Andrzej Wasilewski is a sound and visual artist whose work is rooted deeply in philosophy, touching upon social subjects, as well as the aesthetic of counterculture. Wasilewski plays a self-invented game with the viewer. He pops the inflated balloon of art and those who make it. He is well-versed in self-irony and finds all grandiosity, and words pretty hilarious. We met to discuss the exhibition “The Absolute Factory” that has recently closed in the TRAFO Centre for Contemporary Art in Szczecin. Its new iteration will open in the Boxes Art Museum in Foshan City, China.
Dominika Górowska: About a year ago, citizens of Szczecin, and others, had a chance to attend your exhibition “The Absolute Factory” at TRAFO. Could you please tell us something more about this show? What did the preparations as well as your collaboration with the curator Stanisław Ruksza look like?
Andrzej Wasilewski: The idea to utilise coal originated from the dystopian vision of Karel Čapek. I enjoy his brand of dark humour, which is characteristic of Czech authors. During my artistic residency in Meet Factory in Prague, I stocked up on books by local writers, including “The Absolute Factory.” The concept put forward by Čapek referring to the subject of combustion of matter, and to be more specific, a complete burning of coal to obtain an inexhaustible source of energy, which sort of by accident releases the absolute into the word, seemed remarkably pertinent and relevant. Published in tumultuous times, between two world wars, the book was visionary and prophetic. The astonishingly uncomplicated idea of Čapek is ingeniously related to the philosophical concept stating that any matter is a vessel for essence viewed in terms of spirit and thought, the transcendental efficient cause. Religions appropriate the idea of the absolute, personifying it as god or creator. The liberating gesture of releasing matter through burning coal (oh, the irony!) brings the divine figure down to earth that brings about the annihilation of humanity by doing uncontrolled good. An overabundance of miracles caused by the presence of the sacred component, a willingness to give one’s last pair of figurative underpants to the poor and needy enters into the realm of the absurd – particularly ruthlessly self-imposed. An excellent foundation for art making.
In 2019, Stanisław Ruksza and I were discussing “The Absolute Factory”, and came to the conclusion that it’s an excellent, grotesque, and absurd idea also when placed in the context of a narrative about climate change and the consequences of unrestrained depletion of fossil fuel resources. Over three years spent working on this project, we’ve realised time and time again how multifaceted and open to interpretation it actually was. Our goal was for the gathered collection of artefacts to act on the basis of a paradox or contradiction, not unlike in the universe of Karel Čapek. According to our intention, the Foucault pendulum stopped by used coal is the foundation of dark humour – the earth stops spinning, and hell freezes over.
DG: The audio-visual sound installation was created specifically for this exhibit. I can only imagine it was an extremely time-consuming and demanding process. Where did the idea come from to use this form of artistic expression?
AW: My life partner and mother of my daughter Marysia is a scientist, who works with C-14 radioactive isotopes, conducting radiocarbon research, etc. Once she brought home a dead bee covered in graphite in vacuum conditions – it looked astonishingly beautiful and horrific. A burnt insect reminded me of the novella “Ghost of Chance” by William S. Burroughs, in which there is this museum of dead species, catalogue of dying species, a sort of reservoir of memory and remorse. The eumetazoa are built from protein, which in turn consists of four elements: coal, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is a paramount component of any being, and yet it gets a really bad press in the current narrative. Carbon filter purifies the air contaminated by the burnt coal that was imported from Russia, for example. Carbon dioxide is quintessential for the process of photosynthesis – the production of oxygen. Excessive carbon dioxide emissions cause rising temperature levels. Paradox and contradiction as if taken straight out of Karel Čapek’s book.
There is also protein in the charred graphite-covered bodies of insects. The “carburetor” powered by the carbonaceous shale bearing imprints of extinct flora from the Carboniferous, or any other geological period is in fact the distiller for moonshine production; a trigger of Dionysian madness within human beings. “Composition on 16 dosimeters” crackles in warning stirred by carbon doses encased in lead sarcophagi, emitting the alpha and beta cosmic radiation. Although radiation is a condition for life, it can degrade the biological function of certain organisms. A gargantuan ventilation system, which we call a “sound system,” fouled with coal dust seems to distribute dust and dust particles instead of clean air – a nightmare for many Polish cities during the so-called heating season. Meanwhile, Stanisław Ruksza and I created the composition on four ventilators. Installed at the outlets of wires, they run in a specific order, making the sheet metal of a construction resonate and rumble. High-pitched crackles emitted by “Composition on 16 dosimeters” intertwine with low sounds of the “sound system” to create the audiosphere of “The Absolute Factory.”
DG: You’ve collaborated with TRAFO before. What can you tell us about the installation around the facade of the gallery’s building?
AW: Near the end of 2019, Stanisław Ruksza and his team of curators worked on the large exhibit “Whatever You Come Up With About Yourself” titled after the novel by Inga Iwasiów, a writer and an academic from Szczecin. The curatorial idea pertained to the diagnosis of the current condition of the city as well as a critical overview of its myths and symbols. Due to its geographical location, Szczecin remains outside of any main transportation routes, positioned at the fringes of the map. In his excellent quasi-documentary about the Western region “Odrzania,” Zbigniew Rokita makes several interesting points about the city on the outskirts, almost dismissed and separate. Physically the most remote starting point – in the face of then abysmal events in Poland resonating with the right-wing radicalism which transitioned smoothly into nationalism – evoked in me a kind of utopian phantasm about the separation of the “Free City of Szczecin.” I proposed a symbolic gesture of separation, distancing oneself from the narrative with which I decisively took umbrage. Deliberately, I made references to Ladonia, a micronation on the Kullaberg peninsula in south Sweden. Lars Villks proclaimed its independence in 1996 – the same artist whose works became the tools for the nazi movement in Sweden and who was invited by Piotr Bernatowicz to participate in the show “Political Art” in the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw. A kind of ironic chuckle of history.
The neon on the facade of TRAFO reading “Wolne Miasto Szczecin” (“Free City of Szczecin”) illuminated in rainbow colours stirred up strong emotions: from enthusiastic, even euphoric reactions of random passers-by to anonymous (and other) online hate. “Wolne Miasto Szczecin” is embedded in the architecture of Świętego Ducha Street. It is fascinatingly juxtaposed against various banners hung on the church located by the gallery. A site-specific by chance…
DG: When it comes to your art practice, what’s evident at first glance is a certain coexistence of man and technology – this consonance (nomen est omen) of the new and old. Here, technology serves as a tool for expressing a point of view rooted deeply in the humanities, ethics, and sociology. You address this old kind of content to the viewer while speaking a new language. How did you arrive at this form of expression, your own creative language?
AW: Even as a teenager and then student (philosophy major for a year) I voraciously devoured the works of French existentialists, Russian nihilists, American beatniks, Emil Cioran, Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Aleister Crowley, and a variety of other philosophical aberrations. The rule was the more “unhinged” the content, the more it fell under my modus operandi.
My formative sympathies were formed in the spirit of countercultural ferment. Nightly listening sessions of industrial music, post-punk, and experimental sounds in general shaped my later mindset, and scorn for traditional, academic forms of expression.
In my mind, the machine type of practice, generative, synthetic and dehumanised, seemed like a remedy for a vermin, meaning a human type of activity. Technology inherent to media art seemed extremely tautologic, negating the affirmation of the artist’s gesture, artistic activity boiled down to connecting wires. I believe I was radical in my approach, often falling into a trap of pathos or negation. Right now, for me, the experience of art is something occurring between the viewer/participant and the medium selected by the artist to convey their idea that was arranged more or less accurately. To some degree, medium is of secondary importance although I’m aware of my predilections and practice, which has shaped me.
DG: Looking at your work, I can’t help but think that you’re playing not just with the viewer, but also with convention. Your practice is imbued with dark humour, entertainment, grotesque, etc. It goes beyond the rigid framework of art and strips the profession of an artist of all its lustre. Is it a desired effect or just a by-product of your activity?
AW: I recall one of my first artworks made for the show presenting and promoting young and emerging artists. It was the installation “Ja” (“I” pronoun) spanning a couple of floors. There was this neon “Ja”, the words painted on a wall “ja” (“I”), “moje” (“my”), “mnie” (“mine”), and “mi” (“me”), video installation consisting of archaic kinescope small screens, which reflected the image of a viewer, audio edited in a way that made it seem as if the authors (participants of the show, who of course gave their consent) to one-up another, “I” followed by another “I.” Each entry of Gombrowicz’s journal starts with the “I” pronoun, thus ironically and egocentrically affirming the ego of the author.
I certainly use the tools of grotesque, humour and playfulness to pop this inflated narcissistic balloon. Another quite recent piece of mine is actually a large round balloon (5m in diameter). The title was “Balloon”, technique: balloon. One of the funniest pieces is “Krzesło klasowe” (“Class Chair”) glued together from various types of chairs (french chair, poor man’s chair from the Polish People’s Republic era, designer ones). Its seat was adorned with a satin cushion with the embroidered anarchy symbol. If you sat on it, you entered into a deeper interaction with the piece by turning on the audio track: a morose and serious voice of Mikołaj Iwański delivering the lines: “siadasz na moim miejscu klasowym” (“you’re sitting in my class chair”), “usiadłeś na moim miejscu” (“you sat in my place”), “długo będziesz siedział?” (“will you be sitting here much longer?”). Worth noting is the fact that Mikołaj Iwański was an active member of the left-wing Worker’s Initiative and the Contemporary Art Forum, and he’s a declared Marxist.
DG: In your art practice, you also draw on an interesting moment in modern art history, namely the 1950s, USA, and flourishing Neo-Dada tendencies. Could you tell us something more about these associations?
AW: The language of art uses citations and references analogously to the scientific works referring to earlier resources. Toying with the form, countercultural raids through the genres, styles and movements derive from the same formula as for instance the movies of Quentin Tarantino – a post-modernist practice. A change of context upends the well-established paradigm. Admittedly, I could never place myself under a given category, I’ve always had issues with defining what it is that I’m actually doing and pointing at the area that I’m navigating. For these reasons, I value the collaboration with Stanisław Ruksza very much. His crazy and subversive perspective on art is something I can relate to.
DG: Representatives of the Neo-Dada movement, such as Beuys or Brecht, addressed the subject of absurdities governing the world. They were also interested in all things irrational and lack of meaning behind objects. What sort of response can an artist have in the face of the absurdity of everyday life, which hasn’t really changed from that time?
AW: It’s a very difficult question because it seems that another question would be an answer, like playing a blind man’s bluff a bit, trying to grab onto something in the dark. I remember one of the movies that made a huge impression on me at the time, “Lucky People Center” by the Swedish informal art collective from Göteborg. Shot in the 90s in the convention of music poem, quasi-documentary, and ecological manifesto, it expressed the fear of the new millennium – a sense of hopelessness, absurdity, and uncertainty. One hundred years after my beloved nihilists, the movie put forward the same postulates as the ones that pushed them to kill god.
DG: You also deal with the concepts of the community around the international Fluxus movement that placed a significant emphasis on the creative process itself and not just the final result. Bearing this in mind, is the concept or process behind the creation of an artwork more important to you than the ready piece?
AW: Process is great! A cognitive process resulting from artistic activity (or anti-activity) is often more interesting than a spectacular success (in any sense). I relish in the fiasco and failed results of an erroneously thought-out intention. Failure can also be preconceived, a conscious pursuit. I suppose, the fumes of Fluxus were hanging in the air over the “sound system” as Stanisław Ruksza and I were composing our piece on four ventilators in the hope that their spinning motion would set the entire ventilation system into distressing vibrations… Well, the motion turned out to be much more subtle. Fortunately, we were very happy with the rumbling.
DG: Last year’s exhibit in Trafostacja was a point of departure for our conversation. The project is very much ongoing since its continuation will be presented in the Boxes Art Museum in Foshan City located in the Guangdong province, China. How did it all happen?
AW: We planned to migrate the project ever since we started working on it. We even came up with this crazy idea to represent the Czech pavilion at the Venice Biennale in the context of the conflicts surrounding the Turow open-pit coal mine, near the Czech border. That didn’t happen, but it turned out that “The Factory” will go to China. I’d participated in two group shows in China before, one of them took place in the Boxes Art Museum in Foshan, where I met some incredible people in the arts – we stay in touch to this day. We were discussing a potential solo show, and so we asked Liu Ke, the director, if they were interested in this type of endeavour – turns out they were.
DG: Could you please elaborate? What will the show in China look like? Will it be the exact copy of the presentation held in Szczecin? Or will it be adapted in any way? What sort of events will accompany the exhibition? Please tell us something more about this project.
AW: Details of the Chinese version of “The Absolute Factory” will differ from the show in Szczecin. We’re producing an enormous “sound system” on-site, which spans across the venue like an actual hybrid creation, simultaneously organic and technological. However, the ventilation system will still be covered in coal. The configuration of the remaining components will also be altered. We added diffusers and air humidifiers, which were also constructed based on the paradox, namely the carbon-based material. There is a very high humidity in this area. The location matters a great deal. The Boxes Art Museum is located in a mesmerising park surrounded by Zen gardens. The gesture of placing “The Absolute Factory” in this context seems different than the one that transpired in Trafostacja. The Guangdong province, southeast China in general, is the most industrialised region in the world, producing huge amounts of carbon dioxide.
Apart from preparations for the exhibit, Stanisław Ruksza and I will run workshops for the students of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art (GAFA) from the 9th of June. The proposed subject refers to mimetism, identifying with a performed gesture, the gesture of destruction. The title is “Ideas Will Go Up In Smoke.” The results of the workshops will be presented at the D-LAB Gallery in Guangzhou at the show, which we will curate. We also participate in the International Forum “Contemporary Art Practice and Theory – International Art Curation and Youth Creation System” organised by GAFA. Stanisław Ruksza will give a lecture “Power of Error” at the Guangdong Museum of Art. The programme is very intense.
“The Absolute Factory” displayed in March 2023 in Trafostacja Sztuki will be displayed in a modified format at the Boxes Art Museum in Foshan City in Guangdong province (south China).
The exhibition in China is curated by Stanisław Ruksza and Gu Zhenqing [editor’s note].
