Piotr Stasiowski, Independence Experience of the Wrocław Community in the 1980s

 

When researching the independence-related experience of artists with connections to the Wrocław community of the 1980s, we encounter a methodological impasse disallowing us to outline a single formula for discourse on the art of the time. The eighties of the previous century were actually a blend of post-avant-garde attitudes originating in the 1970s (including the ever-alive legend of Jerzy Ludwiński’s activity), performance work of the anarchy-leaning Orange Alternative [Pomarańczowa Alternatywa], Luxus Group’s appeals for new quality in culture, and the Catholic ideals-determined Ostrów Gallery [Galeria na Ostrowie], through to the series of proclamations and manifestations of individual artists as well as the more or less ephemeral galleries and communities.

\"„Xuxem”,

Despite the artists’ withdrawal from the official world of art, so frequently emphasised by critics of the time, the Wrocław art community proved lively and committed to a variety of forms of activity during the decade. Assorted artistic attitudes were bonded by the conviction of the necessity to retain independence.It was precisely that independence, defined and manifested in a variety of ways and forms and seeking different adversaries, which remained at the foundation of most cultural action, contributing to a long term tradition of perceiving art in this very context. Referring to a variety of artistic events of the eighties in Wrocław, I shall attempt to outline the main trends and attitudes represented by the creative community of the city at the time.

Art Activity Centre and the Facility on the Moat

In 1980, Michał Bieganowski, then manager of the Facility on the Moat [Zakład nad Fosą] students’ club, invited Wojciech Stefanik to join the programme team for the place. Albeit Stefanik had managed student galleries (Simlex and the Catacombs [Katakumby]) before, he was eager to pick up on the theme of organising a new space in 1980. He designed his own programme, calling it Art Activity Centre [Ośrodek Działań Plastycznych or ODP], and bringing it to life in 1981 at the Facility on the Moat location in co-operation with its artists. Facility on the Moat was another student club with premises in the basement of the Assistants Dorm of the Wrocław University of Technology, charged with the mission of breathing humanist values into a technology-centred academic community. ODP had a small pool of funds provided by the Wrocław University of Technology for programme and operational purposes.

The following artists, among others, showed their work at Art Activity Centre: Alojzy Gryt, Ewa Zarzycka, Jarosław Kozłowski, Hanna Łuczak, Andrzej Dudek-Dürer, and Zbigniew Makarewicz. Wojciech Stefanik also organised numerous performance art and show events there. The gallery’s programme focused on the performance and conceptual activity of artists debuting in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Facility on the Moat Week, involving a number of speeches, performances, and documentary shows, was possibly the single most important event co-organised by the Facility and ODP. The festival, organised on April 26 through 29 1984, was a review of neo-avant-garde trends of the mid-eighties, and was one of the last joint performances by the two communities. It was attended by Stanisław Dróżdż, Jerzy Ludwiński, with his “Atypical Deer” [Nietypowe jelenie] lecture, Zbigniew Makarewicz speaking on the “Topography of Art” [Topografia sztuki], and by the performers: Piotr Grzybowski, Władysław Kaźmierczak, Wojciech Stefanik, Andrzej Dudek-Dürer, Artur Tajber, and Barbara Kozłowska et. al.. Film documentaries by the Emotional Compositions Studio [Studio Kompozycji Emocjonalnej (Zbigniew Jeż, Grzegorz Kolasiński, Jerzy Ryba, Wojciech Sztukowski)] were screened alongside works from Waldemar Pertyka’s Warsaw-based gallery Kalypso, and documentaries showing achievements of Facility on the Moat and ODP. The Konger group gave a performance art show on the last day of the festival.

The importance of the show and the festival itself is rather complex. A student gallery, ODP enjoyed considerable independence and creative freedom. Concurrently, they did not have to give much thought to the funding of their activities. Notably, performance art disappeared from all state institutions in the 1980s, possibly for reasons of its subversive and unpredictable nature, rather difficult to rein in with censorship. Nonetheless, as declared by Piotr Grzybowski, the driving force behind Konger, the purpose of performance art was not to contest the system in as much as to absorb its realities and transform them internally. This would be yet another form of the so-called “third path”, paved prior to the new expression experience of the 1980s.

In 1990, ODP transferred their location to the Impart Art Centre [Centrum Sztuki Impart] to continue their operations until 1999.

The Galeria na Ostrowie

The Galeria na Ostrowie operated in the basement of St. Martin’s church in the years 1984–1989. It was a structure formally reporting to the Metropolitan Curia as a chapter of the Archdiocese Museum in Wrocław. Jerzy Ryba – critic, animator, and artist – was the Gallery’s programme director. Exhibition activities apart, he focused on documenting events in Wrocław. The Gallery hosted fifty exhibitions and many meetings at the intersection of literature, theatre, and science[1]. The programme included so-called “Theatre Mondays” moderated by Justyna Hoffman nearly every week, “Science Wednesdays” with Adolf Juzwenko as their anchorman, and “Literature Thursdays” co-ordinated by Lothar Herbst.

In his “Supplement to the Gallery’s Operations” [Suplement do działalności galerii] mimeographed in 99 copies, Jerzy Ryba listed the following as chief assumptions of the Gallery’s activity: “[…] extreme eclecticism, and continuation of the worst traditions of the Polish Association of Artists and Designers’ exhibitions and galleries, excepting some good work and the Mona Lisa traditions’ continuation”. Concurrently, Ryba declared: “Culture is created by the nation rather than by the state”. The supplement itself was published as a response to the silence of corrupted critics, and contained i.a. Zbigniew Makarewicz’s essay about Leon Podsiadły.

The Gallery’s presentations conformed to these postulates, after a fashion. Shows by artists forming part of the Wrocław community and debuting over the previous two decades apart, assorted exhibitions were organised, such as that displaying Father Jerzy Popiełuszko’s funeral (For Father Jerzy [Księdzu Jerzemu] – January 1985), November Uprising-related documents, and Stanisław Gębczak’s photographic documentary showing the papal pilgrimage to Poland in late May and early June 1986.

Every exhibition was followed up with a mimeographed catalogue containing 8 to 16 A5 pages featuring black-and-white reproductions, critical essays, and quotes from artists.

Furthermore, Galeria na Ostrowie organised two major collective Way and Truth [Droga i Prawda] reviews, and co-organised two Local Art Exhibitions. The Way and Truth, a National Biennale of Young Artists, originally planned as a series, was a competition-based event. It took place twice only, in 1985 and 1987, at the Holy Cross church on Ostrów Tumski Island. Artists were preselected, with prizes consisting in an opportunity to organise a laureate exhibition at the Gallery. Symposiums to debate the role of art in society were organised as part of the Gallery’s agenda as well. All these exhibitions contributed to the Ostrów Tumski Island’s new name – the Independent Republic of Art.

Moreover, Local Art Exhibitions: Wrocław ’85 and Wrocław ’87 were co-organised by Galeria na Ostrowie, although the actual art was shown at St. Martin’s, as well as throughout the Island’s neighbourhood. These exhibitions involved a mass mobilisation of the art community: every artist made an independent decision with regard to works to be shown, and then helped install them in exhibition space. The first edition comprised approximately 500 works by nearly 200 artists. The second was attended by 150 artists[2], with the exhibition itself transferred the following month to the Divine Mercy church on Żytnia Street in Warsaw. A catalogue was published with comments by a number of artists to commemorate the occasion.

To quote Jerzy Ryba: “The time of enthusiasm and easy hope is slowly drawing to a close. The compromise of an average gray day makes the hierarchy of matters and values less distinct. Collective declarations have to be replaced with conscious individual choice. With all its consequences”[3]. These words seem to be apt in reflecting the spirit of the opposition connected, with the Catholic Church in the second half of the 1980s.

Luxus

From a time perspective, the Wrocław-based activities of Luxus became the stuff of legends, making the group possibly the most important Wrocław phenomenon, its origins rooted in the social and political turbulence of \"Luxus the 1980s. Its activities, representative of the search for the „third path” and a response to other Polish phenomena tying in with new expression, have until this day not been fully described. Piotr Rypson, Anna Mituś and I are currently working on a publication to document its work.

Luxus’ artistic accomplishments chiefly involved the creation of so-called „Luxus shows”: fun-inspired meetings of artists and groupies, giving rise to the creation of artzines, drawings, ad hoc installations and decorations, and stencils on assorted materials. Concerts by befriended music groups, such as Mousoleum or Klaus Mitffoch, were a crucial component of „Luxus shows”.

Another meaningful aspect differentiating Luxus from among other similar groups was that of the position of female artists, immensely democratic and crucial to the formation. Their work and activity was no mere backdrop or inspiration for others (as in the case of Łódź Kaliska, for example), but rather an equally consequential proposition, formerly non-debated in the context of women’s art or of feminism as such. Bożena Grzyb, Ewa Ciepielewska, and (later) Małgorzata Plata truly impacted the nature and activity of the group as its irreplaceable members.

Luxus and the Orange Alternative alike originated in the 1981 social and political ferment within the academic and university structures. The suspension of curriculum-based classes at the State University of Art \"Luxus in Wrocław from December 1981 until February 1982, as part of the so-called Radom Strike, wrought havoc within its structure. High on freedom, on the lack of a schedule of formal classes, and on the absence of any leadership from teaching staff, students took the initiative in various forms of creativity at their alma mater. University corridors were filling up with stencilled prints and installations blending in a variety of media. Musical ensembles, the Miki Mousoleum among others, experimented in the school’s assembly hall. Propaganda leaflets and manifestos were mimeographed by the dozen. This was when a group of friends assembled in Konrad Jarodzki’s painting studio 314, independently producing the first issue of the Luxus artzine.

This first issue of Luxus, the founding charter for the group, which was yet to be officially formed, was produced in three copies only; notably, time-wise it preceded Gruppa’s Oh Alright [Oj dobrze już] and Łódź Kaliska’s Tango. The circulation of subsequent issues never exceeded several to a dozen or so copies. Published on whatever material was available at the time (brown parcel paper and Elzab printer paper included), they included handmade drawings, collages, stencilled prints, brief articles, and assorted forms of art manifestos.

Eight issues of the magazine were published by the year 1986 (the ninth and final produced in 1992). The editing team of co-authors changed over time, with core editors including Bożena Grzyb, Ewa Ciepielewska, Jerzy and Andrzej Głuszek, \"Luxus Piotr Gusta, Paweł Jarodzki, and Jerzy Kosałka.

Luxus, the title, reminiscent of Fluxus on the one hand, and to inscriptions on German advertising folders on the other, defined the artzine’s theme to a certain extent. In their iconography, artzine creators referenced motifs typical of western popular culture, such as Mickey Mouse, cinema and music celebrities (Marilyn Monroe, Frank Zappa), and Rastafarian motifs. These were grafted onto local soil, expanded to include soldier, politician, or tank characters, and emphasised absurdities of the Polish People’s Republic socialist realities in parodist couplings. The magazine’s content varied from manifestos and quotations to song lyrics (such as “The Mechanised Militia on Legnicka Street”, “ZOMO na Legnickiej” by Krzysztof “Kaman” Kłosowicz).

As of 1984, Luxus made it to galleries and exhibitions. Apart from the trademark aspect of music and intoxicating substance-boosted fun with spectators, the group’s manifestations were unique \"Luxus in the design of their exhibitions, specifically produced to match the show. Suffice to mention the 1986 “Luxus Paints the World Panorama” [Luxus maluje panoramę świata] performance at the Leśnica Castle gallery, which involved group members simultaneously painting on panels mounted on the walls of the cellared gallery rooms. Iconography-wise, the evolution served to develop the style declared by artists on the pages of their artzine. One year later, a major installation You Can Be King-Kong Too [I ty możesz zostać King Kongiem] was organised at the Local Centre of Culture of the Cosmonauts housing estate in Wrocław. \"Luxus A scale model of the city was constructed of a variety of available objects[4]. Installations designed with such methods inspired numerous other Luxus shows and exhibitions.

A stage I would be inclined to refer to as “heroic” in Luxus’ activity closes with an exhibition held in Wrocław’s then newly opened Municipal Gallery [Galeria Miejska]. Teresa Kukuła, manager of the Gallery until this day, inaugurated its operations in 1991 with an event entitled “Exhibition of Long Shelf Life Confectionery” [Pokaz wyrobów cukierniczych o przedłużonym okresie trwałości]. Subsequent “Luxus shows” lost something of their “guerrilla” nature, albeit the spirit of freedom and contestation became part and parcel of the group’s image.

Notably, the group’s activity continued well beyond the 1980s, as Luxus was also vivid in reaction to the transformation of the 1990s. Probably the last non-retrospect Luxus event continuing the “Luxus show” format was organised in Bielsko-Biała in 1997. For purposes of the event the group referenced the tradition and climate of Warhol’s Factory.

Orange Alternative

The Orange Alternative movement is probably the single most recognisable phenomenon tying in with the social and artistic ferment of the 1980s. Waldemar „Major” Fydrych, the formation’s chief apologist and lead activist, documented events related with the Alternative’s operations in a series of publications in considerable detail[5]. Many photographs and street campaign materials have been preserved as well (e.g. in the Community Life section of the Ossolineum and Regional Library). The seven issues of the Pomarańczowa Alternatywa magazine published by the New Culture Movement [Ruch Nowej Kultury or RNK] are a separate source of movement-related knowledge.

The matter of defining the Orange Alternative’s activities in artistic manifestation terms has remained unresolved. The issue was analysed by Agnieszka Szewczyk in her Master of Arts thesis on the Alternative. She writes of the common use of the term “happening” (with no reference to its historical context) to describe the semi-theatrical activities of the Wrocław formation, which at the time was decidedly journalistic and political in nature. Szewczyk points to the hugely fragmented descriptions of the perception of how the Orange Alternative should have been categorised, said descriptions offered by historians, art historians, journalists, artists with theatre connections, and by “Major” himself. Such diversity in references to the movement’s operations has resulted in ambiguous assessment, and in the lack of any clear classification of the formation itself.

The origins of the Orange Alternative should be sought as early as in 1980, when “Major” and Andrzej Dziewit joined forces to create New Culture Movement as an alternative to the Independent Students’ Association [Niezależne Zrzeszenie Studentów]. The New Culture Movement focused on pacifist and propaganda activities involving leaflet distribution and organising lectures. In the framework of the student strike in 1981, during the student occupation of the Department of Philosophy, seven issues of the two-page Pomarańczowa Alternatywa magazine were published, with the editing team comprising “Major”, Dziewit, Wiesław Cupała, Zenon Zegarski, and Piotr Adamcio. The table of contents included manifestos, satirical comments and drawings, short stories, and poems[6].

In the aftermath of martial law, the New Culture Movement was delegalised, along with other associations.

Under martial law, “Major”, Dziewit, Jacek Tarnowski, and Andrzej Kopczyński painted dwarfs on walls which formerly featured obliterated freedom slogans. This was a form of the “art of spots” Fydrych invented and postulated at the Tactical Art Faculty [Katedra Malarstwa Taktycznego] that he set up as part of the artistic Ultra-Academy [Ultraakademia]. In a reference to dialectics, he described the process of painting dwarfs as synthesis preceded with a thesis (the writing on the wall) and antithesis (the white spot remaining after the writing had been painted over). Soon, dwarfs began appearing on walls in other cities: Warsaw, Łodz, Cracow, Katowice, and Świnoujście.

1986 marks the beginning of Orange Alternative’s first street campaigns in Wrocław, involving residents gathering to attend pre-arranged meetings. The immediate neighbourhood of the Market Square and of Świdnicka and Szewska Streets was the location of most events organised by the movement. Several days before the planned date of an event, information leaflets were distributed and placed at a variety of locations, specifying the date and venue of the event, and containing flowery baroque-style speeches and satirical descriptions justifying the gathering. Campaigns were designed to involve accidental passers-by, although many people arrived at the venue purposely, in hope of manifesting their opinion of the situation in the country. Most were pacified by the militia, who carded participants in the course of events, with movement leaders taken for lengthy questioning sessions to the station at Łąkowa Street.

Individual campaigns were organised in the semblance of national celebrations or traditional holidays, such as the Revolution of the Dwarfs [Rewolucja Krasnoludków], Day of the Militia [Dzień Milicjanta], Santa Claus, Children’s Day, Women’s Day, Secret Service Guys’ Day [Dzień Tajniaka], New Year’s Eve, etc. All events involved the use of props with symbolical meaning: participants were given orange caps or hats, special costumes, and banners with satirical slogans. Despite the frequent historical references, such as the October Revolution, event initiators rarely referred to current political developments, preferring social commentary over direct association. A 1989 manifestation entitled “Jaruzelski Has Nowhere to Go” [Jaruzelski nie ma gdzie odejść] in the aftermath of General Wojciech Jaruzelski’s removal from power, was an exception to the rule.

The value of major social reaction to Orange Alternative’s activities in Wrocław and other Polish cities from 1989 on is a factor worth emphasising in commenting on the movement’s history. References to current events and the publicist approach to the Alternative’s manifestations, courageous and humorous, markedly different from the lustreless reality of everyday life, attracted everyone and anyone seeking an alternative to those officially in government, and to the opposition, the latter ever more deeply immersed in internal disputes. While not strictly political in manifestation, Orange Alternative’s activities carried the potential of a social and political commentary, ridiculing the many paradoxes of the period. In essence, the Alternative had a political dimension to it in light of Chantal Mouffe’s theory of politics, as it questioned positions of the contemporary government and opposition alike. This is how the historical value of the formation ought to be perceived.

Gallery-Not-Gallery, the “Term Gallery is Inappropriate”, the Xuxem Magazine

This is possibly the single least-known artistic movement associated with the contestational nature of the Wrocław art of the 1980s, while also the most well-advanced in terms of proliferating post-conceptual, post-artistic, \"„Xuxem”, and basically post-modernistic artistic concepts. Albeit the movement’s official name was the “Term Gallery is Inappropriate” [Pojęcie Galeria jest nieodpowiednie], its fans began referring to it as Gallery-Not-Gallery [Galeria nie Galeria] or GnG for short. Jacek Alexander Sikora and Elżbieta Dyda were its leaders. Other GnG co-operating artists included Jacek Czapczyński and the loosely affiliated Krzysztof Skarbek. Moreover, GnG kept in touch with Totart.

Apart from a number of manifestations and stencils regularly placed at a variety of venues in town, GnG’s activity was based on numerous manifestos and theories on culture and art. According to a fundamental GnG assumption, art involved “stratification of the concept of reality, its generalisation towards multiplication rather than towards the specific”[7].

\"„Xuxem”, GnG introduced the term “supra-art” as an alternative to regular perception of art. Supra-art is art tied in with life and identifiable with it, while comprehended individually, becoming a manifestation of the ego[8].

There are three types of activities generated or moderated by GnG: of sight, of touch, and of sound, with specific actions categorised as appropriate. Activities of sight, the so-called „warons”, were defined for purposes of the «Meta-Painting» [Metamalarstwo] exhibition organised in 1987 at an abandoned post-industrial site at 24, Kiełbaśnicza Street. The exhibition chiefly involved manifestos describing authors and the condition of painting as a form of art placed on large panels covered with handwritten inscriptions.

The following declaration was one such manifesto: “Let us finally begin creating life – all its components. Let us reject the fictitious objectives of classical painting; they are fictitious in that they divert attention from \"„Xuxem”, the real task co-existing in an objective-focused dimension: the ORGANISATION OF VISUALITY in all its manifestations. We admit that until today, the visuality of certain life-originating content has been organised to some extent; yet the depth of visuality of all other dimensions lies within. Thus, acting in reality itself – xuxalising the world as a correlate of one’s own nature – such is art’s fundamentally important contemporary objective”[9]. This was possibly when the term “xuxalisation” was used for the first time in association with the term “xuxem”, which later became the name of the GnG-published magazine[10].

The purpose of “Darons”, a 1987 haptic event organised at the Indeks university students club at Szewska Street, was to influence participants with a variety of touch-related sensations. Spectators were requested to remove their footwear, and listened to an explanation of the event’s concept. Then they were taken one by one to the club’s darkened cellar rooms. Floors were lined with jelly-and-mud-covered plastic sheets. The entire space was hung with drapes which rubbed against the participants’ bodies. Dyda touched them in the dark, and they were given massages with electric devices.

The 1989 “Letter-A-Ctions” [Liter-a-kcje] was another GnG event. Invited artists showed their combined image-and-literature works at a number of venues: ACK Pałacyk, Entropia, Indeks, and the EMPiK Club. \"„guerrillaXuxem”, Three issues of the Xuxem magazine were published. The first (1989) was printed in one thousand copies at the Solidarity trade union’s printing house. The second was published in 1992; the third and last in 1994. The two latter issues were offset printed in large format, on glossy paper. The second issue contained i.a. an interview with Jean Baudrillard, and Georges Bataille’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. The third issue, published in the aftermath of the close of GnG activities (GnG’s final event involved an exhibition at St. Vincent’s church at Nankiera Square in Wrocław in 1992), was decidedly decadent in style, and focused on the proliferation of Sikora’s theory of hybridism. This was the fullest post-modernistic manifestation of the formation’s trends. Hybridism was to be a subsequent stage in the group’s work, but the formation terminated its joint activities upon producing the third issue of „Xuxem”.

And Others...

As mentioned in my introduction to the paper, such attempt at overall description goes beyond the ability to recognise all the interesting phenomena in the scope of Wrocław’s visual culture of the 1980s, even were we to decide to focus on gestures which are accesses to differently perceived independence or subversion. Artists who debuted in the latter half of the decade and joined events of the period with liveliness and enormous gusto would definitely deserve a separate description, suffice to mention Krzysztof Skarbek, Zdzisław Nitka, Lech Twardowski, or Eugeniusz Minciel. Their expressive creativity in painting is of tremendous importance to the context of specifying the spirit of that brief yet intense era. All have elaborated a hugely individual form of artistic expression, thus becoming participants of their contemporary artistic life while remaining to some extent outsiders to the circumstances encountered.

Within the configuration I attempted to briefly outline, Wrocław’s situation seems immensely complex. A single decade witnessed at least two generations of artists distinctly differing in their perception of the role and importance of art. Given the overall circumstances, the fact that they had been able to co-operate, or at least were willing to work towards a consensus, should be perceived as a nationally unique phenomenon. A closer glance at individual manifestations, groups, and activities reveals a considerable exchange and fluctuation of ideas, all of which carry independence as their fundamental assumption.

Piotr Stasiowski, born in 1980, critic and curator, a graduate in art history from Wrocław University (2005) and the Postgraduate Curator Studies at the Jagiellonian University (2006). In the years 2006-2012 works at BWA Wrocław as head of the BWA Studio. Since 2012 - Wrocław Contemporary Museum.

Top of page

Notes

1. Information quoted from: R. Łubowicz, “Ostrów Tumski – wyspa ‘Niezależnej Republiki Plastycznej’” in: “Niepokora. Artyści i naukowcy dla Solidarności 1980–1990”, ed. S. Figlarowicz, K. Goc, G. Goszczyńska, A. Makowska, A. Szynwelska, słowo/obraz terytoria, (Gdańsk 2006), in:

2.Of the many participants of these exhibitions, the following are particularly noteworthy: Maciej Albrzykowski, Jan Jaromir Aleksiun and Mira Żelechower-Aleksiun, Piotr Błażejewski, Krystyna Cybińska, Paweł Dryl, Eugeniusz Get-Stankiewicz, Zofia Godlewska, Alojzy Gryt, Józef Hałas, Marcin Harlander, Bogdan and Jadwiga Hofman, Andrzej Jarodzki, Krystyna and Stanisław Kortyka, Barbara Kozłowska, Andrzej Lachowicz and Natalia LL, Zbigniew Makarewicz, Eugeniusz Minciel, Anna Szpakowska-Kujawska, Urszula Wilk, and Mieczysław Zdanowicz.

3. “Okręgowa Wystawa Plastyki ‘Wrocław’“, 1988, exhibition category.

4. This installation by Paweł Jarodzki was described by Wojciech Bockenheim: “The exhibition took on the form of a city considerably large in size, knee-high, made of cardboard and assorted garbage. It resembled a contemporary Polish city – a pile of junk and dirt, all its peculiarity preserved. We collected many absurd objects to use in this. For example, I spent five hundred zlotys on two toy cars that fit the hand perfectly, ‘Militia’ and ‘Ambulance’ vehicles made of thick steel sheets. If a child got hold of one, it could have killed a buddy without major effort […] And Marek [Marek Czechowski – comment by P.S.] bought a bottle shaped like the Virgin Mary, capped with Mary’s crown. The bottle was originally intended to hold holy water, but you could easily fill it with something else, such as tea... and we put the bottle in a church made of cardboard boxes”.

5. M.in. “Hokus Pokus czyli Pomarańczowa Alternatywa” (first edition: 1989), “Żywoty Mężów Pomarańczowych” (2001) and the extensively photograph-illustrated album entitled “Pomarańczowa Alternatywa. Rewolucja krasnoludków” (2008).

6. One issue contained the following memo: “On the afternoon of November 25th 1981, in a session attended by a single student of the State University of Arts in Wrocław, the first Alternative Committee (AC) was formed. At the same session, the Federation of Alternative Committees (FAC) was formed, with Marek Puchała unanimously elected chairman by himself. Thus, he became Officer of the Federation of Alternative Committees (FAC OF)“. Puchała tags appeared on University walls and at other locations.

7. From a conversation with J.A. Sikora, February 23rd 2010.

8. “Supra-art (cult-art) as a syndrome of numerous and entirely individualised ‘techniques’/activity systems/ defining one’s own cultural niches/ systems of values and opinions, etc./ based on the fabric of reality interpreted/ as an area of action characteristic to supra-art”. „Xuxem” No. 1/1989, p. 17.

9. From the photographic archives owned by J.A. Sikora.

10. “XUXEM is a word/ free of association/ a word limited in content/ sense/ to whatever we choose to assign to it in a free act of creation. […] XUXEM derives from XUXALISATON; XUXALISATON is the creative process we discovered, consisting in the conscious and voluntary creation/ within oneself and the structures of one’s personality/ of a non-concretist image of the world, non-concretist, that is offering numerous mutually supplementary and complementary possibilities (truth = whole). XUXALISATION is a way to absorb the non-absorbent, to become indescribable. […] THE XUXEM IS AN EXPERIMENTAL FIELD FOR TESTING COMMUNICATION AND OMNIPOTENCE METHODS”. Xuxem No. 1/1989.

Top of page

See also: