Spotkanie w Galerii Willa w Łodzi, prowadzenie: Małgorzata Dzięgielewska, koordynatorka triennale. W spotkaniu wziął udział Dariusz Leśnikowski, kurator triennale i dyrektor MGSŁ; Galeria Willa, Miejska Galeria Sztuki w Łodzi, styczeń 2021
The meeting at Willa Gallery in Lodz, led by Małgorzata Dzięgielewska, coordinator of the Triennial, with participation of Dariusz Leśnikowski, curator of the Triennial and director of the Lodz City Galleries; Willa Gallery, January 2021
23-24. 10. 2020 "Free" play? Kant, play and the question of aesthetics in contemporary art practice, Keynote / referat główny, international online conference 'Kant, aesthetics and contemporary art, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cardiff University, Exeter University, UK Kant, aesthetics and contemporary art (wordpress.com)
17. 11. 2018 Odbitka graficzna jako "dzieło w ruchu". Hybrydowość na etapie 'post-print', referat zaprezentowany na sesji Hybrydowość w grafice. Medium w poszukiwaniu swojego sensu i czasu, Galeria Sztuki "Wozownia", Toruń, opublikowany w książce Hybrydowość w grafice. Medium w poszukiwaniu swojego sensu i czasu, red. S. Dudzik, M. Maciudzińska-Kamczycka, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, Toruń 2020, ISBN 978-83-231-4430-4
08. 09. 2018 The
encounter. The process. The outcome? (with Irena Keckes), conference
paper/transcript of an e-mail correspondence, Impact 10 International
Multidisciplinary Printmaking Conference, Santander, Spain, publication on an
electronic device
12. 2017 Być 'pomiędzy' – działania intermediale we współczesnej grafice artystycznej, (Being ‚in between’ – intermedia activities in contemporary artistic graphics ) chapter in a book: Analiza różnorodności. Aspekty formy i struktury w twórczości artystycznej i wzorniczej, (Analysis of Diversity. Aspects of form and structure in art and design activities), Ed. Łukasz Grzejszczak, Institute of Architecture of Textiles, Faculty of Material Technologies and Textile Design, Lodz University of Technology, ISBN 978-83-938839-4-3
06-08.12 2016 Edge effect: Printmaking as an inter-medium (Efekt krawędziowy: Grafika jako inter-medium), paper, International Conference Post-digital Printmaking: redefinition of print, Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, Poland, ISBN: 978-83-65638-59-5
09. 2015 Autographic: Play with the graphic medium in a post-print age, paper, Impact 9 International Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking Conference, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, Chiny, publisher: caapress, China Academy of Art, 2015, ISBN:978-7-5503-0957-9
06. 2013 Tricksters lead the Game, in: Trickster Strategies in the Artists' and Curatorial Practice, Edited by Anna Markowska, Polish Institute of World Art Studies & Tako Publishing House Warsaw–Toruń 2013, ISBN 978-83-62737-26-0
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trickster-Strategies-Artists-Curatorial-Practice/dp/8362737263
01. 2013 Light and Weighty, Text in solo show publication, "Rescue Kite" by Mark Selby, Institute of Jamais Vu, London
2012 „The plush darkness”: Play and the Sublime in Recent Participatory Art, Gillian B. Pierce (Ed.), The Sublime Today: Contemporary Readings in the Aesthetic, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012, ISBN (10): 1-4438-4189-7
http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/978-1-4438-4189-4-sample.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sublime-Today-Contemporary-Aesthetic/dp/1443841897
03. 2012 – The green magic of recycling - the art of Suzanne Morlock, feature article in Sculpture Magazine, US
http://online.qmags.com/SM0312/default.aspx?pg=54&mode=2
26-27.10.2011 – Tricksters lead the game, paper, International Conference Trickster Strategies in the Artists‘ and Curatorial Practice, Institute of Art History, Wroclaw University, Poland
This paper explores philosophical and conceptual background of artistic ‘trickster’ strategies and suggests that the notion of play/game is an indispensable research tool in this subject. Who is a contemporary trickster in the world of art? It seems that this position is no longer marginal – to be in the move, to be outside, on the margins of, or in-between the dominant narratives of power – beyond the usual order of things in cultural, social, political or economical realms, has become the “proper” space of the artistic activity.
06.04.2010 – The role of artists in the art of city making, lecture at the Symposium on Wl. Strzeminski‘s idea of the functional city‘, Kobro Gallery, Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, abstract published in the exhibition catalogue
10.11.2010 – The Criterion of Play – paper presented at the European Congress of Aesthetics, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain
This talk responds to the growing critique of contemporary ('relational') participatory art as dominated by ethical or political concerns, but disregarding the aesthetic value (as expressed by Claire Bishop, Claire Doherty or Dave Beech). This debate follows the current resurgence of interest in aesthetics and proves that it is essential to rethink this notion in a way relevant to the contemporary modes of presenting art. I raise under the discussion the notion of play as a condition of aesthetic judgement emerging from traditional Kantian aesthetics. I argue that the postmodern, poststructural reading of the concept of play can be identified as a condition of the 'new aesthetics' that responds to the participatory, process-oriented, ephemeral art projects that take place within the gallery or in the public sphere. The aesthetic criterion of play challenges the politically-correct rhetorics of recent participatory art.
08. 2010 – Artist – the Game Master, text in Stimulus-Respond journal (issue 'Master')
I propose to test the metaphor of an artist as a 'game master'. This phrase describes the position of a postmodern artist as based on the tension between homo ludens – the careless player, the naughty child, the 'grasshopper', and post-industrial homo faber – the entrepreneur, the legitimate provider of a unique 'experience', the careful organizer of the tours to 'real life'. I will sketch here a subjective characterisation of the artist-game master, my own interpretation/representation of this paradoxical persona. There exist various roles he/she can adopt – mutually exclusive or maybe complementary, or even necessary to locate this function within the domain of art.
03. 2010 – PhD Thesis (doktorat), Play in the Theory and Practice of Art, Loughborough University, UK
Abstract
This thesis focuses on the notion of play in the theory and practice of art in the 20th and 21st centuries. I approach play both as an 'internal' element of the concept of art (following the philosophical tradition) and as the 'external' model for the creative process (as applied by modern and postmodern artists). The main purpose is to produce an interpretation of play that would span various, often contradictory, features of this concept and would serve to reinterpret the notion of artistic representation, traditionally linked with the vocabulary and approaches coming from the domain of work (production, mastery, preconceived outcomes, fixity, and the nature/culture dichotomy). My thesis defends representation, however, 'supplemented' with the notion of play.
In my project of highlighting the role of play in the discourse of art and aesthetics, I draw on Jacques Derrida's reading of Kant and Plato. Derrida's analysis of the 'logic of supplementarity' in Western thought and terms such as parergon, pharmakon and 'undecidable', help me to argue that the ambivalence of play and the movement 'in between' the opposites allow us to understand play as a condition of artistic representation. I also use Mihaly Spariosu's distinction between the interpretations of play as 'rational' or 'prerational' to inscribe play into the argument between representation and non-representation in the theory and practice of art.
In terms of practice, I link the emergence of the 'strategy' of play with the rhetorics of primitivism in modern avant-gardes from Dada to Fluxus. I analyse play as a tool of transgression and an 'attractive supplement' of the creative process – a way to activate the public and change the traditional proper function (ergon) of art. I trace the assimilation of play in recent participatory ('relational', 'dialogic') art intended to go 'beyond representation'. I argue that play has become a commonly used 'tactic' and an undercurrent of today's artistic and social network. In the final discussion I reinterpret the notions of work (ergon, essence) and play (parergon, supplement) in the light of the 20th century artistic revolution. Using vocabulary and approaches coming from the domain of play (and specifically Role-Playing Game) I attempt to overcome the prejudice against the notion of representation.
The analysis of play, in any context, is to a large degree an attempt against play's charm and attractiveness. I inevitably act as a spoil-sport by unveiling the rhetorics of different uses of play in modern and postmodern art. Nonetheless, I think it is a rewarding process and an exciting journey, although not necessary playful. But is play simply fun?
16-19. 09. 2009, Play of layers and matrices in non-digital printmaking, IMPACT 6 International Printmaking Conference, Bristol, UK
Academic poster presentation, paper published in the conference proceedings