Documentation with a hidden camera by Izabella Gustowska.
Bergamots aggressively provocative behavior usually addresses subtle and subliminal
mechanisms. Being against apologists for an impassive “we”, who disguise their hunger
for power with a feigned need for harmony in order to be more effective, Bergamot resort
to blatant public displays of conflict to make the efficiency of this veiled power visible and
attackable. This is exemplified in a performance in which the artists slapped each other
publicly while eating in a well-known, state-subsidized milk bar. The performance that
was staged as an interpersonal conflict in public-not recognizable for the others as an art
performance - through the inclusion and provocation of a real public, aimed at showing the
interpenetration of individual and collective, private and public power, and violence. When
displayed to the eyes of the public, violence which usually takes place in seclusion and in
private, normally tolerated as inevitable - as long as it remains concealed and suppressedprovoked immense indignation on being openly displayed. Involuntarily, the protesting
restaurant clientele and the threatening waiter became the constabulary of a power that
felt observed and put on the spot by this eruption of visible aggression. The attempt to use
all means to make this visible violence vanish from sight also became recognizable as a
rescue operation for suppression, and thus as the actual threat.
Excerpt from text by Fuchs Rainer
for the exhibition catalog
Public Rituals / Video Art from Poland.