Kwietniewski, Andrzej.

[POLISH UNOFFICIAL ART – CONCEPTUAL ART] Identyfikacje [Identifications]. Original artwork by Andrzej Kwietniewski.

[Łódź], 1978. Two black card boards each measuring 46 × 13.5 cm, with four 10 × 10 gelatin silver prints mounted to each. Each board has two perforations to upper corners for hanging. Light wear to boards, still about very good. Item #55353

An early original artwork by the conceptual artist Andrzej Kwietniewski (born 1951), a founding member of Łódź Kaliska, a neo-Dadaist art collective founded in 1979 (with Marek Janiak, Adam Rzepecki, Andrzej Świetlik, and Andrzej Wielogórski). The photographs depict the same address, 6 Ul. Świerskiego, in a variety of towns and villages around Poland, including in Łódź. The street was named after the icon of Communist propaganda Karol Świerski, a Red Army general who participated in the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, and was assassinated by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1947. Świerski was subsequently presented as a martyr figure by the Polish Communist State. The serialized presentation of images comments on the absurdity of the canonization of Świerski. The formal qualities of the work also capture Kwietniewski‘s connection to the Film Work Workshop, a neo-avant-garde group of film and video artists active in Łódź at the National Film School in 1970–1977. In the same period (1978–1979), Kwietniewski (with Marek Janiak) produced an untitled anthology of essays which focused on theoretical issues in photography. Similar to the writings of the members of the Workshop, the texts deal formal questions raised by photography and its connection to reality. This work, as well as the essays in the anthology, maintain a serious tone typical of the neo-avant-garde. Acting as part of Łódź Kaliska, Kwietniewski would develop his signature absurdist and playful tone in subsequent years, launching a full attack on the neo-avant-garde at the Osieki 81 plein air.

A biologist by training, Kwietniewski would become one of the most active artists of Kultura Zrzuty, an anarchic and self-regulated community of artists formed during the Polish Martial Law, with the serialized artistic publication Tango as its primary physical manifestation. Kultura Zrzuty, positioned itself against art sanctioned by the Communist state, as well as the art of the political opposition affiliated with the Church. Proposing a “third way,” it also rebelled against the self-seriousness of neo-avant-garde unofficial art. Kwietniewski would go on to contribute to all nine issues of Tango, even publishing his own "special" issue, his ironic commentary on the circulation of art. In later years, Kwietniewski wrote numerous mock-manifestos which use logical errors to articulate gibberish ethical codes, sometimes together with Marek Janiak. He embraced “amateurism” in art, with his manifestos titled “embarrassing art,” “idiotic art,” and “unfocused art.” He is also the author of the artist books “My Europe” (1984), which comments on the inaccessibility of (Western) Europe to citizens of Polish Communist State, the satirical collage series “Maps of the Sky – Constellations” (1984), which deal with the ambiguous place of the artist in society. Kwietniewski believed that because of the high status held by artists, the freedom they seek continually eludes them. Later works by Kwietniewski with Łódź Kaliska, such as their 1988 film “Freiheit? Nein, danke!” made this point especially strongly – finally bringing critical acclaim to the group, in an ironic twist.

Price: €2,000.00

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