(text published in the catalogue of the exhibition “Bereś”, Cricoteka, Kraków 2024)

Jerzy Bereś inspired the emergence of images both permanent and ephemeral – narratives packed full of meaningful content. Although not intended to produce media representation, his actions can be reconstructed and, accordingly, updated or reinterpreted on the basis of iconographic material: photographs and authorial comments – literary portrayals and memories as transitory as only inner images can be. There are ritualistic reasons for images to be resurrected and captured through repetition. Originally staged in 1981, Romantic Manifestation is an action obdurately rerun, in line with the artist’s intention. Its new representations, which I consider to be re-enactments – a popular method of conserving ephemeral art, keep coming.

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The aim of this paper is to examine Bereś’s actionist practices with emphasis on the moments that best illustrate the transformation of his work into lasting images. I also intend to enable identification of mislaid memories and the names of photographers that have faded into oblivion in dusty archives. I believe that Bereś was an artist with a gift and creative zeal for producing output clearly linked to destructive social and political conflicts; he also became a medium for self-generating images. The emotional load which they continue to hold is refreshed in relation to modern sensibility – for example, at an exhibition.

Bereś built his visibility by engaging in disputes over genres which have since achieved a legendary status. He did not want to be counted among artists active in happening or performance art. His manifestations, although similar in terms of form, pushed him to the margin of the definition; even so, he never stopped capturing attention as the odd man out. The specific nature of his visibility is well exemplified by a few excerpts from the state of knowledge as ascertained by (male) researchers. Tomasz Gryglewicz points out that the boundary between the sculptural and the literary statements […] becomes indistinct.¹Tomasz Gryglewicz, Kraków i artyści. Teksty o malarzach i grafikach środowiska krakowskiego drugiej połowy wieku XX, Kraków 2005, p. 153. Piotr Juszkiewicz maintains that Bereś is an artist who needed and still needs to be judged.²Piotr Juszkiewicz, “Nieobecność Ciała”, Odra, no. 11, 1995, pp. 83–88. Piotr Piotrowski writes that Bereś’s asexual and unerotic body is a symbol of resurrection and rebirth.³Piotr Piotrowski, Znaczenie modernizmu. W stronę historii sztuki polskiej po 1945 roku, Poznań 2011, p. 200. Well, the picture they paint is straightforward enough – it shows a man in control of the language, a priest and victim at once.

The second half of the 1960s witnessed Bereś augmenting roughly hewed pieces of wood with pieces of events. It was a sensible decision to be taken for one willing to construct an efficient mechanism for blurring the visibility of his work in media repetition. The artist disintegrated the stable materiality of objects by turning them into props invested with symbolic content. He put his creative output at the mercy of the message. Thus exposed premodern matter, unplaned timber, jute cord, dye, food and drink and the element of fire, collided with the modern desire to document and the archaic human need to mediate. The artist’s presence was marked by peculiar skimpy garb and his naked body. Sacrificially, he exposed himself to general view and the violence of the public gaze. Such conflict invites comparison with the concept of open violence generated between the viewer and the work present in artistic practices of Oscar Masotta, an Argentinian theorist and artist active in the 1960s. In communist Poland just as much as in Argentina, tormented by unrest not fully comprehensible to Europeans, images of bodies exposed to view were synonymous with the insanity of violence taking place in social and political space.⁴Comparison of Central European neo-avant-garde and Latin American artistic practices are increasingly made also by curators, cf. e.g. Subversive Praktiken: Kunst unter Bedingungen politischer Repression 60er-80er / Südamerika / Europa: Art Under Conditions of Political Repression, 60s-80s, South America & Europe, Stuttgart 2011.

There was no significant difference between the body and the object in Bereś’s work. He marked, described and aesthetised both. He developed a unique language of expression characterised by clarity, coherence and precision. This kind of language makes stories hearable provided they reach devoted fandom – it is in its members’ minds that images take shape, as Hans Belting claimed.⁵Hans Belting, “Miejsce obrazów”, Artium Quaestiones, translated by Mariusz Bryl, XI, 2000, p. 323. Personal beliefs of witnesses and participants, more or less directly involved, remain a persistent element of this system intended by the artist but, importantly, independent from him. The audience continues to cocreate images in interpersonal transmission – the language of gestures, clothes, compositions and iconographic motifs are continually transformed in their memories.

Jerzy Bereś, “Transfiguration II”, Desa Gallery, Kraków 16 IV 1973, photo by Jacek Szmuc.

A few years after the artist chose actionism, in 1973, Maria Hussakowska observed in her account of an event that took place at the Galeria Desa in Św. Jana Street in Kraków that the photographs and props displayed in the gallery facilitate the reconstruction of facts, but they cannot compensate for first-hand involvement.⁶Maria Hussakowska, “Transfiguracja II Jerzego Beresia”, Echo Krakowa no. 96, 24 April 1973. In this way, the critic highlighted the need for empathic experience. The action in question was Transfiguration II and it referenced art history, religious iconography. Many years have passed and Bereś has become an image himself. By means of his artistic practice he made his own corporeality into a sign. He would paint symbols on his body and face. In the end, he became one with the artefact. It could be a monument (Monument of an Artist, 1978), or a readymade (First Dialogue with Marcel Duchamp, 1981). The intention to dissolve in the universe of images and their various genres is obvious and as such it makes the artist’s will less relevant. As W. J. T. Mitchell explains, discussions of images very often imply that they have emotions, will, consciousness, agency and desires. Such approach is typical of old cultures – people believing that pictures have magical powers. Images are definitely not powerless. They want, above all, to control the viewer.⁷W.J.T. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images, Chicago 2005. It is not without reason that the best-known transfiguration in art, Raphael’s The Transfiguration from 1516, depicts more than ten people gone mad upon seeing the supernatural representation. From the perspective of the third decade of the 21st century, and within the context of the retrospective and the Maria Pinińska-Bereś and Jerzy Bereś digital archive that has recently been made available, questions regarding the condition of remembered or photographic images are methodologically justified and pertain to matters different from the scenarios devised by the artist. This is about the functioning of a peculiar curtain stretched between audiences and artworks.

Jerzy Bereś, “First Dialogue with Marcel Duchamp”, BWA Gallery in Lublin, 6 November 1981, photo by A. Polakowski.

The image of Bereś’s corporeality with a clan certificate – the name “Bereś” that was always part of the costume becoming the leitmotif of his actions – brings analogies to mind. Let us take a closer look at an image discovered at a time when photography was by no means a self-evident constituent of art. Paul Strand captured on film a sightless beggar with the sign “blind” hanging from her neck (Blind Woman, 1916) and a numbered medallion issued her by the city. The photograph is still capable of eliciting sympathy for the woman’s plight and astonishment at the way she was catalogued by the system. Language cuts through the image with the intensity of lightning. Actionists’ practices very often exert a similar effect. At the 1975 Art Fair in Cologne, Timm Ulrichs appeared as a blind person with the sign “ICH KANN KEINE KUNST MEHR SEHEN!” (I can’t see art any more!). The artist brilliantly suggested that we were losing out aptitude for perception. As time went by, we found out that the power over things was seized by their simulations, including media representations of artworks. Ulrichs’s action as well as many of Bereś’s practices suggested that the position of images strengthened and so did their power in the field of art in relation to artists, viewers and institutions. It is useful to analyse the life of images post factum also because Bereś was an artist present in the media, recognisable outside the art world – an iconic figure. The mode of this story reveals possible intentions of the remaining images with which the artist swapped bodies.

The collection of photographic images depicting Bereś’s manifestations is vast and inversely proportional to what is known about the authors of the photographs reproduced in catalogues and overviews of Polish art in the second half of the 20th century. In the traditional view, art history condemns them to uncomfortable transparency. Regrettably so because the pictures are bold, memorable and quaint, nakedness and coarse scenography feature prominently in them. Records of the actions referencing Christian and pagan rites display pronouncedly a premonition of transgression. It is easy to assign magical powers to them which is why they are described as regressive in relation to modernist tradition.⁸Piotr Piotrowski, op. cit., p. 200. This makes sense! It should be remembered that faith in pictorial power was characteristic of the days of old. Bereś’s actions, the neo-avant-garde rite so unlike artistic manifestations that prevail in our imagination, enable similar regressive faith in the power of his representations. If we follow the lead of Mitchell’s questions – especially the unrelenting “what do pictures want?” – the rational method will lead us astray as we retrace Jerzy Bereś’s activities and his superstitious flirt with images. The empathic involvement of witnesses and, years later, emotional sensations felt by the public or the experience of media representation will constitute the truths of the day.

Jerzy Bereś, “Reflective Mass”, Szadkowski Metal Works, Kraków 10 May 1975, photo by L. Dziedzic.

The universe of Bereś’s pictures loses itself in a broader context. Exploring analogies between artistic images and representations of social and political life is a method of clarifying emotions which these images are still conveying to us. It is logical to analyse images generated in circumstances not limited to the sanctuary of art. In this regard, a massive impact could be attributed to the manifestation called Reflective Mass, held in 1975, that was part of the artistic action Art and Work, staged by Stefan Papp at the Stanisław Szadkowski Machine and Apparatus Manufacturing Works in Kraków. We may see it in photographs taken by Jadwiga Rubiś, Stanisław Markowski and Stefan Zbadyński. The action received a highly professional coverage by journalists and photojournalists. Papp made sure it did; he was the then president of the News and Arts Reporters Section by the Polish Journalists Association. My reconstruction of the images of the work was performed on the basis of photographs, the artist’s scenario and press reports.⁹Cf. e.g. Sezon. Jednodniówka Krakowskiej Krytyki Plastycznej, 1975.

A presentation called Souvenir, Beautiful Altar, Pure Altar was performed in the foundry. Two tables, each covered with a tablecloth, were placed in the middle of the hall with a basin full of water between them. There was a loaf of bread and a knife on one table, a bottle of vodka and ten glasses on the other. Wearing a loincloth of raw planks tied with a piece of cord, the artist forced his way through the crowd of onlookers. The audience was made up of factory workers and their families. Bereś was pushing his Symbolic Wheelbarrow. Someone asked: “Aren’t you cold?” The artist’s reply was professional: “I am at work.”

Surrounded by members of the audience, the artist turned the wheelbarrow to make a primitive printing stand. He distributed the prints he made, with the image of a face and the word “FACE” on them, among the spectators as souvenirs. The stamp was passed from one person to another and more copies were printed.

He cut the bread into slices which he then painted blue and arranged in a circle on the table, placing the knife in the middle. He pressed his paint-stained hands on the tablecloth. Finally, he wrote the title for this composition: BEAUTIFUL ALTAR. He washed his hands in the basin and moved to the other table. He opened the bottle and poured vodka into a glass, then painted a red line on his face – he repeated that sequence ten times. Finally, he said: “Take souvenirs, watch and drink.” At this moment, the scenario of this profane ritual came to its end, what remains of it is the will of images contained in numerous photographs and inner pictures of the onlookers.

Jerzy Bereś, “Reflective Mass”, Szadkowski Metal Works, Kraków 10 May 1975, photo by L. Dziedzic.

The experience of dealing with unprofessional audience created favourable conditions for the artist’s theoretical aspirations. He developed the concept of stimulating judgement, to be initiated by the artist and his work. By exploiting the potential of the materiality of art, the artist was obliged to force people out of the state of helpless suspension. He demanded judgement! He considered his actions to be prophesies of the changes that were happening before his very eyes.¹⁰Jerzy Bereś, “Dzieło stymulatorem osądu”, [in:] IX Spotkania Krakowskie, Pawilon Wystawowy BWA w Krakowie [exhibition catalogue], Kraków 1981, pp. 66–68. He was full of hope when he watched the democratisation of the country in the years 1980-81, and perceived the Solidarity movement in the categories of art.

At the Ninth Kraków Meeting in 1981, he put on an action called Romantic Manifestations, to be seen today in photographs taken by Jacek Szmuc, and others. This is possibly Bereś’s best-known work, persistently repeated and existing in numerous images, uploaded to social media these days as well. In November 1981, when the series of images was created, the artist left the Pavilion of the Bureau of Art Exhibitions pushing the Romantic Cart and went, along with other participants, to the Main Market Square. He proceeded to light bonfires – of Hope, Freedom, Dignity, Love and Truth, in different spots around the square.

In those troubled times that culminated in the imposition of martial law and degradation of basic humane values, Bereś confined attention to ideas of utmost importance to humans and universal for the social organism. The image has become an integral part of the history and present day of the Kraków art world and – as I have mentioned above – is sometimes re-enacted. The artist intended it to be performed each year. This is why it persistently lives on.

Jerzy Bereś, “Romantic Manifestation”, Main Square in Kraków, November 18, 1981, photo by Jacek Szmuc.

We are aware of the potential hidden in the emotions carried by images and the language of Polish neo-avant-garde. It still remains a reference point for contemporary artists and authors. Karol Radziszewski examined the elegance of Ryszard Winiarski’s actions (Struktura faktu artystycznego, 2007), Piotr Uklański revealed its brightly subversive profusion (Polska Neoawangarda, 2012), while Łukasz Ronduda’s Polish Art of the 70s (2009), containing reproductions of works by Marek Konieczny, Zdzisław Sosnowski or Natalia LL, looks like a picture book full of genuine hypervisual provocations. Neither stateliness nor decadent gaudiness characterise the visual aspect of the Polish People’s Republic as it is represented in memories and documents. The dullness of the past epoch is transferred by images of primitive objects, ill-fitted garments and melancholic looks on the faces of viewers gathered in art galleries and bewildered workers confronted with modern artworks in their place of work. Unlike the more visually pleasing representations of pieces produced by other artists at the time, Bereś’s images are short on such seduction. Realistic and traumatic, they seem more faithful to the oppressive atmosphere of the previous political era as much in their entirety as in repetition. Yet they are never a simple reflection of it and, therefore, they are in with a chance of being applicable to new times.

It was in the early years of the 21st century that I first attended a meeting with Jerzy Bereś. An inconclusive discussion kept being disturbed by insolent members of the public. The artist gave an in-depth clarification of how he understood the trembling of the subject. I can barely recall the rest of the meeting at the café in Św. Tomasz Street in Kraków, but the trembling subject came to feature in my personal vocabulary for long. As likely as not, I substantially departed from the author’s intentions when I used it to denote perplexed judgement in the face of inadequate circumstances.

Bereś seemed iconic. The pages of criticism I had acquainted myself with put together a picture of a shamanistic mystery and neo-romantic content found in his art that informed my perception of the meeting.¹¹I once witnessed a discussion among a group of art history students at the Jagiellonian University who considered naming their scientific circle after Jerzy Bereś. The artist was still alive. It came to nothing, Stanisław Wyspiański is still the patron of the circle. A few years later, I contacted the artist to clarify some details about one of his actions for an article I was writing. Meeting Bereś confirmed my suspicion that I was dealing with an image that dominated the experience. A warm welcome awaited me at his apartment-studio, along with piles of newspapers in the kitchen and a burnt kettle which, against all odds, was still able to boil water. We drank black coffee. Looking as only he could, Bereś gesticulated wildly; the images of his gestures have remained with me. He is a cult image that has acquired the capacity to captivate the viewers’ gaze.

Jerzy Bereś, “Romantic Manifestation”, Main Square in Kraków, November 19, 2000.

translated by Monika Ujma

• 1
  Tomasz Gryglewicz, Kraków i artyści. Teksty o malarzach i grafikach środowiska krakowskiego drugiej połowy wieku XX, Kraków 2005, p. 153.
• 2
  Piotr Juszkiewicz, “Nieobecność Ciała”, Odra, no. 11, 1995, pp. 83–88.
• 3
  Piotr Piotrowski, Znaczenie modernizmu. W stronę historii sztuki polskiej po 1945 roku, Poznań 2011, p. 200.
• 4
  Comparison of Central European neo-avant-garde and Latin American artistic practices are increasingly made also by curators, cf. e.g. Subversive Praktiken: Kunst unter Bedingungen politischer Repression 60er-80er / Südamerika / Europa: Art Under Conditions of Political Repression, 60s-80s, South America & Europe, Stuttgart 2011.
• 5
  Hans Belting, “Miejsce obrazów”, Artium Quaestiones, translated by Mariusz Bryl, XI, 2000, p. 323.
• 6
  Maria Hussakowska, “Transfiguracja II Jerzego Beresia”, Echo Krakowa no. 96, 24 April 1973.
• 7
  W.J.T. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images, Chicago 2005.
• 8
  Piotr Piotrowski, op. cit., p. 200.
• 9
  Cf. e.g. Sezon. Jednodniówka Krakowskiej Krytyki Plastycznej, 1975.
• 10
  Jerzy Bereś, “Dzieło stymulatorem osądu”, [in:] IX Spotkania Krakowskie, Pawilon Wystawowy BWA w Krakowie [exhibition catalogue], Kraków 1981, pp. 66–68.
• 11
  I once witnessed a discussion among a group of art history students at the Jagiellonian University who considered naming their scientific circle after Jerzy Bereś. The artist was still alive. It came to nothing, Stanisław Wyspiański is still the patron of the circle.