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What does a painter do today? Piotr Stasiowski
For over a decade now, the artistic scene in Poland has witnessed a constant need for comparisons, ranking lists and reviews assessing the value of artists and their work. Numerous competitions for young artists are meant to establish the status quo and current direction which the artistic thought is expected to follow in the next few years. No wonder, then, that certain names appear regularly on the lists of contestants participating in such competitions – in this way the structure of emerging and developing tendencies is clearly consolidated. The Geppert Competition, organized since 1989, is among the cogs in this machine. However, it aspires to be more than just a cog – it is important and exclusive in the sense that it follows a range of principles which make the participants feel especially privileged. When watching various competition exhibitions, one may often feel that they are in fact a series of mini-shows which – even though sharing so little – somehow end up forming a final, coherent whole. It is the curator’s job to decide whether the works displayed next to each other are complementary or rather mutually exclusive due to a badly selected neighbourhood. An exhibition which lines up more than twenty different artists has to be uneven and will always leave space for change or alternative ideas. The Geppert Competition, thanks to its structure, is in fact a result of work of dozens, even scores of people who co-operate with each other to a smaller or greater degree. At the first stage, curators appoint a board of experts, whose competence and knowledge allows them to select about a fifty debuting artists from all over the country. Next, during a two-day symposium at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, twenty-five most promising artists are shortlisted by the board. The selected artists are then invited for interviews with the curators, which is a very important stage of the competition, as those discussions are meant to establish which particular works will appear in the final exhibition and will be assessed by the jurors. This year’s curators, Patrycja Sikora and Wojtek Pukocz, help in selecting works
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which best present the character of each of the young artists‘ creative output. One of the clauses in the regulations is that all the works of a given competitor are to form one logical entity, displaying a coherence of artistic expression. Collected, such works constitute an exhibition. All that needs to be done now is to decide who wins. This is established by the Jury, composed of eminent critics, curators and university teachers. This year’s award pool is 60,000 zlotys, so the stakes are high. “What does a painter do?” is the rhetorical question the curators ask in this year’s edition of the competition. The exhibition will answer the question. It is the third time in the history of the event that on top of the official title an extra theme has been added, directing it towards a particular issue to be considered. The 8th edition of the Geppert Competition was subtitled “Painting. Alternate current”. Within that theme, together with Patrycja Sikora and Wojciech Pukocz, we tried to focus on the broad range of interests displayed by painters, at the same time resisting any artistic labels or tendencies they might be ascribed to. A fundamental problem was also brought forth by the critics then, one that had been hovering over the Geppert Competition since its very beginnings – what is contemporary painting? Can it be interpreted in separation from the traditional techniques of covering canvas with paint? The problem proved vital enough to be continued in the following year. In order to emphasize the multiplicity and diversity of painting inspirations, the next, ninth edition of the competition was sub-themed “Painting. No frames”. Referring to the concept of Derrida’s parergon, a frame which determines the meaning of a work of art, we indicated the unrestricted capabilities of the painting thought. Interestingly, for the last few editions, the winners of the competition have mostly been artists who do not use the traditionally understood painting techniques – in the 6th edition, Olga Lewicka showed a complex installation with performance elements, the winners of the following edition, Zorka Wollny and Wojciech Doroszuk, used
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TEKSTY