Filmoteka Muzeum

Piotr Wyrzykowski departs from the traditional methods of artistic creation. He eliminates his own subjectivity, intuition and expression by subjecting the film structure to a pre-set, “objective” procedure. However, despite similar “objective” methodology, his works differ from those of his predecessors from the 1970s (representatives of medialism, also known as analytical conceptualism in the domain of film, video and photography) in a much larger reserve towards the “scientific-cognitive” goals of art, and in the content of elements at play and emphasis on aesthetics. The form of Beta Nassau by Piotr Wyrzykowski is determined by the application of a radical John Cage-like score. The artist simply sets the camera and records for more than ten minutes the texture (matter) of the side of a ship entering a harbour. Thus, Wyrzykowski generates an unusual abstract spectacle that evolves in time.

Quoted from: Ł. Ronduda, Currents of the Hidden Decade, [in:] The Hidden Decade: Polish Video Art 1985–1995, eds. P. Krajewski, V. Kutlubasis-Krajewska, Wrocław 2010.