How to Kill Art Manual by Łódź Kaliska

300th Anniversary of Łódź Kaliska

Sylwia Czubała

How to Kill Art Manual by Łódź Kaliska - i.e. spreading the Kielecki Mayonnaise on Warhol's serigraphies. (A few remarks in a kind of a paratext)

(An Apostrophe to Łódź Kaliska Group)

Łódź! What kind of art are you killing? You create an artistic statement that belongs to the third language layer! The art of old masters (you speak of in an impious manner similarly to Konrad in Dziady, Part III) ŕ your previous works (not as old as the works of the old masters) ŕ and finally your How to Kill Art Manual (mayonnaise suicide - the act of killing your photographic output).

According to its definition an instruction is a set of rules and regulations which determine the way we act in a certain field. Are you setting rules that would apply to art? Isn't it enough? Isn't the thought itself destructive enough? Your sick concept kills art starting with the basis of the idea!

Killing. You kill art with the idea that it is possible to kill it. By killing it you rise anti art from the dead, i.e. kitsch. In this way kitsch and rubbish become the wanted murderer. Mayonnaise, pâte or paprika goulash meeting the matter of the spirit of your old works start to create against it, which is horrifying, a visual anti-aesthetic, a serious clash of too much data, the impression of a sticker. A graffiti tag!

You stick, you cover, you smear you put mayonnaise on art. The phrase "I libeled him/her" is not "I told him/her off" any more; it is a literal way of saying that you libeled art and me. That graffiti tag reminds us of street or subway art. The stylistics that is typical of a sticker that you use in your works might be associated with the activities of J.M. Basquiat. From the technical point of view, though, since Basquiat painted on the walls poetical phrases, quotations and ambitious remarks. How about you, then? You cover your photographs with some commonplace inscriptions typical of Wilda or Jeżyce districts in Poznań: "gówno"("shit"), "gówno" ("shit") and "gówno" ("shit") once again.

What is more, you lay the blame on Poland and then you apologize in English. You apologize for the "shit" you splashed your old works with? There are lots of absurd assumptions and facts that come out of them. In this way you kill art multidimensionally and profoundly, not only with the activities like "covering" black and white frames but with the comprehensive misalliance in every piece as well.

The weapon of your killer is, first of all, the thematic clash between the old visual objects and the new ones that are present on the surface. Secondly, it is the culmination of many aspects e.g. religious, erotic, everyday ones, and thirdly, it is the attack on all the possible sense canals at the same time. Finally, it is the idea of mediocrity which is manifested by the obvious reference to everything that is "mass".

Your comment on the state of modern art and the things that are left in art seems to be very timely. The stencil technique, the stylistics of street painting, graphs, inscriptions on walls -these are the elements of grimy culture, which penetrate into more sophisticated art. By using such forms of presentation you get close to the profane sphere which is the biggest enemy of art.

It might also be a representation of insensitivity to art or even a prophetic sign of its fall. The multiplication of "rubbishness" is a source of visual splitting. We do not concentrate on singular signs i.e. mayonnaise jars, inscriptions, stamps or drippings, we experience the works holistically as a bunch of dirt in an ad like style.

That kind of "advertisingness" makes the message unclear, it accumulates different optic forms, scribblers, stains, stickers. Such activities make me think of the mass character and the hypocrisy of Polish media. It also makes me think of the vagueness of announcements, of the manipulation of a viewer's psyche, which makes him/her confused. Even writing about these artistic realizations of yours makes me feel lost and refer to many different factors in disarray. It all might prove that your art is good!

Wait! Another absurd! If I came to the conclusion that your works are good or they seem to be good art I would definitely do you harm! In this way I would deny their conception. And this is what I find most interesting and attractive in what you did! I cannot write about your realizations as if they are art while writing about them. If I did it, it might turn out that your instruction and your operation are unsuccessful since they would contradict the whole concept. It is like having a black ink tattoo of the word Monet, when you are a big fan of him, whereas he was the one who denied the existence of this particular color (it was one of the principles of Impressionism).

How to Kill Art Manual. Homage to Andy seemingly specifies that you ridicule his pop art activities. On the other hand it is clear, that when you ridicule him you ridicule yourselves at the same time, since you use the same stylistics of imaging as he did. You do not paraphrase a can of Campbell's soup as a symbol of American consumptionism. You paraphrase the soup by making it Polish-like.

For the soup cannot be interpreted here as a metaphor of mass production. To my mind, it symbolizes poverty. Poverty in every meaning of the word. Poverty, because Campbell's soup is not expensive. That dish reminded Warhol of his family's financial situation. The Kielecki Mayonnaise or Polish pâté are not top shelf delicacies. Mostly because of the fact that they are cheap and open for general use. So you cover your works with poverty. Poor history of those symbols of Polishness shows the poverty of art and you can hear a prophetic tone when talking about its fall.

Obviously, the mayonnaise stands for the symbol of Polishness. The Polishness of the product and a symbol of Polish pop culture. Warhol's soup is similarly to Łódź's mayonnaise an equivalent of a pop nation.

Ode to the Nation. The text which is an obvious reference to the Ode by the Prophet shows the characteristics of a dedicational satire. Don't you adore them? The group that ridicule the old but still live national values? The values, from the superficial point of view, are live only circumstantially.

The discourse between the romanticists and the classicists of Mickiewicz's piece is still valid, however in a different form. Łódź Kaliska are for turning down old conventions and old sacrednesses which up to now conceal our existing history, culture, literature and finally art. The old troupers, who belong to the canon of Polish culture, should pass and give the right of way to new artistic ideas. Here, it is worth taking a hint that Łódź Kaliska by ridiculing the old masters ridicule themselves. It is their satire on Łódź Kaliska. Aren't you - the artists of Łódź Kaliska - the old gurus, the recognized ones and ranked as a canon? Yes, you are. To prove it, it is enough to mention that students of Fine Art Academies have to learn about you. That definitely means that you are great artists.

And to prove this, it is enough to mention the fact that the literature that an art student has to read is full of references and dissertations concerning your art. What is more, we discuss your realizations during our modern art classes. So my remark to you (the remark you make to yourselves) is: leave the artistic scene!

Threats. How to Kill Art is a set of works that present different signs of threats. The threats drawing near from everywhere. The threats to art. One of them is the current possibility (due to the technological advancement) of copying and multiplying generally everything.

As a result of copying paintings (works of art) everyone can have their own Van Gogh, either on a stoneware cup or a postcard or even a penknife. That reproducibility (it is a basic principle of serigraphy) used in the works of Łódź Kaliska is the key element of their visual layer. It is not an image of a single mayonnaise jar, it is a series! It is a whole mayonnaise family! This kind of procedure seems to be scary. Not only does it make things public on a large scale but leads to the decline of aesthetic values as well.

According to Walter Benjamin "the consequence of making things public is the loss of an aura", the aura of sacredness and uniquness. And this is what Łódź Kaliska do - they make things public, and they make things public by making mayonnaise public. And the mayonnaise is a public product. One may assume that it was all about that! The gentlemen question our constant fascination with the works of national prophets and by using a multitude of different means, they pin that fascination down and say: no more aura of sacredness! They ridicule everything and everybody, including modern Poland, Rydzyk-like Poland and the Poland that is a "land of sluggishness flooded with chaos," the Poland that "kills art.".

The multiplication of kitsch has no limits. The kitsch that does not come from the artists of Łódź Kaliska. It comes as a result of their careful observation of modern aesthetic categories , the decline of elitist values that were followed by the great social elites. It also comes from the decline of great thoughts: I am a knight so I act in accordance with knightly values. I am an artist so I act in accordance with artistic values. If people do not think like that any more, art cannot be good.

A Word to Łódź Kaliska:

It happened. I feel that the ielecki Mayonnaise stamps, disgusting as they are, covered Warhol's serigraphies. Great anti-creation was made. Great anti-art. Anti-slice-art-of bread covered with mayonnaise.