You go begging and we will promote you

Stacja Pi.Stacja is not so much an artistic formation as a state of mind, or as they like to call it, a “document, an event and a tape”. They say that life is much more interesting than art. Art’s existence is stimulated by social situations, the absurdity of the surrounding reality of the budding capitalism of the 1990s and a neo-Dadaist sense of humor resembling that of Alfred Jarry’s. As Rzepecki said of their work together in an interview: “Whatever happens, happens. Or nothing will happen. We can just sit around and do nothing”. It doesn’t matter whether we call this sitting sitting or art.

Stacja Pi.Stacja is formed in 1990, less than a year after the political transition and three years after the Stypa Kultury Sztuki [Pitch-In Culture Wake]. Its first joint performance takes place at the Mandala Theater. Adam Rzepecki, Katarzyna Pochrzęst and Grzegorz Zygier carry out a series of performative actions here. They act simultaneously, staging the drama performance Guzik [Button] and initiating the Prannie w Wannie [Laundry in the Bathtub] action. Rzepecki shows Śmierć Ajschylosa [Death of Aeschylus] and Painting on the Floor with TVs creating a spectacle of abstract forms and colors on the floor, Pochrzęst hangs paintings in the theater space that she pulls out of an old trunk, and Zygier embroiders on a white canvas a tangle of lines resembling Burda sewing patterns. They perform in the auditorium, whereas the audience sits on the stage. Further actions, with juicy titles: Nie pie*dol kwiatuszku [Cut the C**p, Honey] and Ty idź żebrać, a my w trójkę cię wylansujemy [You Go Begging and the Three of Us Will Promote You], are shown during the Kraków Theatrical Reminiscences. During the first performance, they simply kneel for several hours in silence, looking as if they are praying. Although it is not planned, the audience talks back, lies down next to them, reflecting sunbeams on the their backs and spilling Pepsi which they are sipping from wet glasses. During the second performance, the artists initiate a show with a more elaborate structure – the three of them jump into a small tub and hug splashing the water, only to try to splash it back in a moment later. They treat art as an extension of life’s activities. Sometimes they act spontaneously – action demands reaction. Out of boredom they disrupt a performance by Dick Higgins, at the sight of Gruppa artists with carnation flowers in their bottoms they shout: ‘Bravo, encore!’. Moments later they are throwing cakes at the audience from the stage, while at the Linz festival they manage to persuade their artist friends to swap identities during an interview for the Polish television.

The exhibition will feature, among others, photographs of the group with Tristan Tzara, Mieczysław Porębski’s notes to Prannie w wannie [Laundry in the Bathtub] painted over with drawings, the slapstick films Kapeluszowisko and Every Dog Has His Day, questioning the existence of gravity and at the same time ostentatiously exposing the illusion of the glass screen, as well as a number of photographs and archival materials documenting the group’s performative activities. The central element of the exhibition, as in the Mandala Theatre, is the bathtub, the visual motif is the color pistachio green, and the strategy around which the narrative is constructed – trickster novel – which, like the stories told by Stacja Pi.Stacja, treats truth and fiction as equivalent parts of the same story.

Timeline:

Adam Rzepecki was born in 1950 in Kraków. He studied art history at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Since 1979 he has been a member of the Łódź Kaliska group, and since 1990 of the Stacja Pi.Stacja group. From 1978 to 1981 he ran the famous Jaszczury Gallery of Photography in Kraków. In the 1980s, he co-founded the Kultura Zrzuty [Pitch-in Culture]. He has participated in all exhibitions by Łódź Kaliska. His works may be found in Polish and foreign museum collections, including the National Museum in Kraków, the Museum of Art in Łódź, the Ujazdowski Castle Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw and Sammlung Verbund in Vienna. He lives and works in Kraków.

Katarzyna Pochrzęst was born in Lublin. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. She defended her diploma in 1986 in Prof. Jerzy Bandura’s studio, creating the semi-monument Menora – Przemijanie [Menorah – Passing]. She co-founded the Stacja Pi.Stacja group. Her artistic output includes many solo and group exhibitions, including performances. In addition to symbolic realism, she creates abstract compositions and other sculptural forms. Signing her works, she also uses generational names – Bober and Levinson. She lives and works in Warsaw.

Grzegorz Zygier was born in 1954 in Piotrków Trybunalski. A photographer, performer, and video artist; he graduated from the Kraków University of Technology. From 1981 to 1982 he was a member of the SEM art group. From 1982 to 1988 he was associated with the Kultura Zrzuty [Pitch-in Culture] art movement and the independent magazines ‘Tango’ and ‘Hali Gali’. Participant and documentarist of events and artistic meetings: the Teofilów open air, Nieme Kino [Silent Cinema], Festiwal Sztuki Potrzebnej [Needed Art Festival], etc. He is one of the co-founders of the Stacja Pi.Stacja group. In 1988 he received a creative scholarship from the City of Kraków, and in 2009 a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. He has been a member of ZPAF since 1987. He lives and works in Kraków.

Artists: Katarzyna Pochrzęst (Bober), Adam Rzepecki, Grzegorz Zygier, Paweł Filas and (guests) Tristan Tzara, Dick Higgins, Jerzy Beruś, Zygmunt Rytka, Mieczysław Porębski, Ryszard Grzyb

Curator: Ania Batko

Coordinator: Renata Zawartka