2008, ORGANIC LIFE, Another Life, Another City, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Sezam, Warsaw

BERGAMOT GROUP

ORGANIC LIFE

Action, delegated performance
2008
Another Life, Another City, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Sezam Department Store, Warsaw, Poland

18 min

The action took place as part of the exhibition “Another Life, Another City” organized by Zachęta - National Gallery of Art. The curators set themselves the goal of critically analyzing the functioning of Warsaw's public space and the place and status of art in this space.

In 2005, at the Old Brewery Art and Business Center, we realized a performance involving the mutual sprinkling of handfuls of coins taken out of each other's pockets. This gesture - at once banal and symbolic - revealed the tension between personal relationships and the logic of economics.
The Warsaw installment of the action saw a change in the lineup of performers. Participating in it were: Volha Maslouskaya, a member of the Bergamot group, and Ewa Tudorska, a Warsaw artist who runs an intimate author's gallery in the store window of the “Sezam” Cooperative Department Store on Marszalkowska Street. The performance took place right there - in this specific, semi-public space of the storefront.

The artists sat opposite each other and threw coins at each other against the backdrop of a romantically arranged exhibition of paintings by Ewa Tudorska. This contrast between the gesture of exchanging money and the aesthetic, almost sentimental decor built a multi-layered commentary: on the interpenetration of art and commerce, on the symbolic and market value of the work, as well as on who in the urban space is a spectator and who is a participant in art. For the spectators of the performance were both passers-by on Marszałkowska Street and customers entering and leaving the store - accidental participants in the urban spectacle.