Description by Filmoteka Muzeum
In the Activities on a Model, students perform activities on a man who is lying on the floor, they change his position, add or remove props. For instance, participants put a t-shirt with an image of a skull on the model’s face, paint his arms and legs, and then hand him a paintbrush. The object of the actions gets readily involved in the exercise. According to Zbigniew Libera, the model becomes here “somewhat of a stretcher bar, with the only thing to differentiate him from a real one being his intense sensations.” Like in the Activities (Models, Objects, Materials), also in the Activities on a Model there is a lot to be said for spontaneity and the ability to encourage other participants to act.
One could refer here to KwieKulik’s Activities from 1972, where different posts where established, devoted to different fields of artistic activity such as visual arts, poetry, music, literature. Specialists in various domains were invited to participate and perform activities related to specific fields of art at appropriate posts.
Interestingly enough, unlike with the activities from the 1960s and 1970s, at the Prague-based Open Form Studio it is possible to modify the rules during the activities. For instance, Zbigniew Libera suddenly decides to take a seat on the model. Thus, the artist becomes both the subject and the object of the game. Students are eager to use their “new” and submissive material, as they for example paint his face or make him read one sentence repeatedly.
References: Ł. Ronduda, Zbigniew Libera’s Open Form Studio, Prague 2011; Ł. Ronduda, “Activities”, Piktogram, vol. 5/6, 2006.
(MK)