Exhibition: Endospory

An endospore is a bacterial cyst, or a kind of spore produced by, among others, fungi and algae. Both these interpretations prove relevant to works of art, as endospores are both a vegetative form and a stage of, as well as the way to maintain the life cycle. They are, as is the case for living creatures, not quite justly treated as far-from-ideal substitutes of original entities. 

The array of pieces on show, entirely held in the Bunkier Sztuki Collection, amalgamates precisely those aspects of artworks that are unapparent from unaccompanied presentation. The “Endospores” exhibition also displays circumstances, mediations and tangible means behind creating the works and making them an object of collecting. A variety of clues gradually unfolds along the narrative path. Impermanence and momentariness of artistic events have been employed as the starting point. Forms of their materialisation—performance acts, visual shows, concerts, interactions—as well as various ways of recording them are successively revealed. Next stop: processual development of artworks, allowing to take a closer and longer look at pieces that change form in time and space. Then, artistic projects whose material versions are eventually in multiplicate, which permits to present their constituents in ambiguous and formally diverse combinations. Finally, more or less explicit complementary materials, determined by past or determining future realisations; in other words, tangible record of works that function as authors’ artistic instructions or documentation. This accumulation of material and tangible perversely accentuates different sides of dematerialisation, which has lately been the focus of Collection growth activities. Manifesting the fundamental aspect of creative projects most recently undertaken by Bunkier Sztuki also gives the opportunity to investigate the system of relations they encourage in an art institution. It lets viewers examine the usually unnoticeable work all undertakings imply or involve, and study—again—the accumulating material evidence of pursuance and experiences shared by artists, audiences and the Gallery itself.

Expressing meanings and contexts of dematerialisation using the metaphorical concept of endospore turns attention to new forms of artworks: ones that do not necessarily have to come into physical existence. Some of these last only as ideas: germinal yet of importance not lesser than that of their tangible realisation – perhaps even greater, since reception of such endospores depends on sensibility to physical or formal potentiality, and on attentiveness indispensable to penetrating the proposed narrative paths.

Featured artists: Mikołaj Długosz, Wojciech Gilewicz, Justyna Gruszczyk, Jan Hoeft, Kornel Janczy, Maciej Kurak, Mariusz Libel, Little Warsaw, Wojciech Puś, Rafani, Urszula Tarasiewicz, Roland Wirtz, Zorka Wollny, Jakub Woynarowski, Piotr Wysocki, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries