Art in diversity

The Month of Performance Art was an experiment which, for the first time in Kalisz art history, confronted the local community with ephemeral art. This challenge was undertaken by the curator of the event - Małgorzata Kaźmierczak - the director of the City Art Gallery of Kalisz. The four performers invited drew their audience into different artistic worlds, yet sharing certain common elements.

Faux painting. Performer's Objects

Exhibitions of performer’s objects in galleries are very rare. The reason is quite simple: the objects are not exactly artworks. They are important and unique, but without the structure of live action and the presence of the artist and the public, they are dead. Their reactivation through some other form – video or photography – relocates them back to their primary context, but they do not play the same role as before. They emit meanings and significance that are completely unattached to the surrounding new space, new viewer or new contexts. These meanings maybe now unimportant or do not at this time fit very well. The question is: what makes us treat performance art objects or performer’s objects in a special way?

JAN ŚWIDZIŃSKI. Talks on a kerbstone. A memory

In the 70’s and 80’s, Jan Świdziński lived in Warsaw and I lived in Kraków. These two places were worlds apart and almost did not communicate with each other. To a certain extent it has stayed this way till today, as in many cities in the world. In 1981 in Kraków I organised the first festival of Polish performance art entitled “Manifestations / Performance”. I was the curator of this event and when I invited Jan Świdziński to Kraków, I had never met him before. But I knew that someone like him existed.

AWAKENING

Karina Dzieweczyńska invited me to participate in a project entitled Awakening in Świecie. I didn’t know anything about Świecie at that time. It’s a small town somewhere in North-Central Poland, in which no one expects to be confronted with contemporary art. This aspect of artistic activity can be great.

BELFAST INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF PERFORMANCE ART - 2013

The first Belfast International Festival of Performance Art occurred in March 2013. It has grown out of a series of small Performance Events within the University of Ulster Belfast as part of its Festival of Art over the last few years. The majority of the artworks occurred within the Glass Box Exhibition Space in the Foyer of the College of Art/Belfast Campus.