Włodzimierz Borowski, Paweł Freisler, Jan Świdziński, 1st CLEANING OF ART, 1972 (1-10/10)
„Cleaning of Art” is the title of a two-day artistic event, which took place on 5 and 6 May 1972 in the Sigma Cultural Center and on the Small Courtyard of the Warsaw University. The masterminds were: Włodzimierz Borowski, Paweł Freisler and Jan Świdziński, by other members of the Organizational Committee: Marek Konieczny, Przemysław Kwiek, Anita Thierry and Krzysztof Zarębski. The framework of „Cleaning of Art” separate authors presentations took place, known due to a scrupulous record made by Anita Thierry.
„Maintenance of the „Gallery” by Freisler on Krakowskie Przedmieście street since March 1972 was a permanent institutional and conceptual experiment. Earlier, since 1971, the artist cooperated with the Cultural Center of Students of the Warsaw University „Sigma”, located in the basement of the University building, between Krakowskie Przedmieście street and the Small Courtyard. Working in the theater at Sigma, he organized there famous „Thursday nights” with participation of sculptors and musicians. Later, he continued this activity at the „Gallery”, maintaining both centers at the same time.
Similarly to the previous projects of the artist, in case of the „Gallery” there was a play of interchangeable relations – substitutes, negations, references – between the notion idea and a physical equivalent. Freisler put the name „Gallery” into quotes both to take the literal meaning away and to deprive the institutions of „physical literacy”. The „Gallery” made frames, within which the artist has made real his fascination with time lapse, marked with the effect of one event from the other. It was an archive of a gesture, causing next gestures and events. (…) Environment was created around the „Gallery”, links were established, as well as the event „Cleaning of Art”, within which the „Gallery” was physically rejected and transferred to the imaginary level. Temporary format of this enterprise was indicative for Freisler.
„Cleaning of Art” was an important event for defining the whole artistic situation of the beginning of 1970-s. It made a joint presentation of activities of two parallel Avant-guard streams – post-essential and pragmatic. The former, represented by Ewa Partum, Marek Konieczny, Włodzimierz Borowski, Paweł Freisler, tended to actual cleaning of artistic activity from all external conditions, which could „contaminate” it, make it easy to consume. The latter, represented by the Film Form Workshop (in particular, by Józef Robakowski, Paweła Kwiek) and a duet KwieKulik (Zofia Kulik and Przemysław Kwiek), tended to „clean the art” from the artists of the former stream and put it into reality again, in a physical space cleared from ideology. These artists were striving to clean the reality from all idealistic projections and open it for new relations and functions, this time imposed by the artists. The event „Cleaning of Art” – due to co-existence of these two streams of Polish Neo-Avant-guard – was a specific continuation of the Gathering of Dreamers, which took place in the EL Gallery in Elbląg in 1971 during the IV Biennale of Space Forms”.
[Łukasz Ronduda. Art of 1970-s. Avant-guard. Jelenia Góra, Warsaw 2009]
