Polish Performance Archive

Description by Filmoteka Muzeum

Eating as a sensual activity, and as a motif that frequently recurs in the artist's practice, underlies the performance Oktoberfest.

Initially, the process adopts the form of a gourmet feast in a festive outfit. A change occurs once pigs join the table. Grabowski feeds them with meat, thus provoking an act of cannibalism; he serves champagne and fruit. The artist rejects all conventions of the feasting ritual – he eats quickly and greedily, using his fingers or without using his hands at all.

In Oktoberfest, the symbolic connotations related to pigs are re-created by a human being. The human order, determined by conventions, becomes juxtaposed with the animal order, which is devoid of any similar conventions. The artist provokes questions about the nature of being human, yet he does so by relying on the grotesque, which distorts an unambiguous interpretation of his activity in the categories of critical performance.

(AP)