Performans

Description by Filmoteka Muzeum

Activities with the Head belong to that stage of work with the students where – in the frame of the exercises at the Open Form Studio – Zbigniew Libera addresses the Activities and collaborations from the 1970s, developed mainly by KwieKulik. However, Libera’s involvement is not limited to a sheer repetition of KwieKulik’s achievements, since he introduces certain modifications, thus manifesting his creative approach.

The object of the activities in the film is the eponymous head, situated in a hole in a cardboard box. The head undergoes various activities as students add and remove subsequent props, or carry out specific gestures that provide the object (or already the subject?) with an identity or take its identity away from it. At one point the model is crowned king, at another it becomes a prisoner locked behind the bars.

In this case, the camera is fixed in one place so that we can see mainly the model’s head. All of the above mentioned activities emphasise the vulnerability of the model, unable to defend himself, who surrenders to more and more activities and provocations.

References: Ł. Ronduda, Studio Formy Otwartej Zbigniewa Libery, Prague 2011.

(MK)