Idealists and provocateurs at the Municipal Gallery bwa in Bydgoszcz, connected by a common space, take up the challenge of creating an environment in which time ceases to matter and usefulness is questioned. They do not hesitate to be impractical, stubborn, irritating. They break out of everyday life, even if they feed upon it, in order to play a game between the work, which has its own autonomy, and the viewer. To provoke, one has to be bold. The idealist’s zeal is also based on boldness; both attitudes, using other means of expression, are similarly dangerous for the authors – consenting to the risk of the viewer reading the work as funny, kitschy or incomprehensible is a challenge for the creators. No one likes to talk about it aloud. However, this must be tackled.
Do not provoke me! Was it a provocation? What a provocative outfit! To provoke birth… Only the latter term – medical – has positive connotations. This provocation by means of medication is intended to make it easier for a child to be born. Does provocation in art make anything easier? Does it help to give birth to ideas and contribute to a better perception of the work and to capturing its meaning? Eternal idealist! You idealise it unnecessarily. The ideal has reached the pavement…
Idealists–daydreamers, detached from everyday life, provoke questions about the sense of exploring what is ephemeral, hardly noticeable, or on the contrary: sublime, utopian, or hermetic and mysterious. Idealists and provocateurs, apparently at both ends of the barricade, take risks together during the exhibition, and test the limits of acceptance or lack thereof.
“Art is inherently manipulative – a human game of pretending that what we perceive is actually something different than what we think. It says a lot not only about the idea of art, but also about ourselves.” [Iwo Zmyślony, excerpt from the text “Manipulation of art, the art of manipulation”*].
* During the exhibition a publication entitled “Manipulations. Idealists and provocateurs” will be available; publisher: Academy of Arts in Szczecin, 2017.
Exhibition curator: Małgorzata Kopczyńska
The exhibition is co-organised by the Department of Visual Arts of the Academy of Arts in Szczecin.

Beginning 07.08.2018, 6pm
20 Gdańska St.
End 02.09.2018