The 9^th International Performance Art Festival
"Castle of Imagination"
30^th Aug. - 4^th Sept. 2001

This year's festival was exceptionally modest. Artists from Holland, Canada, France, Japan, Czech Republic, German and Poland came to Ustka, Slupsk and Zielona Gora.
However, the atmosphere of the Festival and its artistic standard did not differ from the preceding ones. In their performances artists focused on many different matters such as: the threat of terrorism, reflection over pauperization of culture in the consequence of the invasion of pop culture and unsuccessful political reforms, or reflection over one's own existence. There were also presentations of personal games with visual or sound forms, joint (unsuccessful) attempt of defining the performance art, dealing with performance art as everyday life, from complete identification with it, to final abandonment of art field.

Ewa Rybska & Wladyslaw Kazmierczak, Slupsk, since 1997 have been the only couple of performance artists in our country performing together. Władysław KaĽmierczak, performance artist and a curator of the Festival, dates back his first process realizations to 1974.
Their first performance referred to Polish matters. As usual, impeccably dressed in suits, white shirts and bow ties standing in front of the cinema "Delfin" in Ustka with two strong Alsatians invited the public to the cinema. In the cinema, two Polish newsreels were projected - one from year 1962 and second one from 1989. The former was an idyllic image of preparing an exhibition of Polish, vanguard Cracovian Group in Krzysztofory in Kraków. Kantor, Stern, Marczyński, Nowosielski, Mikulski. The latter showed a dramatic situation of the country - among other things: the exposé of Tadeusz Mazowiecki in the Parliament and a primitive Polish jazz band. The performers, walking around with torches and the dogs between rows of chairs evoked public's anxiety. In the end of the performance, they took supporters' scarves with captions: "POLSKA" off their heads. The performance encouraged to the reflection over culture. It showed the distance, transformations, and not necessarily favorable conclusions: the situation of Polish art and culture is increasingly dramatic in consequence of political changes and unfavorable reforms.

In two next, short performances in the castle in Bytów (off program), the artists presented two shows. The first one, in which they commemorated the dead deer standing in silence for a few dozen of minutes under the hundreds of their antlers, took place in so-called "hunting hall" in the museum. In the next one, they walked along an avenue with white umbrellas, pulling violin on leash behind them. Their walk ended in front of the castle's closed gates. The continuation of this performance was also spontaneously presented, off program, in Zielona Góra. By adding one requisite - putting muzzles on their faces, the performers changed the substance of the statement considerably. Passing the town's promenade caused an understandable sensation and anxiety. A combination of "naturally impossible images" provoked a reflection over the nature of a human being, one's hidden aggressiveness and contempt towards basic values as well as art, in elegant suits and white gloves.

Ryszard Piegza, Paris, France - an artist who has dealt with performance and video art for a dozen years or so. He enriched his artistic experiences through a direct contact with the top of vanguard artists in France organizing among other things - an open artistic initiative "flying carpet". In his geometrical realizations, there always occurs some kind of an intrigue, a different tale. From reflections over laws of static, their rules and inconsistencies till the political or existential aspects. Piegza belongs to an artistic formation, which stems from visual arts and in fact, both his performances: in cinema "Delfin" and in theatre "Rondo" had similar character despite their completely different course.

Petra Balderdash & Mario van Horrik, Eindhoven, Holland. This artistic couple uses sound, movement and dance. Some of their performances are of extreme expressive character, regarding both music and motion. This time, their performance focused on mechanical sound triggered off by two aluminum slats attached to an amplifier and the sound of little rooster shaped whistles, handed out to the public. They created a chaotic concert, which was slowly fading when the toys were taken off the public. The realization of a musical performance in BWA in Zielona Góra was somewhat different, because some playful aspects were eliminated. The performance was synthetic, minimalist and extremely sublime.

Sylvette Babin, Quebec, Canada - is the artist of the youngest generation. Spontaneous, emotional, grotesque, frivolous. With the feminine idea of aspiration to being beautiful and with the drama of slowly growing old. She decorated her T-shirt with roses: incised holes in it and put stems of roses in them. After obtaining that decorative effect of a beautiful woman among beautiful roses, she took off the T-shirt and turned it inside out. There were some uninteresting stems. The next sequence of the performance took place on the street, were the artist was sitting down with a sunflower covering her face, picking seeds out of it and so transforming "the face" into a new one. In the second version of the same performance in Zielona Góra Sylvette Babin used squeaking rubber carrots attached to her feet. She gave up the sunflower. Her figure became grotesque.

Oskar Dawicki, Krakow, is an extremely talented and interesting performance artist, who has created his own mythology for many years. E.g., he always performs in glittering, brocade blue jacket. He focuses on absurdity enriching his performances with philosophical maxims or conceptual nonsense. This time he set himself against the Poland - Norway game, which began exactly at the same time as Dawicki's performance. There arose a problem of a mere competition between art, sport, and nationalistic feelings. Besides, English-speaking sport commentators say outright, that a game or a 100 m sprint is a good "performance", because sport contests have all the features of performance art. A TV-set placed on a piano was shoved to the center of a scene, football ball, making photos of fans - public with the real game and playing like football in the background created an appropriate atmosphere. By a stroke of luck, the performance ended up in the 44th minute of the game, when the Poles shoot the first goal.
In the second performance, the artist had a previously prepared an audiocassette with some instructions for himself. It is one of these simple concepts, to which I have an exceptional weakness. They always lead up to an absurd situation, where reality becomes paralyzed by instruction, description, orders. Unavoidable waiting, delays and the lack of perfection in correlation of behaviors create atmosphere of grotesque and a perverse joke.

Fumiko Takhashi, Tokyo, Japan. The artist is to most interesting performance artists in Japan. She had already participated in the Castle of Imagination twice. She has dealt with performance art for 6 or 7 years. Her performances are accompanied with grotesque gestures, strange relations with objects, which somehow confirm and strengthen the essence of the message. This time Fumiko was telling about a great city - about Tokyo. About gigantic skyscrapers, stores, subway. These images were projected on the screen. On the table, she was building a construction out of ripe apples, joining them with nails. When the construction was ready, the artist asked a few people for performing a few gestures from an everyday life of a Japanese person. After having taken photos of those people, she placed the prints close to the apple construction. When it seemed that the emotional situation of living in a great city had been under control, she unexpectedly destroyed all the construction smashing the apples with a hammer.
In her second performance, main props used were a sunflower, masks, decorative sequins and a kind of a dialogue - an exchange with people invited to take part in the performance. The method of the artist was similar, but had an aesthetic meaning. It suggested that our close relation to nature, towards its beauty is an empty gesture, a kind of a decorated mask rather than a genuine relation. In fact, our natural environment is artificial beauty, the beauty of daub, new media. We are all beautiful in the same way, when we wear on masks!!!

Jiri Suruvka, Jiri Suruvka, Ostrawa, Czech Republic is one from most interesting Czech artists of middle generation. This year Suruvka participated in Venetian Biennial. For many years, he has been a well-known neo-dadaist, making a very interesting cabaret and many scandalizing street actions. He is a Czech Batman. This time Suruvka was telling about performances of other artists, who had shot at planes, to one's own bodies, grafted twigs under their skin, so that a plant grew on their body, attached themselves to a car, or spent some time in a cardboard box on a highway. He himself turned several dangerous somersaults in Batman's dress. After that, he presented a film about unusually mockery and funny actions, which he realized himself. The conclusion was extremely bitter: today, an artist has to be a lunatic, a juggler or pretend a mad man to be able to come into being in social consciousnesses.
In his second performance in Zielona Góra, before he began a so-called proper performance, the artist in Batman dress jumped into a small railway for kids with an inscription "Puffer train", went several times around a promenade in the center of the town, and each time when he was passing the gallery BWA, he invited all people from the street to the Festival of Performance Art, shouting: people do not be afraid of art!!! Come to us!!! We invite you for the greatest sensations in contemporary art!!! We invite children and adults!!! We invite the rich and the poor!!! In a gallery you can be rich and happy!!!
In the second part of the performance that took place in the gallery, the artist began to tell about the international Amway net, which can make anybody happy and rich. You just have to really want it!!! The performance would come into being under a condition of one member's of public participation. A girl, who privately thought of making a career of an actress, agreed to take part in this experiment of a contact with Suruvka. A volunteer was placed on a high podium, firstly on the 2nd and next on the 1st place.
However, being on top does not make any advantage by itself. One must perform a final, courageous jump to confirm one's own determination. In a moment, when the urged girl decided to jump, the Czech Batman deceitfully put a halter on her neck. The jump did not end up with a tragedy. Batman helps, does not kill. This time he enriched everyone with the image of illusion of easily obtained success in life.

Artur Grabowski reminded us, that on our continent there are tragedies, towards which we cannot be indifferent. While being in Spain, he was a witness of a nightmare of destruction after a bomb attack of ETA. We, Europeans, are already accustomed to media releases about the acts of violence. We are increasingly indifferent towards them in Ireland, Spain and Macedonia, and in other countries. A few days after Artur Grabowski's performance the whole world experienced a shock after the attack on World Trade Center and Pentagon. One can reduce a description his performance to some simple images: metal rods sticking put of walls, blood and contours of a corpse. Planks and bandages for stiffening fractures. The artist also used a drill, with which he bored holes in boards previously attached to his body. He created a real threat for himself. The previous convention of a situation had an illustrative sense; the point of his performance put us all in the same, difficult situation of a threat.

Teamwork performance (Fumiko Takahshi, Jiri Suruvka, Oskar Dawicki, Sylvette Babin, Petra Balderdash & Mario van Horrik). The idea was as old as DADA, Fluxus and television discussions. A table, chairs, a few microphones and a few interlocutors. The subject of the conversation focused of course on performance art. What is it? How is it? And who agrees with whom who does not. Everyone spoke in one's own language. There arose a great parallel quarrel, which nobody understood: neither the public nor the participants of discussion. For unknown reasons, there were also some common opinions. Someone agreed with someone. Right was this, who first seized the microphone and spoke louder. Jiri Suruvka having cabaret experience was most readable. The problem was that he expressed decidedly defeatist opinions. After some time, there appeared English language, which became a chance of ordering that quarrelsome chaos, but the performance was suddenly finished.

Kyokos / Kyoko Sawanobori, Tokyo, Japan - the artist of the youngest generation, deals mainly with sound. This time the musical aspect - analog record with world hits of pop music was demoted, changed through simple intervention. Over a turntable, there was a special bottle with honey that slowly dripped on a rotating record. The artist licked up the honey from the record that way stopping the record's turning and disturbing music. She was also disturbing our reception, rhythm and memories. It was ironic, that the artist did not intervene in aggressive manner; on the contrary, her relation to this of kind of music appeared to be extraordinarily friendly, maybe even erotic.

Mike Hentz, Berlin is an American living in Europe for many years. He is an author of legendary actions. On the second day of the Festival in Zielona Góra Hentz prepared a special presentation of all performance artists, avoiding expressing himself through art. Artist - "the presenter" spoke in a few languages, also in Polish, played on Jew's-harp and entertained the public during breaks playing some exotic music e.g. Korean or Russian. His performance was syntheses of art's internationalization, unpretentious play with the public, breaking a spell from art as an incomprehensible sphere and connecting it with real life. However, when it seemed that such state was already achieved, the public suddenly and unexpectedly left the gallery.