PETER (PIOTR) GRZYBOWSKI – “FAUX PAINTING. PERFORMER’S OBJECTS”

The exhibition Faux painting. Performer’s Objects features a series of painting objects created in the 1990s, which has so far been shown mainly in solo exhibitions in the United States and collective presentations including the Grand Palais in Paris and the Zachęta National Gallery of Art (exhibition “We are”). This is the first solo exhibition of Peter (Peter) Grzybowski in Poland featuring this series, which was sent from New York after the artist’s death. The series is made up of a number of painting objects – imitation materials, mainly wood and stone created in the 90s.

The title of the exhibition Faux painting. Performer’s Objects is derived from the text accompanying the exhibition in Bielsko-Biała by Wladysław Kaźmierczak – an artist and performer, curator of performance festivals – about Peter Grzybowski who died last year in New York. The material delves into the performer’s way of thinking and the pedigree of his painting during the New York period. Peter Grzybowski’s paintings are much more than mere canvases – they become the “performer’s objects”, something that is inextricably linked with the artist’s philosophy of creation, and not just practicing the art of faux painting for the sake of earning money. The text will be published in its entirety in the portal “Obieg” at the end of August, just before the opening of the exhibition.

“The exhibition in Galeria Bielska BWA is Poland’s first such large presentation of paintings created by Peter Grzybowski in the 1990s. Shipping these large canvases from New York became possible only after the artist’s death – but the task required enormous financial and logistical effort, and the paintings together with the New York studio were almost lost forever. These are very original works – turning the previously anonymous decorative techniques into art. For me this is a very important exhibition, allowing me to believe in the words written on the grave of Duchamp’s: “D’ailleurs, c’est toujours les autres qui meurent” and thus deal with personal tragedy”, says Małgorzata Kaźmierczak, curator of the exhibition.

Peter (Peter) Grzybowski (born. June 16, 1954 in Kraków, d. Aug. 29, 2013 in New York) – multi-media artist, performer and painter. Degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków in 1982. In the early 1980s he began his first experiments with the art of performance – both individually and with groups of AWACS and KONGER – which he continued after moving to New York in 1985. The first paintings created by Grzybowski in the 1980s constituted a photorealistic reconstruction of performances in the form of paintings on canvas. In his performances he used multimedia, the surrounding reality and deconstruction techniques. He commented on and criticized the world, with its ongoing changes – for which he often resorted to destruction of objects. In recent years, the artist created multimedia performances and installations, for which he used computers, digital video, sound, light, UV and interactive CDs.

The artist participated in many international festivals and performances; he was a member of the Art Fort Association and IAPAO, organizer and curator of meetings and performance festivals, such as “Kesher” in the United States and Poland.

More: http://galeriabielska.pl/?d=details&sek=english_version&idArt=1862

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Peter Grzybowski CHANGES. Art or Documentation?

Peggy Phelan once wrote: Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance. To the degree that performance attempts to enter the economy of reproduction it betrays and lessens the promise of its own ontology…. The document of a performance then is only a spur to memory, an encouragement of memory to become present.

Performance artists of the 70s and beginning of the 80s generally did not care about the documentation of their work and the performances were to take place only once. Grzybowski, however, was already a performance artist, whilst still a student of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. His diploma work was a “painterly documentation” of paintings based on photographs taken during his performances. The photos to be re-created as paintings were of a technically low quality, usually out of focus, but they had an aesthetic sense. The preparation of performance art “documentation” in the form of painting is surprising even today. As Lukasz Guzek wrote: […] making art based on documentation causes a situation, in which the starting point of creating art refers to a form, not “making meaning”, and this means that the vector of artistic searches which began in Kosuth’s conceptualism and postmodern practices has been reversed.

The paintings by Peter Grzybowski shown during the exhibition Changes in Piotrkow Trybunalski (curator: Paulina Olszewska) are based on performances which are known to a very narrow audience. These performances have never been repeated, so an exhibition of their painterly “documentation” provides the first opportunity to view the beginnings of Grzybowski’s art, including performance. The paintings exhibited come from three series, and include Painting from 1981 (Pod Reka Students’ Club, Krakow), Cummulation from 1982 (from an event organised during martial law in his own studio in Krakow) and Red Lights from 1984 (performance for camera, without audience). Among them only the last series was exhibited in the 80s, in Buffalo, NY and the paintings look very fresh even today. […]

The full version of the text was published at: http://www.livinggallery.info/text/changes_show