Collection

The List can be said to be a piece from the tradition of critical “office- -institutional” works (started by Hans Haacke’s MOMA Poll at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1970) which are in response to the increasing need of the artistic circles for a collective expression of either support or opposition to some (most often political) decision, person, or institution. As a result of the overproduction of such lists, the very content of the petitions ceases to be of value and it is the collection of known names (even if somewhat predictable) which is becoming ever more important. Hence Dawicki’s list is ideal – with no redundant requests or postulates and thus always and ever current, pointing at the same time to the fact that the fate of Polish art in the times of post- -transformation is a history of continuous tensions between “us” and “them”.