Description by Filmoteka Muzeum
Footage of an action by Wspólnota Leeeżeć (The Lyyying Community) which took place in 1998 at the Tower Building Gallery in Łódź as an event that accompanied the opening of the exhibition Die Kunst ist Toth (curated by Andrzej Miastkowski and Maciej Ożóg). “The film documentation perfectly conveys the atmosphere of one-day exhibitions/events organised by Wspólnota Leeeżeć in factory interiors in Łódź” – as group member Andrzej Miastkowski states. Those postindustrial surroundings undoubtedly determined the reception of the group’s artistic actions. Expressive art created by the noisy and helter-skelter Wspólnota Leeeżeć collective was much more at home in such settings than in the antiseptic white cube. The action derives its title from the surname of a participating artist. Its course is well described in a text in Tygodnik Leeeżeć (The Lyyying Weekly: “During the second part of the evening, Wspólnota Leeeżeć carried out the arduous Physical Action with (a sluggish) Pallester. Apart from himself, the action made use of 28 kg of duck feathers, lawn mowers, drills, some sulphur, ropes and candles. Growling bloodthirstily, the drills bore through candles, the ropes formed a lyyying cocoon [see translator’s note below], and the feathers soared in the air with the help of a lawn mower and Pallester” (source: Michał Gralak, “Zapis działań”, Tygodnik Leeeżeć no. 99/1999).
Wspólnota Leeeżeć comprising: Paweł Pallester, Andrzej Miastkowski vel Egon Fietke, Michał Gralak, sound: Jerzy Korzeń
(ND)
[Translator’s note: “lyyying” stands here for the adjective “modzistyczny” derived from the noun “modzizm”, a neologism coined and frequently used by Wspólnota Leeeżeć as the name of a mock artistic tendency that serves to ridicule artistic “-isms”. Footnote based on a quote from Maciej Cholewiński in Jarosław Lubiak, Małgorzata Ludwisiak, eds. Correspondences. Modern Art and Universalism, eds. (Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 2012), 626.]