15 X 1989

Center of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko

as part of the Performance Art meeting

Description of the manifestation:

A large tree trunk stands in the center of the hall, the audience gathered along the walls. The artist enters naked. In his hand he holds a coil of thick rope, the other end forming a noose that encircles his neck. He approaches the trunk and drives a large axe into it. He ties the loose end of the rope to the axe handle, steps back the length of the rope, and begins slowly circling the trunk, saying: I would like to build a monument, but I lived and still live in times in which the beginning of any work starts with something like this, because my childhood was spent during the war, when the world was engulfed by two totalitarianisms that objectified everything: Nazism and Stalinism. When I was growing up, it was the 1950s, when the fiercest attack of Stalinist totalitarianism came. But that’s only a sort of starting point.

The artist stops circling the trunk, removes the noose from his neck, and unties the rope from the axe handle. He drives the axe into the trunk slightly to the side and places the rope in the center of the trunk. He walks to where two pots of paint and brushes stand. He takes the white paint, returns to the trunk, and paints a section of a white line on his chest. Then he approaches with the pot of red paint and paints a stripe on his back. He ties a thick knot in the rope. He paints the continuation of the line on his chest with white paint, a stripe on his back with red paint, and ties a second knot in the rope.

He says: In today’s project, I wanted to somehow juxtapose two things: sculpture and what I personally call a manifestation, which back in the 1960s was called a happening, in the 1970s a performance, and now both terms are in use. The Orange Alternative does happenings, someone else does performances. But the point is that it’s difficult to define a term that corresponds to what sculpture is today and, at the same time, what something that conveys a direct message is today. I’m sticking with ‘manifestation.’

The artist continues his work. His back becomes covered with red stripes. When the rope is divided by a series of knots, the letters painted on his chest form the word WSTYD (SHAME).

The artist paints a white vertical stripe on his penis, and next to it a red one. He approaches the trunk, weaves the rope into a hoop, and places it on his head. The hoop proves too large; only the third attempt is successful. Wearing a rope crown on his head, with red stripes on his back and the white inscription WSTYD (SHAME) on his chest, the artist climbs onto the tree trunk as if onto a pedestal.

He says: I wanted to sculpt SHAME because I believe – referring, as it were, to Kierkegaard, who proved that the subjective is not free from fear, despair, and misery (misery as Kierkegaard specifically understood it) – that shame should be added to this, since no subject can be free of it. Only the object is shameless. Just as the object is without fear, despair, and misery, it is also shameless. And now I would like to hear from you what you think about this kind of monument – whether it is a good monument, a true monument, or a bad one. Because here, having entered the realm of art, I can only emerge from this state of objectification into which I have placed myself, and which you are now viewing, by means of some intersubjective contact. Since I am addressing you, speaking, only this sphere of speaking is subjective. The rest is the object, because I have objectified my body and my idea. Therefore, I have no way out. If we were to assume this were a monument, it would have to be mummified to become permanent, immortalized. However, when it comes to performance, it also cannot simply end, because it would have to be artificially cut off. Only this moment of my subjective speaking to you is the platform that can liberate me from this situation. I am asking for your judgment, for your opinions about what I have done.

The artist, standing naked on the tree trunk, begins a conversation with the audience. During this conversation, he says: Is this a real sculpture or not? I am thinking about the message. Of course, as I have already pointed out, when it comes to sculpture, it unfortunately has the weakness of being built on transient material, on biological material. (…) I have the greatest doubts about this crown. Is it good or bad, isn’t it kitsch? (…) As for this last aspect, that moment of exit from the situation in which I am, and into which I have somehow drawn you, there really is no way out, because, as I said, if this were sculpture, the whole situation should be mummified as it is, but if it were performance, well, it would also have to end somehow…

At this point, he is interrupted by a woman from the audience, who approaches the tree trunk, shakes his hand, and encourages him to descend from the pedestal. The artist continues: I have found only this way to reach the subjective situation. He approaches the trunk, places the rope crown on it, and with two blows of the axe, chops it in half.