The Art Gallery Movement in Poland. A Historical Outline. From the Sixties, Through the Conceptual Galleries of the Seventies, Until Their Consequences in the Eighties and the Nineties

The gallery movement was in fact an art institution in Poland. The movement created its own art world based on the principles of self-organisation and self-study. People who participated in it were artists, art professionals and art lovers, altogether so called ‘conducive people’. Around each of such institutions its circles emerged – communities that co-operated with each other within the town, the country or internationally. This is how the network of personal ties as well as artistic influences appeared. A formal-artistic feature of the movement was the great number of various action art forms or, more broadly – art based on the present-ness. The history of the movement embraces half a century of contemporary Polish art. It starts just after Stalinist times. In 1956 in Krakow there emerged the Krzysztofory Gallery founded by the Grupa Krakowska [Krakow Group] Association, that directly continued the tradition of the pre-war avant-garde. The development of the movement in the seventies was especially dynamic, forming a conceptual art decade during when the conceptual galleries movement emerged. The expansion of the definition of art by the conceptual art movement allowedfor the making of a gallery to be as significant as making art. That period was ended by the imposition of martial law on December 13th, 1981. In those extremely unfavourable conditions the gallery movement and art communities showed their strength. After the total elimination of art in the public sphere, the world of art revived quickly and relocated into the private sphere – private studios and apartments. The art community in Łódź, where the tradition of selforganisation was especially strong, was able to organise the movement throughout the whole country. It was later called the “Pitch-in Culture”. After 1989 and the fall of communism, first in Poland and then in the whole of Eastern Europe, the new social and political conditions caused changes in the way the art world began to be organised

The Most Radical Attitudes Within The Movement Of 'Conceptual Galleries' In The 70s. Jerzy Trelinski's Gallery 80x140 And Andrzej Pierzgalski's Gallery A4

The 'Gallery movement', which formed in Poland in the 70s is a world phenomenon that provides extremely rich material, in terms of diversity, as well as in quantitative terms. The galleries were created under the dominant influence of conceptual art, that is why I describe them as 'conceptual galleries'. They played the traditional role of a gallery, that is, they were places of exhibition and they functioned as an 'art container', but at the same time, they were art projects created according to the individual decision of the artist, just like the works of art. They were therefore a form of conceptual art, developed in the 70s, the conceptual art decade. One of the most radical galleries at that time was the 80x140 Gallery, founded by Jerzy Trelinski, in spring 1971 in Lodz. The Gallery operated until 1977. Initially, the gallery space was a wall surface of dimensions given in the name of the gallery (80 x 140 cm). But soon the work presented in the gallery began to develop directly into the space of the room, turning it into an installation space. Then artworks began to be realized around the city and numerous projects by J. Trelinski, as well as collaborative projects, began to be created in various locations outside Lodz, all under the facade of Gallery 80x140. In May 1972, at the 80x140 Gallery, the A4 Gallery began its activity, which was an initiative of Andrzej Pierzgalski. It was perhaps an even more radical art project in the category of 'conceptual galleries', and it was limited to a plain sheet of A4 size paper (literally, a piece of A4 paper was placed within the 80x140 Gallery). This article also announces broader research on issues arising from the 'gallery movement' and the category of 'conceptual galleries' in Polish art of the 70s. The 'gallery movement' also had a social and political dimension. Thus a network of the independent exchange of ideas was created, and it functioned well on an international scale. The patterns of self-organising initiated by the artists' community and the art procedures that were developed in the 70s on the basis of conceptual art, proved extremely useful in the 80s. Also during the economic crisis and transformation of the 90s, the model of a 'conceptual gallery' enabled the artistic community to function, despite limitations of an economic nature. This article describes the methodology of research on the 'conceptual galleries' phenomenon. It contains a detailed description of works that were created in the Gallery 80x140 and Gallery A4 (and under their auspices) throughout the time of their operation. It also presents the consequences that the initiators of these galleries have drawn from them later in their artistic practice; particularly a series of works titled Autotautologies by J. Trelinski, (the artist puts a graphic sign TRELINSKI on various objects and in various places and situations), as well as further artistic development of A. Pierzgalski

Art Action 1958-1998

Documenting an interactive colloquium held in Quebec City in October of 1998, this anthology – dedicated to the memory of Dick Higgins – constitutes an essential tool in the understanding of the Action Art phenomena of the second half of the 20th century, in large part due to the thoroughness of the visual documentation and the historical and geographical fields it covers. Martel's text summarizes the various Action Art practices: Happenings, Fluxus, Intermedia, ZAJ, Body Art, Action Poetry, Actionism, Performance and Situationism. In the first part of the study, which is divided into two periods of 20 years each, nine artists and art historians characterize each genre of Action Art from 1958-1978. The second half of the study takes stock of world-wide Action Art practices from 1978-1998, as 21 specialists (including 16 of the speakers) survey specific geographical regions. Includes a list of events and performance videos, as well as a list of titles published and distributed by Éditions Intervention. Texts in French and English. Biographical notes on authors. Circa 260 bibl. ref