Emancipation from the Routine – ArtBoom 2009

Interview with Małgorzata Gołębiewska, artistic director of the ArtBoom Visual Arts Festival and Marcin S. Gołębiewski, manager of the project

What gave birth to the idea of organising a new Visual Arts Festival?
Małgorzata Gołębiewska: – We were curators of the Polish selection of artists in Paris at a Biennale for young talents. In order that the works of several dozen or hundred of artists could travel across Europe, the organisers were looking for partner cities which could undertake such a project. We discussed this with the President of Kraków’s minister for culture. Filip Berkowicz asserted at this point that, although it is good to transplant tried and tested models, something that has worked for years, maybe on this occasion it would be worth creating something of our own. Kraków is the city of festivals: the 6 senses programme was already then in operation and a spectacular event in the field of visual arts was anticipated. So this served as an impulse to act. It was precisely in this way that ArtBoom was born as an explosion of contemporary and topical art in a public space. Over the whole world, one can note events that are site-specific, namely specially tailored to the city, place, surroundings or reality in which they exist. They were an inspiration for us. In different places, interventionist art is appearing, corresponding, provoking, existing – not always easily and painlessly – within the living tissue of a city.

What criteria did you take into account to select artists that have been invited to collaborate on the creation of this new, organic art in Kraków?
Marcin S. Gołębiewski: – We have turned to many artists and we can say with some confidence that we have made advance preparations for a programme for 3 or 4 years. We have managed to recruit wonderful artists for the first edition – their diaries are so full that we take their agreement to participate as a significant measure of their faith.
Małgorzata Gołębiewska: – This is extremely difficult, because we are not concerned here with the borrowing of exhibitions; these aren’t their completed works; the majority of these conceptions are either completely new or those that the artists have put in storage while they wait for an opportunity to realise them. And this requires planning, study trips, sketches, modifications, the restrictions of the city need to be taken into account, the possibility of gaining permission – which often means plans B and C coming into play. A great deal more mental and logistic effort than in the case of walls, rooms or permanent features. Here the artists must take into consideration very many factors, from the atmospheric conditions through to confronting the public. We are not gathering for a mutual admiration society, among refined people, established critics – instead we have the public who can ask the most trivial questions: Is this really art? Why is this in the city? And these also become a platform for discussion.

Which of the artists would you recommend the public to pay particular attention to?
Marcin S. Gołębiewski: – We have spent many weeks choosing the artists and can honestly say that we recommend them all.
Małgorzata Gołębiewska: – They can be distinguished perhaps through their artist statements or output. Let’s mention two Swiss artists: Roman Signer and Pipilotti Rist – these are world-renowned names. Signer is 70 years old and has already created hundreds of projects. Rist is still seeking new means of expression. Mirosław Bałka, an artist invited by the Tate Modern to realise a project in the Turbine Hall, could have refused to participate in the new project but agreed to come to Kraków and create the spectacular “AUSCHWITZWIELICZKA” work – a 35-tonne concrete corridor that has the chance of remaining in the city for good.
Marcin S. Gołębiewski: – Paweł Althamer especially for us cancelled several appearances at museums around the world and will be here earlier, around 26 May, to prepare his project in person.
Małgorzata Gołębiewska: – Joanna Rajkowska, who created the Wodnik project, will be coming. The Twożywo group, very well known from their murals and Brad Downey or Zevs will be displaying projects that are art interventions, emancipating us from routine perception. These names speak for themselves. We were trying to attract diverse artists with varied outputs and also the younger generation – such as Norman Leto and Clemens von Wedemeyer.
Marcin S. Gołębiewski: – The founding principle of our activity was the promotion of young artists and whenever we had the opportunity, we were trying to create pairings of “the old” – famous and acclaimed – and the young, in order to give them the opportunity to appear together and interact with each other. Such confrontations can be very fruitful and I think that both parties derive a great deal from them.

How would you like to encourage both artists and the public?
Małgorzata Gołębiewska: – We really want to create a ferment, so that successive editions of the festival will take us further, creating a good atmosphere for the establishment of a museum of modern art in Kraków, also by means of conferences and discussion panels. This is about progress – we are not only showing, sanctioning, anointing – only through discussion can we move forward. We want world-class artists to document projects realised in Kraków in their catalogues, in such and such a context, on so and so square.
Marcin S. Gołębiewski: – An increasingly refined group of tourists are coming to Kraków, wanting to have contact with art – including modern art. Thanks to such an event they will want to visit the city again. Let’s remember that a festival is also a place for meeting people with similar interests.
Finally, I would like to add that we received massive support from Filip Berkowicz, the President of Kraków’s minister for culture. If it weren’t for him and Magdalena Sroka, the director of the Kraków Festival Office, if it weren’t for their fresh approach and openness to art without asking ‘what is this?’ and ‘why?’ questions, it would have been difficult. They placed a huge amount of trust in us.