On 29-30 June 2007, the Municipal gallery bwa presented for the fourth time the Night-time Meetings with Performance, called PERFORMANCE: OPEN SITUATION.
Curator of the project: Beata Kaźmierczak
Night of Culture / Municipal gallery bwa Bydgoszcz
June 29th, 2007, 19.00-20.00

GROUNDWORKS:

Alastair MacLennan (Belfast) „; “Void a Void”

PioTroski (Warsaw) „; “Praca u źródeł” (Work at the Roots)

H.K. Zamani (Los Angeles) „; “Scheherazade”

Tomas Ruller (Praha) „; “Plastic Peace”

at 20.00-21.30

meeting / analysis of the works

June 30th, 2007, 19.00-20.00

photo documentation / video (lobby)

at 20.00-21.30

GROUNDWORKS (going out into the public space around the Municipal gallery bwa in Bydgoszcz)

“Whole life is a Meeting, really.
The Meeting does not happen in time and space,
because time and space are set
in the Meeting.”

Martin Buber

Alastair MacLennan (born in 1943)
Studies: 1960-1965 Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Scotland; 1966-1968 „; School of Art Institute, Chicago.
He is one of the classics of performance.
In 1997, he represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale, presenting intermedia activity to commemorate the names of all the people who died as a result of the political turmoil in Northern Ireland, in 1969-1997. In the 70s and 80s the artist carried out performances for many hours, even up to 144 hours. Usually, he neither ate nor slept for the whole time they lasted. These performances concerned political, social and cultural improprieties.
In 2000, he participated in the Art Kontakt Festival (12 hour non stop actuation) and EPAF “Towards the Present. Towards the Future” in 2004 (“Note Stone” actuation).
Since 1975 he has been living in Belfast, where he established Belfast&acutes Art and Research Exchange. Presently, he is a professor at the Ulster University. He travels a lot, presenting actuations (a term he coined for performance/installations). He is a member of the European group of performance artists “Black Market International”. He is interested in ethical, ćsthetical and political subjects. Quite often, he takes up the subject of political situation in Northern Ireland.

“The basic function of art is to combine the spiritual and physical world. Because of dull materialism, we limited art to the status of cultural immobility. Real art cannot be sold or bought, even though its scales, peels and hide are sold and bought. In art, it is possible to use metasystems without depending too much on physical waste and the running about, manipulation and arguments accompanying the market. Art is a demonstrated calculation and relief of conflicts in action, either spiritual, religious, political, personal, social or cultural. To heal is to unite.” /Alastair MacLennan/

Tomas Ruller (born in 1957)
Studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Praha. Lives and works in Brno (Czech Republic). His earlier performances were directly connected to the limitations imposed by censorship and politics of the contemporary authorities „; he was not allowed to go to “Documenta 8” in Kassel. Ruller was a co-creator of the European performance movement – the “School of Carefulness /East-West” (1983) and “Black Market” (1985-1991). Since 1990, he presented his works in many European countries, Isrćl, Canada, Japan and USA. At the EPAF Festival 2004 in Lublin, he presented an excruciating multimedia performance “Plastic People”. Since 1992, he is the head of the Video Multimedia Performance scientific unit at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Technical University in Brno. In his works the artist uses photography, video and other media. He is one of the organisers of the Open Situation „; European
Project meetings (Praha 1989, Praha „; Lublin „; Bydgoszcz 2007).
„Where all is possible, points of process are gestures and relations.
Communication is based on attention.
Breathing climate is the matter of form.
The game with transforming energy.
Art in deed.
Not acting group, no scenario, no common story.
Everyone brings personal input, consciously united.
Co-creation in real space-time,
between history and future, across cultures and boundaries

http://www.ruller.cz
PioTroski / Zygmunt Piotrowski (born in 1947)
Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, graduated with honours in 1974.
He introduces into the practice of European art a new way of group co-operation, described as “aufmerksamkeitsschule” (presentation „Das Brakteaten Stück” at the Dokumenta 8 in Kassel (1987).
In 1987-1990, he crystallises the vision of his artistic activities, by invoking the concept of Heritage® and pointing it out as an individual religious experience and contemplative practice, acknowledged in the strict discipline of creative process.
In 2001-2003, presenting the “Work at the Roots” publications, he establishes the theoretical basis of a new branch of fine arts, Groundwork® Fine Art. One of the first presentations of Groundwork, preceded by the author&acutes lecture, took place in 2003, in the Performance Art Centre in Lublin.
As a basic ćsthetical category of the new branch of art he assumes „; in place of expression „; the category of emanation, discovering techniques and technologies of creative activities previously unknown in modern art.

H.K. Zamani (Habib Kheradyar / born in 1958)
Born in Tehran (Iran), has lived in USA since he was thirteen. Studied art at the Faculty of Painting at the Claremont University (graduated in 1998). Lives and works in Los Angeles. He broadens his painting experiments with installations and multimedia works, entering the domain of performance. Founder of the P.O.S.T. Gallery (1995-2005), an important location for modern art in Los Angeles. He presents his works in galleries and museums of USA and Europe, among these in the prestigious museum of modern art LACMA in Los Angeles, or Berkeley Art Museum. Received grants from C.O.L.A. (2004) and the Californian
Grant&acutes Foundation (2005).
http://www.hkrad.com