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CASTLE OF IMAGINATION ENDANGERED!!!
| One of the best known International
Performance Art Festivals “Castle of Imagination” is
in danger! Baltic Art Gallery and Zbigniew Warpechowski are up to stealing
the Castle’s concept and name. ‘Art Interventions’
decided to react and make the ongoing discussion, that takes place mostly
in Polish, available to all our Friends. We are looking forward to your
feedback and will keep updating the page. Don’t let the Castle
– the Festival of the best and most positive energy become a prey
of the bad guys! The Gallery has a new director now – a woman who used to work there before as a handicapped children instructor. She was chosen from among many other much better known and experienced curators, in a competition organized by the same people who forced Kazmierczak to quit. And everything would get back to normal – same marine paintings on walls as in good old times before Kazmierczak. But… Ms Krol aparently being unable to figure out her own vision of a gallery, decided to do an unimaginable thing – to STEAL Castle of Imagination! Moreover, she decided to grant an honor of being the festival’s curator and director to a pioneer of Polish performance art, whose impertinence and megalomaniac books are legendary, Zbigniew Warpechowski. He duly agreed and even managed to invite six (sic!) artists. In the statement found on the so-called 14th Castle of Imagination web site Warpechowski says: (…) “The lack of fixed rules, regulations or definitions that would narrow requirements of art caused the situation that “performance” became a way of a non-obligatory existence in art, or rather next to it. The ones to blame are the organizers of multiplying “festivals of performance art”, in which it is not the artistic level that counts, but the number of participants. My aim is to remind the most important artistic motivations, from which performance art has emerged as well as the artists, who made them come true for the first time.” Zbigniew Warpechowski The "14th edition of the Castle of Imagination" is going to take place in October this year. The invited artists are: Adina Bar-on, Julien Blaine, Phillipe Castellin, Natalia Lach-Lachowicz, Eugenio Miccini and Ewa Zarzycka. Please, accept our congratulations. The situation does not require a further commentary. We think that the whole situation is a result of two phenomena: sick ambitions of both: the director and the curator as well as the fact, that Polish artistic community has been tolerating Mr Warpechowski all too long. 'Art in New York', September 11th 2006 For Polish readers: we are enclosing original
texts that Art Interventions got hold of. >>> Texts
in Polish Edyta Król’s statement saying Baltic Art Gallery is the sole owner of the copyright to the Castle of Imagination Festival and everybody who uses its name does it illegally. >>> Text in Polish *** An open letter from Wladyslaw Kazmierczak, curator of the “Castle of Imagination” Festival to the local authorities in charge of the Gallery: “Dear Friends, the thing unheard-of has just happened: the new director of the Gallery in Slupsk first overtook Rybie Oko Event and now wants to do the same with the performance art festival “Castle of Imagination” that I have been organizing for 14 years. The are some limits of decency, that’s why I am sending this open letter, hoping for some further discussion. But this is not the end: from 2nd – 5th September this year I organized and curated the next, 14th Castle of Imagination in Schloss Broellin and in Officyna in Szczecin. From the web site of the Gallery in Slupsk we learn that the 14th Castle of Imagination is going to take place in October 2006 and its curator will be …. Zbigniew Warpechowski. (…)” The letter further explains the question of copyright to the Festival’s name. It belong to him and Grzegorz Borkowski who was the co-curator of the first three editions. All the organizers and sponsors that helped Castle of Imagination to come true for last 14 years are listed. The main body to organize the festival was the Society of the Friends of Contemporary Art in Slupsk as the Gallery did not have the financial resources or any formal possibility of acquiring them. The Gallery was also not in a position to waste public money for activities such as performance art. In the end, he states, that he will continue to organize the International Performance Art Festival “Castle of Imagination”. >>> Text in Polish *** Edyta Król responds to Wladyslaw
Kazmierczak’s open letter: >>> Text in Polish *** The reaction of a vice-president of the Society of the Friends of Contemporary Art in Slupsk (that for many years had been the formal Castle of Imagination’s main organizer), Tomasz Kosciuczuk who openly ridicules the new-old festival and the so-called “director” of the Baltic Art Gallery. He says he had never seen Ms Edyta Król having anything to do with the “Castle of Imagination” and doubts whether anyone sensible could have mistaken her for a director of a gallery and any other further events (that he calls “Zippers of Imagination” using a play on words: “zamek” means castle or zipper in Polish) that would take place in Slupsk for those organized by Kazmierczak. He advises her that in case of any job offer she should accept it without any hesitation. >>> Text in Polish *** The statement of the co-organizers of the 14th Castle of Imagination in Schloss Broellin (Germany) and OFFicyna in Szczecin (Poland). Ladies and Gentlemen, *** The first performance artist to react was Dariusz Fodczuk, who wrote an open letter to Warpechowski with a perplexing question: WHY? Why does he (Warpechowski) – an artist of such an international fame need to support himself with the name of the guy that he has hated for most of his life? Why would he feed on the leftovers from Kazmierczak’s table? Fodczuk’s main concern is not Warpechowski’s
discomfort that he may feel being a curator of the SECOND 14th Festival,
but his summary of Kazmierczak’s activity as a curator of the Festival
(see above: Warpechowski’s statement). Fodczuk writes, that through
all of his adult life he has admired Warpechowski’s art and from
his books he has learned that values like: no-compromising attitude, frankness
and truth are most important in art. That is why he asks for further explanation:
why someone who had always criticized the Castle of Imagination, would
decide to continue one of the “multiple” festivals, whose
name will always be associated with Wladys?aw Kazmierczak. We are waiting
for an answer. *** Pawel Kwasniewski also wrote an open letter to Warpechowski, in which he simply stated that his behavior is immoral. >>> Text in Polish *** Rafal Pawlowski, a curator from the
Baltic Art Gallery replies to the „enemies of Baltic Art Gallery
in Slupsk” that the Gallery had received a grant of „several
dozens of thousands” of zlotys to organize Rybie Oko and 14th Castle
of Imagination, so it simply had to spend the money for these Events. *** Dariusz Fodczuk responds that he would
like to thank Pawlowski for his efforts for the sake of the Gallery and
to assure him of his deepest sympathy, but saying that the Gallery had
had some money to spend, so it just had to spend it is like saying: I
had a crowbar in my hand already, so I broke in. What else could I do? *** BBB Johannes Deimling writes:
*** From Wizya Net (Paris): Julien Blaine's NO, NO, NO, I will not go under these circumstances! >>> VIDEO >>> Video at Wizya Net *** Letters of support for Wladyslaw Kazmierczak received
from: Slawek Sobczak (Galeria ON, Poznan), Krzysztof
Stanislawski (art critic and independent curator), Aleksander
Glondys (Polish Jazz Association, Krakow), Krzysztof
Gliszczynski (artist painter, Academy of Fine Arts, Gdansk).
Angelika Fojtuch, Johannes Deimling,
Slawek Sobczak expressed further support for Dariusz
Fodczuk's letter to Warpechowski. Arti Grabowski writes
that he would never come to Warpechowski’s festival, as he would
get a diarrhea there. *** *** September 13, 2006 *** Performance artist Patrycja German translated Kazmierczak’s open letter into German >>> German Text *** The Baltic Art Gallery employees and
two members of the Society of the Friends of Contemporary Art write a
letter to Tomasz Kosciuczuk accusing him of being on Kazmierczak’s
side. Iwona Wyszynska, the President of the Society states that it has
never paid Kazmierczak for being the Festival’s curator. Thus she
admits, that the Society hijacked the copyright to something that it had
never even paid for! *** A local paper –
Glos Pomorza writes that the director of the Baltic Art
Gallery is going to denounce Kazmierczak to the local attorney general
for stealing documents associated with the Festival Dariusz
Fodczuk keeps returning Rafal Pawlowski’s attacks. Gallery worker
insists that according to the law, only the Gallery has the copyright
to the Castle. Pawlowski also quotes Slawomir Sobczak from ON Gallery
in Poznan, who dared to criticize the new director, saying that the way
she acts shows that she has nothing interesting to offer to the artistic
world at all. *** Further letters of support
from artists: Anastazy Wisniewski (a veteran of performance
art) and Teresa Bujnowska (artist). Krzysztof
Przewozny (artist and former Gallery’s employee) says the Gallery
does not have any moral nor legal rights to the Festival. A
short letter from the ex-Speaker of Polish parliament and the (real) Castle’s
warm supporter Mr Jan Krol (no relation to the Gallery
director). He says: The bureaucrats should stay away from the Castle!
It is not what we were fighting for together! Katharina Husemann, a curator from Schloss Broellin, a co-organizer of the last, 14th Castle of Imagination sends her letter of support. ***
The director of the Baltic Art Gallery says that we should wait with our
jugdements about her achievements for at least two years, that the question
Artur Tajber asked should not be addressed to her, but
to Kazmierczak and that art is going to be the only value in the Gallery,
so only artists for whom art is a value would be welcome. Also she states,
that Zbigniew Warpechowski is the greatest performance
artist in Poland and that she kept the Festival’s name to keep the grant
that the Gallery had received to organize the Event. Our only comment
is: you are not going to last that long! Arti Grabowski writes to the Gallery and Zbigniew Warpechowski: you are ridiculous! You are not
even able to find a name for your Event. I’ll help you: BARN OF (the
lack of) IMAGINATION! Zbyszek, you act like an old fart! I’ve never
shared your opinion that festivals should be smaller, so that the artists
could get 2000 instead of 500 zlotys. For me it was a great value that
I could confront myself with over 30artists from all around the world
and decide myself what is and what is not art. The Castle has always
been an energetic and magic place, mainly because of Wladek. I encourage
all the other artists torefuse to accept any invitation to Warpechowski’s
Event. *** Hi there, ***
***
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*** September 14-15, 2006 *** Roi Vaara wrote: Dear Wladislaw, dear Zbigniew and others involved Roi Vaara *** |
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