Texts by Conceptual Artists from Eastern Europe: Poland

Transcription of “Galeria Adres Documentation”

Authors Ewa Partum
Date 1972
Language Polish

Ewa Partum, “Galeria Adres Documentation,” 3 min. 36 sec., 8mm. Courtesy ARTUM Foundation, Ewa Partum Museum, Poland

Current forms of artistic actions are not prone to presentation. They exist outside of any reception, and beyond any institutions created to exhibit them. These are situations, events, artistic facts. They happen outside of galleries, outside the museum. They can be letters, consignments, prints, informal verbal statements, documentation. Still, it is not always possible to bypass an institution. For that reason, in my activity as an artist, I decided to use the working methods of an art institution, such as the art gallery, and incorporate it into my actions. This is how the idea of galeria adres was created. An offer with the following content has been sent to artists and to other galleries:

galeria adres
łodź, piotrkowska street 86
exists as a place
a situation
an opportunity
an offer
for
INFORMATION
PROPOSITION
DOCUMETATION
SPECULATION
PROVOCATION
EXPOSITION
of any possible form of art presence
and the reasons for its concealment

The gallery’s activities to date include correspondence and artistic facts that occurred in the gallery.
These facts are for instance art exhibitions.

The Exhibition of a Work by Three Authors: Włodzimierz Borowski, Jan Świdziński and Krzysztof Wodiczko. One day they photographed each other from the smallest possible distance. They repeated this action gradually, extending the distance between them until their complete disappearance into the surroundings. Documentation of this situation was shown in the gallery.

As authors of this one situation they became not merely a reason but rather a field of artistic action. The problem of authorship was also raised. Each of them produced a commentary on this issue. This document was exhibited in galeria adres.

Andrzej Dłużniewski presented a jump from a 10 meter tall diving platform. A photograph and a text of the platform were shown. Various abstract and imaginary variants of a jump.

Currently on show at the gallery is Zbigniew Warpechowski’s exhibition Nothing.

The gallery is in permanent contact with one of the most excellent Polish critics and theoreticians of art, Andrzej Kostołowski from Poznań, the author of Thesis on Art.

The first exhibition at the gallery was called Eiffel Tower, which I organized.

A string of 306 meters length—the height of the Eiffel Tower—was shown. It was the presence of an everyday object in the gallery, in its purest form. Eiffel Tower. The Presence of Height.

However, the main activity of the gallery takes place in the sphere of correspondence and in maintaining contact with non-commercial artists from other countries.

In a London magazine, the gallery has been described as “the smallest gallery in the world.”

Translated by Karolina Majewska-Güde. With special thanks to Ewa Partum.