Polish Performance Archive

Description by Filmoteka Muzeum

Side Judge is a performance carried out at the BWA Gallery in Wrocław, in which Arti Grabowski assumes the role of a referee in a clash between two concrete mixers armed with spades. Connected with a rope, the machines gradually come closer to one another. When their confrontation finally occurs, both of them fall down on the ground, and the performer – acting as the referee – announces the end of the fight.

The message of the artist's performance can be interpreted in a two-fold way: as a metaphorical commentary on unrelenting struggles in the field of art, which are observed by such “referees” as art institutions, critics and curators; or as a reference to the advancing “mechanisation” of the bodies of sporting competitors.

(AP)