Janusz Zagrodzki, Testament of an Artist

publication date: 2009-07-01

author: Janusz Zagrodzki

In an artist everything happens at the same time, everything interoperates - thought with passion, life with system of values and life understanding, desire for personal success together with the demands of the work in progress, congruencies of the the piece with the universal truth.
Witold Gombrowicz „Testament”(1968)

It’s quite rare for a prominent artist to leave a testament to his nation. This one is quite a bitter record, full of critical observations as well as tips passed on to his successors written by a rebellious master well-experienced in the toil of existence, who sits now in the circle of artists that are not of this world any more. We are celebrating the 40th death anniversary of Witold Gombrowicz whose universal work has become famous around the whole world from America to Australia, including his indigenous Europe (he died at night 24/25th July in 1969). He spent most of his creative time on emigration, thrown across the ocean by the events of the 2nd world war, he never came back to Poland but from behind its borders criticised the reality of Marxist politics and philosophy. He looked a his homeland with distance - at the beginning from Argentina, then France - with caution and belief that his message will be used in the right way. During his one year stay in Berlin (1963) Gombrowicz made contacts with German speaking authors, he was friends with i.a. Günter Grass and Ingeborg Bachmann. Despite having quite a sceptic approach towards scientific achievements his works can be perceived as an incredibly valuable treatise on the philosophy of life, taking into consideration ups and downs of the man, physical as well as psychological ones. Among all his carefully spoken words we can find the message how to live and to create that indicates the proper path, the more reliable as uttered by the artist who doesn’t have to take care of his personal affairs anymore. This is the way father speaks to his not always wisely behaving children, pointing them out their mistakes, critically rebuking them and directing towards their future actions, just like any artist aware of human imperfections.

Artist of an open mind will find in Gombrowicz’s „Testament” a severe but fair estimation and demonstration of our all national flaws, but the author also brings to light the things we can – or even have to - boast about, which are worthwhile passing on to others. Art is a means for transmitting thoughts but creation on its own is just a profession, the true art is an ability to make the piece of art seen and received. The most important task for our contemporaries is to create contact between artists and their potential public. The reasons given by the public that demands many-sided presentations of the contemporary culture output are so right and unquestionable that mentioning any of these arguments would be a truism. Museums, but also galleries are faced with the necessity for popularisation of the collections of the 20th century art, as well as undertaking widely spread educational actions that every modern institution should undertake, where the indispensable condition for collecting pieces of art is making them more accessible. Still, the escalating discrepancy between the galleries and their public – because of lack of interest in culture – forces us to think about the methodology of the hitherto prevailing actions and makes us realize the necessity of coming back now to the rarely remembered notion of „educative labour”. For many art viewers it’s impossible to accept (and understand) something never seen before. Their rejection to see things in a different way proposed by an artist makes them automatically pick up those means of expression of individual artists that refer to the already accepted ways of acting upon a viewer. This provokes routine reactions, standardisation of attitudes, too fast copying of too popular models, and results in creating similar pieces, similar expositions, the mediocre, the typical, the unoriginal. During the times when the consecutive stages of our technical civilisation make it possible to create mass production of works of art with the mechanically induced digital schemes, the individual demeanours of artists are especially precious. „Structuralism grows out of ethnology, linguistics, mathematics, and can even be epistemology like in Foucault’s wide perspective. But mine, the artistic one, originates from the street and everyday reality, it’s practical. And being practical it is also spiced with fear and passion - they detect Form in a cold manner, I do it the hot way, I’m scared of it! And I play with it!” – proclaimed Gombrowicz – „I would with pleasure like to hear some Polish voice in Europe addressing the intellect: It’s enough, I don’t understand, I can’t, I don’t want to. Just this, nothing else.”

For Gombrowicz the place for special relationships that influence personal identification but also make „form” possible and consequently widen the scope of art’s influence is the area between what is conventionally thought to be the barbarian East and what is traditionally thought of as the culture of the Western Europe. Exactly this indeterminate and ambiguous place brings into the universal time of creative actions the zone that goes beyond artificially delineated political divisions which is incredibly important for finding and at the same time for exploring different features of artistic reality. The autonomy of visual language enables us to recognize the individual ways of expressing the visual message where all limitations disappear and the differences influence the further development of the range of the values conveyed, becoming an another attempt to approach universal categories. Sovereignty of this area indicated by the actions undertaken by artists from the middle of Europe is violated only by the laws of art.

The sources of these observations were obviously the personal experiences of Gombrowicz, his constant undermining all of the stereotypes and schematic thought patterns he noticed around him. He confirmed it referring to his own creative work: „In the very nature of my artistic effort there were always present some contradictions, my works that undermined the form were also a way of creating it... and they also more and more defined me personally. But contradiction which is lethal for a philosopher is life-giving for an artist. It has to be said once more, we can never repeat it enough: art is born out of contradictions”. In this way Gombrowicz in his „Testament” brings to us his basic artistic foundations: „undermining form is at the same time creating it”, „contradiction that is lethal for a philosopher is life-giving for an artist”, „art is born out of contradictions”. Calling up the elements of the past and present, of the signs of existence but also of the memory, made it possible to make a personal record of the vision that shaped his view on the whole world. His work that speaks through juxtaposing contradictions (negative and positive) transformed in a grotesque way, made of micro or macro-elements obtained through the projection of chosen plots emitted by a radiating or a reflected light, refers to the primary form of conveying the message in which each image carries snatches of fleeting contents. The forms so-far-hidden like Calligrams, seemingly invisible for the eye, through a tiny extract of reality reveal their wholeness. Only art that can give a proper account of the observed events. Indicating the contradictions enables at the same time the simultaneous assessment of the mistakes and advantages. Art understood as a cognitive attitude rejects all dogmas, makes quick analysis and synthesis of the perceived situations, often exceeding the rational inquires of the philosophers. It signals all references and brings us closer to all the categories – signifies, through seizing the crucial features of a phenomenon, fulfils all kinds of functions of the visually presented language that emphasises the differences and makes us aware of the similarities. Artists, through searching for the sources of the truth and defining their philosophical attitudes try to present the existential conditionings of a man and indicate new social merits. Art through fulfilling the role of a tutor tries to simultaneously define the criteria of moral conducts. Groups of works can be perceived as visual equivalents of ethical values, often naively defined by critics as utopian, while at their core they attempt to comprehensively express human aspirations within the highest categories, bring us closer to the universal as well as artistic truths. Morality in art, in Gombrowicz’s understanding can be summed up by the rudimentary maxim: make things in such a way for that whoever reads or looks at your work „would think of you as a decent man” – „nothing more, just this”.

Gombrowicz perceived the area of central Europe to be an exceptionally important place where for many years the universal truths could be talked about only in the language of art. Developing the signifying sphere that doesn’t depend on the national, social or political aspects but on finding out about the state of things expressed via form and matter is, in his opinion, the main aim of creative work. Moving about these categories, art can be understood as a criterion indicating the most important notions, events or thoughts, but also the characteristic features of a chosen form and the found structures symbols. Art, being in its essence a carrier of information, and especially these most important pieces of information with great social value, has an opportunity for conveying phenomena going beyond culturally imposed limitations. Induced into the area of intimate experiences can bring in completely new values, shaping the personality of the artist as well as the viewer. Giving of and, to big extent, reshaping the symbolic contents is a part of a dynamic process of changes. The universal ideas evoked by the artists result from the identification and culmination of meanings, intuitively distinguished as exceptional, independent of scientific aspects of the process of acquiring knowledge. Art, seen as a metaphor of the image of consciousness, can be called a mirror that reflects archetypical forms of something that till now was beyond human imagination, and seemed improbable but became true beyond measure.

Thinking about the „Icons of Victory” it’s impossible not to ask the question: How to deliver the shape of freedom visually, give an expression to the changes that took place in the contemporary culture, evoke the message of diverse structure of meanings adapted to the dialogue with the viewer began within the work by the artist? Artists through using symbols, signifiers, metaphors, through organization of the space, installations or performances have stepped into the space so far reserved only for the theatre, personal creations have become an important element of the language of visual arts. Objects, light projectors, shadows, loud speakers, monitors, create a stage matter, transform themselves into actors of the - open in time and space – spectacle. The order of their appearance in our consciousness decides about their reception in our eyes. The attempts to visually present internal experiences defining the essence of being human, show specifics of the contemporary art that is still not revealed completely and at the same time an exceptional responsibility of the artists for the message given by them to the public. Artist as a messenger takes responsibility for the communicated signals and their impact on the public. The especially important problem of the contemporary art is hybridization of the media. Looking at – seemingly – unambiguous contents in other contexts causes transformations of the meaning, its multi-sided penetration and accumulation. Each meeting is different, no knowledge about an object determines its potential influence. Piece of art, as a link between an artist and a viewer may become a causative force, an act of cognition, a sign of the level of consciousness reached and freedom of choice, defining the space for an ethical action. Using many ways of expression at the same time should be conditioned by the essence of the message, and result from knowledge as well as intuition, indicating the ways of influence so far undiscovered.

The basis for existence of art is its striving to find sense in things that surround us. It contains all the most important ideas, values, meanings. Searching for new experiences tightly fills the space between the rational and the intuitive cognition.

Shaping of personal sacrum is influenced by individual experiences. But only then the inborn human spirituality can become the most important part of personal reflection. Thanks to these abilities coded in our psyche we try to discover the sense of existence and use our findings for solutions of problems, also the artistic ones.

Searching for the sense of life and creation, ways of expressing it and also making what moves us accessible to those who look at our work, becomes another challenge of artistic work. All methods of communication in art refer to the mental sphere. Only the mind’s experiences, open to sensory perception – sight, hearing, touch or even smell – as well as to receiving and sending signals impossible to grasp logically, can open the co-participant of the event up to the higher realms of understanding, which, in the common way of seeing things is completely unreachable. The contemporary art is full of magic, mysterious spaces that invite the viewer inside, of the spheres marked by suggestive signs, rich in poetic images, comparisons, allegories. An artist objectifies his personal desires and gives space to employing irrational thinking as unquestionable facts. Observations and sensations felt then have invaluable significance for his next artistic acts. Many artists refer to the spiritual sphere of human being, to our capability of using inspiration, sudden illuminations. The creative acts are always representations of the creative consciousness reached by the artist, expression of the possibility of identifying his feelings. Knowing about the projections born in our minds voiced in all religions, myths and legends, makes it possible for us to discover the sources of cultural determinants but also the civilisation differences what brings us to understanding our own personal sphere of spiritual experiences and the artistic decisions that result from it. All kinds of visual records give evidence to actions and believed ideas, this includes also paintings, sculptures, actions, spacial events as well as words and thoughts.
The nature of artistic actions is to create individual worlds of forms and signs within private worlds of every man, referring to the modern world as well as history and tradition. The simplest assumption that the message contained within a piece of art is the picture of the consciousness of the artist unfortunately doesn’t explain the basic question that we always pose – about the sense of artistic actions. Thinking about the future of creative actions and their role for the next generations we cannot ignore the manner how the output of the contemporary artists has been opinionated so far. The image of art shaped by public institutions like museums or academies but also by the galleries, publishing houses, artistic magazines or newspapers – reveals in most of the cases the picture of a total incapacitation. If for the individualities that stand out because of their different approach towards duties of an artist and popularization of his work we chose the notion „independent”, the estimation formulated above emphasizes the „dependence” of knowledge, critique and art from the still existing methods of adjusting culture to the previously determined rules.

The crossroads between ideas and the degrading reality, provokes anarchistic attitudes. Seditious words fall on the mechanisms of establishing the artificial order and alternative pieces are made to form counterculture – the positive nihilism already postulated by the pioneers of the Avant-Garde of the first half of the 20th century. Despite the diverse ways of possible communication, the various patterns of artistic demeanour that make up the individual manner of artistic expression, the attitude of the artists is characterised by total demur of any ideological deviations. The surreality becomes then the only possible shelter from the world of absurd. „I discovered the reality in unreality that the man is condemned to” – argued Gombrowicz – still he objected against the never-ending „tragic vision of existence” used in art that prevails in the pieces of many Avant-Garde artists. Living amongst the veterans of revolution and approaching their revolutionary slogans with slight irony Gombrowicz hopes for a change of thinking amongst the young generation: „may they finally stop being „in despair” and „rebellious”, what in excess must lead to „boredom, monotony and some shallow and not quite diversified experience of depth”. Gombrowicz’s reflections are similar to the opinion of Clement Greenberg published one year later who, in his essay Avant Garde Attitudes (1969), repeated the same in a slightly different form „where everyone is a rebel, the revolution is over”.

Discovering anew the essence of the process of thinking awakens humility towards art. Perceiving, next to the other already known ways of seeing can make it easier to rediscover things and phenomena that we tend to automatically get rid off from our thoughts and memory, not being able or not wanting to see them or understand them. If we tried to sum up the world’s artistic output through the role it played in the 20th century and compared the existence of art as a defined, multi-layered form of creative activity with e. g. economy and business we would discover unfortunately its minimal significance. Obviously, there were important works and ideas and the attitudes evoked by them but in the contemporary world it’s difficult to find a place for the borders marked out by them. Artists that try to catch the ephemeral, original phenomena and experiences stay on the margins of the today’s world even though they constitute those few ones who react in a creative and at the same time human way to the alarming events and take a stand on moral, existential and social issues spurting out of the appalling reality of every day.

I retreated into the area of practical life, enough of intellectualization - it’s time to bring out of oneself the morality one has, not asking for any justification. I had no other than this one. To destroy what one despises, what one hates, destroy the falsehood, the cruelty, all the villainy within eyeshot - how I see it, not looking for ultimate arguments.
Witold Gombrowicz „Testament”(1968)