalia LL and Maria Pininska-Beres was a pioneer of feminist art in Poland. In the 70’s Ewa Partum lived in Lodz, where she created a lot of important works. During that time she also founded and run the Address Gallery (Galeria Adres, Lodz, Poland), based on mail art and the correspondence with artists from various countries. Address Gallery was also an attempt to mentally overcome the 'iron curtain' and get in touch with artists from the West. Currently, the artist has lived for many years in Berlin. The Polish city Lodz, however, still occupies an important place in her artistic CV, hence the artist decided to create her 'conceptual museum' here.

Places where the artist was artistically active, have been indicated by plates with titles, dates and a brief description of the events Ewa Partum took part in at those spaces. After almost two years since the idea of a conceptual museum appeared, she succeeded in putting the plates under the care of the Muzeum Sztuki (the museum is famous for its collection of world avant-garde works from the 20’s and 30’s) by December 2010.

A prelude to the 'conceptual museum' was a walk, which the artist took with a group of spectators in May 2009. The walk to places where progressive art had emerged in Poland was also an opportunity to time travel. Most of these places have nothing to do with art any more. The route began at 7d Rybna Street, situated in the old quarter of Lodz - Baluty, where Ewa Partum had lived in the 70’s. It’s here - in a block of flats, where Ewa Partum started the Address Gallery. It used to be a venue for progressive art and experimental activities. Krzysztof Wodiczko and Jan Swidzinski exhibited here among others.

Another place visited by the artist was Liberty Square (Plac Wolnosci), where in 1971 she presented an installation Legality of Space. Ewa Partum collected a variety of banning signs, such as no dogs, no smoking, no entry, etc. It is important to restate that this installation was made during the time of communism, when such concept as freedom of speech did not exist in the public sphere. The installation was, therefore, a metaphorical reference to the political situation in Poland and to its location – the Liberty Square (the name commemorates the independence of Poland in 1918). This name in the context of the policy of the communist state was just an empty phrase. Ewa Partum's work was very important not only because of its meaning - the criticism of the communist regime, but above all because of the use of site-specific installation as a form of artistic expression.

Then the artist visited 7Jaracza Street, where in the 70’s Art Forum Gallery was located. There, in 1972, she completed a performance Change. The credo of the performance was a sentence "My problem is the problem of a woman”. Makeup artists changed half of Ewa Partum's body into a figure of an old woman. After that change the artist appeared to the audience. As a young artist, well known not only for her radical art but also for her extraordinary beauty, this performance referred to the rules of patriarchal society where an old woman is a worthless person whose image should be erased from the public sphere. Her action showed that towards men a different criteria are applied - an old man symbolizes wisdom, experience, authority and power. These spheres are less accessible to women evaluated primarily according to their physical attractiveness and ability to procreate. Describing Ewa Partum’s action we should remember that the performance whose message is still valid, took place in the 70's, when the audience and art critics were not yet accustomed to feminist discourse. The feminist art of Ewa Partum coincided with the activity of feminist American artists such as Judy Chicago, Faith Wilding and Carolee Schneemann. Her performance becomes even more valuable when we realize the isolation of Eastern bloc countries from the art trends in the West, which meant a rudimentary and hindered flow of information, and therefore the lack of possibility to beome literally inspired by the art from the West. Now where Art Forum Gallery used to be there is a second hand store.

Muzeum Sztuki (ms), the next point of Ewa Partum’s trip, was reached after opening hours, therefore the doorman had the honor to welcome the artist. Here in 1972, Ewa Partum had a performance in the courtyard or actually in the garden next to the courtyard behind the museum. During the performance she scattered white letters - her Metapoetry. Over time, the letters decayed and melted into the fallen leaves, grass and soil, until they reached total fusion with nature. Ironically, the letters remained in the yard much longer than the letters that the artist had scattered during her show in one of the rooms of the museum. These were swept by the cleaning lady, unconscious that she just destroyed a work of art. Ewa Partum left her trace on a wall of the courtyard, as in other places that she visited that evening - a sticker with a blue circle, next to which she wrote the date and title of the action from the past and her signature.

After the visit in the courtyard of the Muzeum Sztuki we went to the Artists' Club (in the 70s it was a headquarter of the Artists’ Union – ZPAP, today only a pub), where between 1972 and 1973 there was the Address Gallery. Unfortunately the place now has no longer anything to do with art and has lost its character completely. The room, which was a gallery, is now filled with cardboard boxes up to the ceiling, which ironically looks a bit like an installation. It was impossible to enter the room. Traces of progressive, and in fact, of any kind of art have been completely removed from here.

The last point of the trip was 255 Piotrkowska Street, where since 1981 there was the Czyszczenie Dywanow Gallery (Cleaning Carpet Gallery), run by Adam Paczkowski and Radoslaw Sowiak. There, in 1982, Ewa Partum did a performance Homage to the Solidarity Movement. The gallery does not exist today either.

In 2009 plates with information about the artist’s activities were put in all places visited by Ewa Partum. In December 2010 Muzeum Sztuki took care of the plates placed in 6 places in Lodz, which formed the “Conceptual Museum” of Ewa Partum.

Ewa Partum is a very energetic and charismatic person, still active as an artist. Her works have been recently presented by Tate Modern Gallery (London 2006), MOCA (Los Angeles 2007), the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington 2007) and Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid 2006).

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