Overly transient and too demanding in terms of conditions for functioning. Susceptible to changes in surroundings. Reactive to established relations or deprived of proper form upon performance of planned actions. Works held in the Bunkier Sztuki Collection are comparable to endospores in that they are more of living organisms than physically and substantially structured artistic objects.

An endospore is a bacterial cyst, or a kind of spore produced by, among other things, fungi and algae. Both these interpretations prove relevant to works of art. Endospores thereof are a vegetative form as well as stage of and way to maintain the life cycle. They are, as is the case for living creatures, not quite justly treated as far-from-ideal substitutes of original entities. Resulting from organic structure of works, they make a natural answer to volatility of external conditions. And although it is to them that reactive beings owe survival, evolution and expansion to new territories, they usually remain unrecognised and underexposed.

The array of pieces on show, entirely held in the Bunkier Sztuki Collection, amalgamates precisely those aspects of artworks that are unapparent from unaccompanied presentation. The “Endospores” exhibition also displays circumstances, mediations and tangible means behind creating the works and making them an object of collecting. A variety of clues gradually unfolds along the narrative path. Impermanence and momentariness of artistic events have been employed as the starting point. Forms of their materialisation—performance acts, visual shows, concerts, interactions—as well as various ways of recording them are successively revealed. Next stop: processual development of artworks, allowing to take a closer and longer look at pieces that change form in time and space. Then, artistic projects whose material versions are eventually in multiplicate, which permits to present their constituents in ambiguous and formally diverse combinations. Finally, more or less explicit complementary materials, determined by past or determining future realisations; in other words, tangible record of works that function as authors’ artistic instructions or documentation. This accumulation of material and tangible perversely accentuates different sides of dematerialisation, which has lately been the focus of Collection growth activities. Manifesting the fundamental aspect of creative projects most recently undertaken by Bunkier Sztuki also gives the opportunity to investigate the system of relations they encourage in an art institution. It lets viewers examine the usually unnoticeable work all undertakings imply or involve, and study—again—the accumulating material evidence of pursuance and experiences shared by artists, audiences and the Gallery itself.

Expressing meanings and contexts of dematerialisation using the metaphorical concept of endospore turns attention to new forms of artworks: ones that do not necessarily have to come into physical existence. Some of these last only as ideas: germinal yet of importance not lesser than that of their tangible realisation – perhaps even greater, since reception of such endospores depends on sensibility to physical or formal potentiality, and on attentiveness indispensable to penetrating the proposed narrative paths.

Featured artists: Mikołaj Długosz, Wojciech Gilewicz, Justyna Gruszczyk, Jan Hoeft, Kornel Janczy, Maciej Kurak, Mariusz Libel, Little Warsaw, Wojciech Puś, Rafani, Urszula Tarasiewicz, Roland Wirtz, Zorka Wollny, Jakub Woynarowski, Piotr Wysocki, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries

Gallery Media Patronage: Fragile. Pismo kulturalne, Le Monde Diplomatique, Local Life, Off Radio Kraków, O.pl, Radio Kraków
Exhibition Media Patronage: Magazyn Sztuki, Szum, Usta

Contextual events

Saturday, December 19, 2015, 2 pm | Opening
The opening of “Endospores” gives the opportunity to participate in a performance by Zorka Wollny, commissioned for the Bunkier Sztuki Collection.

Saturday, January 9, 2016, noon | Examining endospores
An exhibition tour guided by curators Anna Lebensztejn and Kinga Olesiejuk is a chance to gain insight into endospores of artworks.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016, 6 pm | black cube. Łukasz Jastrubczak
The last in the series of events entitled “black cube. Video art from the Bunkier Sztuki Collection” features the film “Need for Speed” by Łukasz Jastrubczak, followed by a discussion with the author himself.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016, 6 pm | Re-painting
The forthcoming stage of Wojciech Gilewicz’s painting process “Pictures 2002–” will take place within the “Endospores” exhibition. During the event, canvasses handed over to the Collection will be repainted according to the artist’s instructions.

photos: Studio FILMOVE