Engaging with the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde: Selected by Andrzej Paruzel

From 1980 to 1982, as part of the Koluszki Project, the artist worked with Małgorzata Paruzel and Piotr Weychert on artistic, social and research activities concerning the work undertaken by Władysław Strzemiński and Katarzyna Kobro in Koluszki between 1926 and 1931. In the 1980s, he also founded the Bureau of Guides to/Art and Culture, under whose auspices he carried out numerous projects in public space, and the Art Hotel, which operated as a gallery, publishing house and association. Between 2004 and 2013, he developed the fictional Lens Travel Agency project.

Interestingly, not everyone knows that Andrzej Paruzel combines his artistic practice and interest in contemporary art with a passion for angling. He made the film Fishing — My Passion, wrote the practical handbook Polish Fishing and edits the website wedkomania.pl.

At Atlas Sztuki, Andrzej Paruzel appears in a dual role: as curator of the exhibition and as an artist presenting his own work in it. In Engaging with the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde, he presents the achievements of avant-garde artists, some of whom spent years working outside the official circulation of art. Many combined their own artistic practice with efforts to shape artistic life by organising art projects. The exhibition features works by fourteen artists: Oskar Dawicki, Július Koller, Jarosław Kozłowski, Jacek Kryszkowski, Natalia LL, Zbigniew Libera, Emilio López-Menchero, Andrzej Partum, Andrzej Paruzel, Józef Robakowski, Jerzy Treliński, Ryszard Waśko, Peter Weibel and Piotr Weychert.

Two texts were written in connection with the exhibition and are published in this catalogue.

In the first, Daniel Muzyczuk introduces us to the artistic “positions” represented in the exhibition: “Engaging with the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde brings together several examples of artists’ ‘positions’ as organisers,” he writes, adding: “It is worth recalling at least some of these entities and their authors: Jerzy Treliński’s 80×140 Gallery; Ryszard Waśko’s Archive of Contemporary Thought and Artists’ Museum; the Exchange Gallery of Józef Robakowski and Małgorzata Potocka; Permafo, founded by Natalia LL, Andrzej Lachowicz and Zbigniew Dłubak; Jacek Kryszkowski’s Personal Point for Observing and Shaping Creative Flora; Andrzej Partum’s Poetry Bureau; Jarosław Kozłowski’s Akumulatory 2 Gallery; the Workshop of the Film Form; Group T; and Andrzej Paruzel’s Art Hotel and Bureau of Guides to/Art and Culture. Józef Robakowski traces the genealogy of this phenomenon to the activities of the a.r. group, and especially to Władysław Strzemiński and Katarzyna Kobro. Beyond creating individual works, these artists were involved in the institutional organisation of the art field. (…) All these elements — artist-run galleries, independent one-person institutions or simply events driven by artists — are not merely forms of cultural animation, but activities that constitute the genealogy of today’s figure of the ‘artist as curator’. (…) Andrzej Paruzel constructs a genealogy of positions spanning at least two generations, united by their endeavour to create a suitable social context for art. The activities of the 1970s become the foundation for the most radical neo-avant-garde strategies of the following decade. Robakowski, Partum, Waśko, Natalia LL, Kozłowski and Świdziński are not only, to quote Zbigniew Libera’s work, ‘masters’, but also precursors of artists’ curatorial practice.”

The second text records an extensive conversation between Tomasz Załuski and Andrzej Paruzel about the latter’s artistic practice. Speaking about the exhibition he was preparing at Atlas Sztuki, the artist says: “Dialogues between artists are immensely important to art. I want to show such dialogues as they emerge between the works of the invited artists.” I warmly recommend both texts.

I cordially invite you to visit Atlas Sztuki and discover which works Andrzej Paruzel has selected.