Now Is Now. Artists and Granary Island in Gdansk
Dominik Kuryłek, Ewa Małgorzata Tatar

 

Granary Island [Wyspa Spichrzów], a space in the centre of Gdansk where there is nothing but ruins of granaries and shrubbery, was unofficially opened as exhibition space in May 1987. The downtown area on the Motława river attracted artists who had for several years been looking for a space in which to create art. Before that happened, Grzegorz Klaman and Kazimierz Kowalczyk, still students, performed art actions in Gdansk as part of Rotating Gallery [Galeria Rotacyjna].

This place without a fixed location, which was always on the move and attached only to the personalities of artists, hosted ephemeral land art actions at the Gdansk Fort (Kowalczyk’s 1986 monumental drawings made from planks placed on the snow and the ground) [1], on the frozen Motława River (Klaman’s Linia ognia composed of wooden pellets set on fire on the frozen river, March 1986)[2], and the Pińczów quarry where student sculpture workshops were held by the Gdansk Academy of Art (G. Klaman, Necropolis [Nekropolis] and Sunk Shelter [Zatopiony schron], 1985; K. Kowalczyk, Drawings on the Ground [Rysunki na ziemi], 1985)[3].

Rotating Gallery organised an exhibition in the underground spaces of the student dormitory at Chlebnicka St. In 1986, Grzegorz Klaman organised a one-time exposition of his sculptures and drawings (Underground, 1986). Rotating Gallery patronised an exhibition of works by Grzegorz Klaman, Ryszard Ziarkiewicz and Jacek Staszewski in Granary Island barracks[4], as well as Grzegorz Klaman and Kazimierz Kowalczyk’s exposition Drawing and Sculpture [Rysunek i rzeźba] in the underground space of Państwowa Galeria Sztuki in Sopot at the “d” gallery run by Ryszard Ziarkiewicz[5]. Rotating Gallery also included exhibitions and actions in the corridors of the Academy of Art, where Grzegorz Klaman and Kazimierz Kowalczyk organised exhibitions of their sculptures and drawings in 1985-1986 (K. Kowalczyk, Stairs [Schody], 1985; K. Kowalczyk, G. Klaman, Human [Człowiek], 1986; K. Kowalczyk, «Circle» [Krąg], 1986; G. Klaman, K. Kowalczyk, Irradiated [Napromieniowany], 1986) [6].

There were few opportunities at the time for determined young artists to present their art, although in the 1980s the Coast seemed to foster grassroots initiatives. This opinion of Gdansk was shared in particular by young people arriving as students from other cities in Poland, such as Klaman who came from Nowy Targ, Kazimierz Kowalczyk from Raba Wyżna or, later, Robert Rumas from Kielce. Unfortunately, reality turned out to be very different from their expectations.

In the early 1980s, Gdansk found its place on the art map of Poland mainly owing to several people and the events they organised. The city boasted a long tradition of art, mainly colourist painting and monumental sculpture: there was an art school in Gdansk in 1956, established in Sopot in 1945 under the name State Visual Arts Institute and soon renamed State Higher School of Visual Arts, which was moved to Gdansk and renamed the Academy of Fine Arts in 1996. The first professors of the Academy included artists such as Artur Nacht-Samborski and Marian Wnuk.

In the social realist era the painting ethos was maintained , hence the variously assessed phenomenon called the “Sopot School” in the history of art. The tradition of colourist painting at the Gdansk Academy after 1953 led to artistic lethargy. The tradition persevered in the Academy until the 1980s[7].

Much more was going on outside of its walls. The key art developments in the Tri-City (i.e., Gdansk and the neighbouring towns Sopot and Gdynia) included the explosion of jazz, which happened at the First National Jazz Festival in Sopot (1956), where Krzysztof Komeda Trzciński made his debut, and the Bim-Bom Theatre (1954-1960), featuring Zbigniew Cybulski, Jacek Fedorowicz, and Bogumił Kobiela. However, the music and theatre community was not directly involved in the development of visual arts.

It was only in the 1970s and 1980s that several people initiated the Gdansk art scene, which crystallised in the late 1980s. The beginnings included the work of Witosław Czerwonka, who had been working at the Academy of Art since 1976. Czerwonka, together with Adam Haras and Jerzy Ostrogórski, ran Galeria Aut in Gdansk in 1978-1980 and later Galeria Out at the Sopot BWA. Czerwonka’s later students, including Robert Rumas and Marek „Rogulus” Rogulski, remembered him as very inspiring.

The professor introduced them to the Polish neo-avant-garde. His knowledge and extensive contacts enabled Czerwonka to organise the exhibition entitled New Developments in Polish Art of the 1970s [Nowe zjawiska w sztuce polskiej lat 70] curated by Józef Robakowski and Jan Świdziński at the Sopot BWA (July-August 1981). The exhibition presented the work of leading artists of the Polish neo-avant-garde[8] accompanied by an extensive catalogue with their texts [9]. In addition, Czerwonka was the supervisor of a student club at the Academy, which created the gallery in the lobby of the Baltic Opera and Philharmonic, and where works by Grzegorz Klaman, Wojciech Zamiara and Bernard Ossowski were exhibited.

Ryszard Ziarkiewicz was another founder of the Gdansk art community. He taught art history at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1982-1984. His lectures were as important to students as his 1986 exhibition entitled Expression of the 1980s [Ekspresja lat 80-tych], which presented recent works of young artists from all over Poland, including Gdansk [10]. Ziarkiewicz co-operated with Tri-City artists in organising exhibitions and exhibited his own works, including his paintings at the exhibition in the barracks together with Grzegorz Klaman and Jacek Staniszewski, and at the exhibition Expression of the 1980s[11]. Ziarkiewicz allowed artists to use the space of Gallery „d” in the underground space of BWA[12] and promoted their work during such exhibitions as What’s Up [Co słychać][13] and in Art Magazine [Magazyn Sztuki] which he edited in the 1990s[14].

However, all this would not have given rise to an art scene in Gdansk in the 1980 had it not been for the determination of young artists looking for a space for their own art. They found it on Granary Island. It is no exaggeration to say that the experience of the place, its genius loci, and the collective activity gave direction to the work of participating artists for many years to come and impacted their practice much more than their studies at the Academy.

The place, used as an open-air workshop of the Sculpture Department, mainly seduced Grzegorz Klaman, who came there first together with Kazimierz Kowalczyk [15]. Perhaps the specific sensitivity of the young sculptors to the material they were to shape prevented them from being arrogant in their relationship with Granary Island and released their empathy. The material which inspired their work mainly included directly accessible layers of soil as well as ruins of buildings.

This partly metaphysical contact with the material of the Island significantly influenced the artists’ thinking. It released their energy. By shaping the appropriated space, they shaped themselves and their original approach to reality. This is demonstrated by Grzegorz Klaman’s manifesto entitled Reverse Archaeology [Archeologia odwrotna], which was part of his MA thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk (1985) [16]. Klaman wrote: “Granary Island is an (exterritorial) place [emphasis DK/ET] which releases a specific sense of the space of history, of that which has moved into the past, and also a participatory space, the present, because it is a cultural fertiliser, made up of fermenting deposits. Working on the 'Island', I drew upon the awareness of many layers under my feet, rubble, soil, burnt corn, burnt floors, etc. […] I kept on finding lost fragments, restored layers, which impact the present-time installations at this location. Creating media at this place, conjuring them up, is a kind of reading. A retrospective of the negative into the positive, the development of what has degraded but never lost its inspiring content. Traces of fundamental laws of culture subjectivised at the interface of existence and artefact, in a double perspective: from the micro-space of the body reduced to flesh, to the macro-scale of constructing the 'shadows' of monumental buildings. Interpersonal contacts and artist-to artist relationships, a kind of communal activity, transformed into autonomous nests which put us at the level of individual white noise (individual essence). There is a silencing, a whitening in purified space (white as a kind of emptiness) […] which takes place, happens, is now. The space, the place – Granary Island – is only a model, a short-cut for a broader, more general quest for a different space, a different land, the mythical land of artistic fulfilment, the land which is so perversely close because it lies under your feet as the only one that can be realised here and now”[17].

Created as the result of a very emotional contact of the artist with the space of Granary Island, the text is a testimony to the strong awareness of the way that the experience of materiality, place, time (past and present), and the presence of other participants of an event conditions the shaping of an object (not just an art object).

From the perspective of the subject understood as corporeal in the way proposed by Elizabeth Grosz, the body of the subject is understood and produced as liquid permeation of the inner and the outer. It is what is continually being produced by the experience of reality here and now, at a specific place and time, and which also shapes that reality by its very presence[18].

Klaman’s text is also an expression of the ecological attitude of the young artists to “environment”, which was not predefined by those who came to Granary Island[19].

In this climate, Granary Island hosted exhibitions organised in 1987-1992. The presentation of works was as important as the experience of space, participation in the event, and establishing relationships with other participants. Eight major presentations organised at that time were usually actions lasting several days. They included presentations of works combined with projections, performances and concerts: Sculpture, Installation, Painting [Rzeźba, instalacja, obraz], (1987) [20], Moby Dick, (1987)[21], Now Is Now [Teraz jest teraz], (1988)[22], Gnosis (1989)[23]. The Ziemia Mindel Würm collective (Marek Rogulski and Piotr Wyrzykowski) performed on the Island as part of the international performance festival Real Time – Story Telling organised in co-operation with BWA Sopot in 1990. It was accompanied by the presentation and destruction of Grzegorz Klaman’s work The Tower of Gnosis [Wieża gnozy], (1991). The Swiss artist Kees Mol also participated in the event.

The exhibition Gdansk – Warsaw took place in 1990 [24]; the exhibition Places [Miejsca], in 1991[25]; and the exhibition Project Island [Projekt Wyspa], accompanying the International Seminar „Project Island”, in 1992[26]. These events were very specific and created a new quality, especially in the context of preceding art activity in Gdansk.

The exhibitions involved a close interaction with the materiality and the past of the place. They were monumental installations, in which the audience could use all their senses to perceive art and experience the exhibition space.

This was evident already in the first presentation of Kazimierz Kowalczyk’s graduation work: he placed his sculptures, which looked like torsos, along the brick wall of the granary. It was also evident in the exhibitions Moby Dick and Now is Now, in which objects were integrated with the space of the Island, such as Robert Rumas’s Hand [Ręka] and Grzegorz Klaman’s Big Black Head [Wielka czarna głowa] presented at the Now is Now exhibition (both works were built upon, or supported, ruins of buildings), as well as the action Zakopywanie [Burying] performed by Grzegorz Klaman during the Moby Dick exhibition.

It must be noted that at that time in Gdansk, exhibitions were organised by schools of art or galleries run by the government. As an exception to this rule, one-day presentations were allowed in places appropriated by artists, or made available to them for a short time, especially in Gdansk soon after martial law.

The status of Granary Island was different. The space was the property of the Academy. However, it gave young artists a lot of creative freedom. It had the status of a workshop. It was also important that the Island was not delimited by the walls of any building, other than the granaries. It was an open though separate space in the city. It was located at a place which had not changed since the war, which created a strong relationship between this space and its past and artists sensitive to materiality. It also created meaningful relations between the artists working there.

It seems that the Island allowed artists to avoid the convention offered by the official system of exhibitions. The space of Granary Island, its layers and its past, which could be explored through materiality (by means of presentations of works, digging, interventions in historical material), became a starting point for an “attempt to apply what was gone, found, uncovered to the situation of contemporary man, entangled in culture, which he only partly understands, and in civilisation, which is both subservient and destructive”[27], in order to create, on this basis, a new form of art’s functionality.

This archaeological element in the actions of artists such as Grzegorz Klaman, Kazimierz Kowalczyk, and later, Marek „Rogulus” Rogulski and Andrzej Awsiej, was more than a search for alternative actions under inspiration of the past. The exploration of Granary Island took place directly by digging and documenting it, and also indirectly by actions on the Island. Being at that place had a universal meaning for the artists. As Klaman emphasised, the Island was only a “model, a short-cut for a broader, more general quest for […] artistic fulfilment”[28], which the artists affiliated with the Island tried to attain through their special take on metaphysics.

Looking for an experience of the world in a form other than that already given is a characteristic of works by Grzegorz Klaman, who single-handedly buried meat and books on Granary Island [29]. In a way, the artist reactivated old layers of reality while annihilating the contemporary matter of the body and culture. By burying it, Klaman evoked a specific kind of nostalgia about what disappeared in the ground. However, it was no ordinary sentimentality. By inducing a sense of lack, the artist knowingly referred to the present time. He transformed the perspective on the world around, created a distance to reality, escaped mandatory temporality.

The metaphysics of the Gdansk community – their quest for the key to an experience of a different, archaeological reality – had a critical quality. The criticism related to a shift from progression to regression. However, it was no ordinary fascination with the past. In their search, the artists were looking not so much for historical facts as an archetype. This was evident mainly in their activity relating to soil, a specific variety of land art, or rather: in their art of the soil, which, according to Klaman, was best fit for experiencing reality. “Re-entering the world is not being 'next to' or 'in front of' but 'in the surroundings'" - he wrote, pointing out that “[a]rticulation of actions like this is sometimes so strongly immersed in what exists or in actions beyond the area of traditional art that at this point we touch very palpably the identity of art and of reality”. This movement could be described as movement from transcendence to immanence[30].

It is interesting at this juncture to mention Jarosław Fliciński’s work entitled The State of the Present, October 1987 [Stan teraz – październik 1987], a large installation which introduced the audience symbolically to the Moby Dick exhibition on Granary Island[31]. It consisted of a corridor 40 m long and 2 m high made from zinc sheet, cardboard, paper, and an 18 m long wall of soil upon which the artist placed a line of granite stones and mirrors which optically extended the wall of soil beyond the brick wall to which it extended. The installation also included a Mill game board and quotations from Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose”[32]. The monumental sculpture was site-specific with regard to the historical context and material, and can be read as space which provoked participation in a ritual. Entering it with one’s own body and seeing its extension beyond the wall (mirrors) produced the experience of a different reality. Fliciński’s work reflected the reality of Granary Island here and now while also inspiring the viewers to reflect on their powers of perception. In this context, the quote from Umberto Eco: “They were all right in their way, and all were mistaken”, stimulated the viewer to open up to the possibility of another space.

Such attempts to leave the world perceived by the senses can be associated with a “new Romanticism”, as some of the 1980s Polish art is occasionally described[33]. This took on a very specific form in Gdansk. It is no exaggeration to say that this position was more evident than what the history of art calls “new expression”. The position characterised those actions on the Island which Klaman referred to as symbolic “reappropriation of the soil[34].”

The actions connected their participants to the place. They treated soil as soil and gave it back to “nature”[35], endowed it with subjectivity. The actions of the artists made the space of the Island a symbol. Thus, the artists took responsibility for it and created a community on this “soil”. This was present in the action of the Ziemia Mindel Würm collective at the performance festival Real Time – Story Telling. During this very emotional “ritual”, Marek “Rogulus” Rogulski and Piotr Wyrzykowski burnt Grzegorz Klaman’s sculpture Wieża gnozy, with the artist’s consent, of course. The resulting monumental bonfire integrated the gathered witnesses of the event, who became equal participants in the event along with the performers.

The „new Romantic” nature of actions on the Island was also evident in the artists’ turn to metaphysics by attempting to depart from the obligatory linear temporality and reach the „no time” that Klaman mentioned. As a result, „through insertion into the environment or a situation created and understood ages ago, and through the experience of time and space or no time, (the artists uncovered) meanings relevant to present time” [36].

The artists did not isolate themselves from the world around, but they took a critical stance on reality. Their specific metaphysical turn was paradoxically oriented toward reality. The critical edge was in the proposition of an alternative perspective on participation in the world by its transcendence. An uncovering of the past: an archaeology which discovered materiality and the historically undocumented, forgotten ideas hidden in it was intended as a means of verifying the present from an alternative perspective.

The exhibition Moby Dick on Granary Island is a good example. Works presented at the exhibition had a strong relation to the place and its past and were meant to create a mystical atmosphere for the audience. Fliciński’s installation described above introduced the audience to the exhibition. The viewers then saw Grzegorz Klaman’s monumental sculpture Figure Holding Fate [Postać trzymającą los] placed on top of a pile of rubble and a log pyramid with a wooden mastaba in the background. Other works included Kazimierz Kowalczyk’s painting Cannibals [Ludożercy] together with an earth drawing beneath it, Man with a rifle [Człowiek z karabinem].

Those works referred to the past of the materiality of Granary Island: the walls of the granaries, which were destroyed during WWII, may have seemed particular points in the ritual of experience and transcendence of the place. This is demonstrated in the aesthetics of the film and photographic documentation of the exhibition [37], created at night with the use of lights projected at the works. In the exhibition catalogue, Ryszard Ziarkiewicz said that the art presented at the exhibition induced in the viewer a state of “medieval confusion of perspective”, aiming to “make the world legible” by means of “destroying the colloquial perfection, the colloquial appearance of things”[38]. Thus, the exhibition contained a ritual of destruction taking place in mythical time. It was meant to enable a transcendence of reality[39].

The experience of Granary Island, the creation of a different kind of participation, a different way of experiencing the world, also resulted in a different perception of the works of art. Their meaning was unrelated to the visual form. Artefacts presented at Granary Island became centres of energy which connected people like burning bonfires. It seems that the works of art presented on Granary Island expressed not so much the creative personality of individuals as the potential of establishing a relationship with the witnesses of the events, which works of art are. Art on Granary Island initiated a common experience of a “parallel reality”, not created by the artist as demiurge, but constructed jointly with others under the impact of the artefact and its surroundings.

In Klaman’s words: “It seems that ‘participation’ is somehow opposed to “expression”: where the artist participates in a work of art, where it’s all about action, activity, performance, there is no room for traditional expression radiated by the work of art as an artefact. Expression persists to the extent that it is present in every human activity geared towards contact, understanding, and discovery of a parallel reality. In actions of the relationship between humans and nature, nature is attributed an existence on a par with human existence. Actions in nature are actions for nature: towards it, within it, with it and through it, so long as they are oriented at transcendence into a superhuman and supernatural reality. It seems that the orientation toward touch and understanding (cognitive action) ‘separates’ expression as a property which is present but not necessary; it can exist but not as a goal”[40].

Environmental “participation” appears to be a category useful for interpreting the works of the Gdansk artists. It seems to contribute more to the reading of their work than the anthropocentric notion of expression, which has been applied to them thus far [41]. Participation would thus involve coming into contact with the place and the audience, who are no longer onlookers standing by and waiting for a message to be delivered, but become co-creators as they respond to creative action.

An example of this is the exhibition «Now is Now», a celebration of now, aiming to initiate a relationship with visitors to Granary Island. Jarosław Fliciński’s painting installation Plum [Śliwkowy] is a pars pro toto of the exhibition. By means of a painting and a wooden table, the artist introduced the audience to a space of apparently two-dimensional art. His work encompassed a frugal meal, a ritual which integrated the audience with art and with each other through the sense of taste.

It becomes apparent in this context that relationships were of key importance on the Island while art was meant to intensify the sensation of being together, even if art was to be destroyed. The activity of artists was oriented toward initiating actions. Klaman described such an understanding of creation with pairs of antinomies: “Packing – uncovering, dividing – combining, building – so it can break up, assembling – disassembling, so it can exist again in an awareness of loss”[42].

All that was expected of witnesses of events on the Island was an “openness” which people had for each other then and there. Energy shared by the artists was directed towards reception and reflection. This is how a community was founded in the “model” and “exterritorial” space.

The activity of the artists affiliated with Granary Island culminated in the Otwarte Atelier Foundation, which later founded Poland’s second contemporary art centre (after Ujazdowski Castle) in former city baths of Gdansk - LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art [Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej ŁAŹNIA, CSW Łaźnia][43].

The move from open space into an institution, away from the soil, from exploration of the past, and from penetration of mythical time, led inevitably to confrontation with the authorities who controlled institutions. The conflict was unavoidable. However, it failed to produce constructive solutions. Further activities of the artists affiliated with the Island, especially Grzegorz Klaman, could be compared to the activity of Rotating Gallery, in which artists were looking for free spaces in oppressive reality. Naturally, as of the early 1990s, the Gdansk artists continued that search within a range of existing institutions, from the Island [Wyspa] gallery at Chlebnicka Street through the Otwarte Atelier Foundation and the Wyspa Progress Foundation to LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art. History has in a way repeated itself, – now making a stop at the Wyspa Institute of Art situated in the former Gdansk Lenin Shipyard.

Dominik Kuryłek, born in 1979, an art historian and critic, editor, since 2003 has been collaborating with Ewa Małgorzata Tatar. They curated a number of exhibitions, among others Guide Project (2005-2007) and Cafe Bar by Paulina Ołowska (2011) at the National Museum in Krakow, On the Volcano. Krzysztof Niemczyk (2010) at the Lipowa 11 Gallery in Lublin, Now is Now (2012) at the Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdansk. They published “A Short History of Grupa Ladnie” (2008, with Magdalena Drągowska).

Ewa Małgorzata Tatar, born in 1981, an art historian and critic, editor, since 2003 working together with Dominik Kuryłek. Their co-operation resulted in a number of exhibitions and publications, such as the Guide Project (2005-2007) and Cafe Bar by Paulina Ołowska (2011) at the National Museum in Krakow, On the Volcano. Krzysztof Niemczyk (2010) at the Lipowa 11 Gallery in Lublin, Now is Now (2012) at the Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdansk. They published “A Short History of Grupa Ladnie” (2008, with Magdalena Drągowska).

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Notes

1. Cf. “Klaman, Kowalczyk”, catalogue available in the archives of Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdansk. ↑

2. Cf. “Most”, catalogue available in the archives of Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdansk. ↑

3. Cf. “Klaman Kowalczyk”, op. cit. ↑

4. Cf. “Baraki. Chmielna - Jaglana 09.01.1987”, exhibition catalogue available in the archives of Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdansk. ↑

5. Cf. “Klaman Kowalczyk”, op. cit. ↑

6. Cf. ibidem. ↑

7. Cf Z. Tomczyk-Watrak, “Wybory i przemilczenia. Od szkoły sopockiej do nowej szkoły gdańskiej”, Gdansk 2007. ↑

8. It should be noted that Galeria GN, which was owned by ZPAF and run by Leszek Brogowski in 1977-1982, and which presented neo-avant-garde and post-conceptual art, may also have played this role. ↑

9. “Nowe zjawiska w sztuce polskiej lat 70.”, red. J. Robakowski, W. Czerwonka (eds.), exhibition catalogue, Sopot 1981. ↑

10. The following artists took part in the exhibition: Grzegorz Klaman, Kazimierz Kowalczyk, Andrzej Kuich, Ligia Mikler, Sławomir Witkowski, Krzysztof Wróblewski, Wojciech Zamiara. Cf. “Ekspresja lat 80-tych”, R. Ziarkiewicz (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Warsaw 1990. ↑

11. Cf. “Baraki. Chmielna – Jaglana 09.01.1987”, op. cit.; “Ekspresja lat 80-tych”, op. cit. ↑

12. Cf. “Baraki. Chmielna – Jaglana 09.01.1987”, op. cit. ↑

13. R. Ziarkiewicz, “Gdansk – poza “ekspresją’”, in: “Co słychać? Sztuka najnowsza”, M. Sitkowska (ed.), Warszawa 1989, pp. 209–217. ↑

14. G. Klaman, A. Wołodźko, “Projekt ‘Wyspa’”, Magazyn Sztuki No 1/1993, p. 68; A. Awsiej, “Projekt ‘Otwarte Atelier’”, Magazyn Sztuki
No 1/1993, p. 69. ↑

15. The first exhibition organised on Granary Island was a presentation of Kazimierz Kowalczyk’s Dyplom in October 1986. ↑

16. “Archeologia odwrotna” was a supplement to Grzegorz Klaman’s land art graduation work submitted in 1985. The text “Archeologia odwrotna” was first published in Grzegorz Klaman’s solo catalogue in 1992. Cf. G. Klaman, “Archeologia odwrotna”, in: “Klaman. Akcje, figury, obiekty”, J. Górski, G. Klaman (eds.), Gdansk 1992. More recently, the text has been published as an insert in a monograph of Grzegorz Klaman’s work. Cf. “Archeologia odwrotna”, in: “Klaman”, K. Gutfrański (ed.), Gdansk 2010. ↑

17. G. Klaman, “Archeologia odwrotna”, op. cit. ↑

18. Corporeal philosophy of the subject in feminist thought, including Elizabeth Grosz’s writing, was discussed by Ewa Hyży. Cf. E. Hyży, “Kobieta, ciało, tożsamość. Teorie podmiotu w filozofii feministycznej końca XX wieku”, Krakow 2003. ↑

19. The activity of artists at that time coincided with the activity of environmental groups in Gdansk, including the movement Wolność i Pokój (Freedom and Peace) and Ruch Społeczeństwa Alternatywnego (Alternative Society Movement). There were many demonstrations against the planned construction of a nuclear power plant in Żarnowiec in Poland, including demonstrations in Gdansk, which took place in 1986 after the Chernobyl disaster. From the contemporary perspective, the activity of artists on the Island can be discussed in terms of “political ecology” offered by Latour, which seems to describe their nature in contemporary terms. Cf. B. Latour, “Ekologia polityczna przeciw naturze”, „Krytyka Polityczna”, No. 15/2008, pp. 170–180. ↑

20. The exhibition Sculpture, Installation, Painting featured: Grzegorz Klaman, Jarosław Fliciński, Zbigniew Kossowski, Kazimierz Kowalczyk, Eugeniusz Szczudło and Dariusz Bujak. ↑

21. The exhibition Moby Dick presented works by Kazimierz Kowalczyk, Grzegorz Klaman, and Jarosław Fliciński; the Gdynia City Museum presented works by Krzysztof M. Bednarski, Jacek Staniszewski, Dariusz Lipski, and Grzegorz Klaman. ↑

22. Artists invited to take part in the exhibition «Now is Now», included Yacha Paszkiewicz, the collective Miłość, Totart, Marek Sobczyk and Włodzimierz Pawlak of the Warsaw-based collective Gruppa, and Zbigniew Libera. Other featured artists included: Dariusz Bujak, Jarosław Fliciński, Grzegorz Klaman, Eugeniusz Szczudło, Robert Rumas, and Mirosław Popławski. ↑

23. The exhibition Gnosis featured: Grzegorz Klaman, Marek Rogulski, Jarosław Fliciński, and Eugeniusz Szczudło. ↑

24. The exhibition Gdansk – Warsaw presented works by Marek Sobczyk, Ryszard Woźniak, Grzegorz Klaman, Kazimierz Kowalczyk, Robert Rumas, and an action of the collective Ziemia Mindel Würm. ↑

25. The exhibition Places featured: Robert Kaja, Robert Rumas, Grzegorz Klaman, Marek Rogulski, and Piotr Wyrzykowski. ↑

26. The exhibition Island Project presented works by Andrzej Awsiej, Marek Rogulski, Robert Kaja, and Grzegorz Klaman. ↑

27. G. Klaman, “Archeologia odwrotna”, op. cit. ↑

28. Ibidem. ↑

29. Grzegorz Klaman’s action Zakopywanie was performed on Granary Island on the occasion of the exhibition Moby Dick in November 1987. ↑

30. The argument here is associated with transcendence understood by Heidegger as “being there.” For details of this approach cf. B. Baran, “Heidegger i powszechna demobilizacja”, (Kraków 2004), pp. 70–76. Transcendence reduced to immanence was discussed by Łukasz Ronduda with reference to the work of Zbigniew Libera. Cf. Ł. Ronduda, Tożsamość tranzytowa – życie i twórczość Zbigniewa Libery w latach 1981–2006, in: “Libera”, D. Monkiewicz (ed.), exhibition catalogue, (Warsaw, 2009), p. 26. ↑

31. The exhibition Moby Dick was organised at two locations in parallel: Granary Island in Gdansk, and the Gdynia City Museum. Cf. “Moby Dick”, exhibition catalogue available in the archives of Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdansk. ↑

32. “They were all right in their way, and all were mistaken […] And they become all the more evil, the more you cast them out; and the more you depict them as a court of lemurs who want your ruin, the more they will be outcast”. ↑

33. In the catalogue of the exhibition What is Up?, Maryla Sitkowska writes that the term “neo-Romanticism” summarises the opinions of the presentation’s author Andrzej Bonarski on the works of young artists. According to Sitkowska, Bonarski believed that their art, like art in the time of historical Romanticism, broke the prevailing (avant-garde) canon in the Romantic spirit, “spontaneously and intuitively turning to the sphere of meanings and their personal expression”. Sitkowska agrees that the position of young artists can be compared to Romanticism, yet in the later part of her text, she identifies their art with expression and does not embark on any further analysis of the Romanticism of the 1980s. Cf. M. Sitkowska, “Wstęp”, in: “Co słychać?”, op. cit., pp. 11–13; A. Bonarski, Wstęp, in: ibidem, pp. 14–16. ↑

34. G. Klaman, “Archeologia odwrotna”, op. cit. ↑

35. Ibidem. ↑

36. Ibidem. ↑

37. Available in the archives of Instytut Sztuki in Gdansk ↑

38. R. Ziarkiewicz, “Moby Dick. Rzeźba 1987”, exhibition catalogue available in Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdansk. ↑

39. One can employ the term “critical metaphysics” or the notion of “social metaphysics” which refers to a magazine published in Gdansk by the collective Totart. Cf. “Metafizyka społeczna. Esencjalny kwartalnik na rzecz zbliżenia estetyki z egzystencją”, No. 1/1992. ↑

40. G. Klaman, “Archeologia odwrotna”, op. cit. ↑

41. Cf.: “Ekspresja lat 80.-tych”, op. cit.; “Co słychać?”, op. cit.; “Republika bananowa”, J. Ciesielska (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Wrocław 2008. ↑

42. G. Klaman, “Archeologia odwrotna”, op. cit. ↑

43. Aneta Szyłak was the first director of CSW Łaźnia. ↑

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