BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice

Whenever we — artists and scholars — talk, we talk about people; we talk about them in different forms, in different colours, in different languages.
We don't speak about people in general, we talk about specific human beings, the ones that exist in reality, and who are determined by their specific circumstances. We don't talk about people while ignoring their presence. We do not talk about people. We talk to people, and we talk about things that are important to them.
We don't make decisions about people without letting them voice their opinion.
Art has to give up engaging in disputes with itself.
Its meaning is determined not by its internal structure, but by the specific situation, in which it functions and for which it functions.
Jan Świdziński, “We Constantly Speak About a Human Being”

I am permanently settled in everyday reality and I'm not under the illusion that art can change this real world. However, it can change me and my closest circle of friends. It can pull something out of us, or enrich us with something, or make something evident. Art opens up horizons so expansive that they appear inaccessible – at least to myself, but the feeling of accomplishment, which is contained in art, equips me with a special suit of armour. So I step into reality shielded with art. It doesn't happen anytime and anyplace, it happens while I'm living here on earth, at a specific moment and in a specific point in the world. I succumb to the limitations imposed by rationalised, utilitarian and anonymity-filled reality. I need to refer to it. I need to come to terms with the world through judgment of the world. Internal impulses overwhelm me. They are uncontrollable and gloomy like dreams. I need to give vent to them in order to set myself free. They can be experienced and sublimed in the sphere of Art. For this, I need another human being. When tormenting questions are born – I try to ask a couple more people and see what their reaction is. A sum of responses is created, an expression that is not mine any more, but ours. A multitude of reflections cast back, in other people's experiences, as if in mirrors. Someone who needed to get into contact with a work of art, is included in the process of its creation.
Grzegorz Kowalski, “What Does It Mean to Be an Artist Today?”

How deeply have we explored the issues belonging to the social sphere when we play with our creative freedom? To what measure is our creative life a mechanism controlled by ethical awareness? To what extent is this machine only a part of an apparatus which is either centrally controlled in an authoritarian way or works with the shortsightedness of liberalism; or else —  is this machine powered with the barbarity of capitalism?
Krzysztof Wodiczko

The purpose of my pursuits is building relationships with other people. In most instances, I only create the context for a meeting — a place or a situation. The rest is an open experience. I try to give people what they want, and sometimes to make their dreams come true.
As I usually work in the public sphere, I involve other people as participants or co-workers. I often only initiate the process that people later carry on with in a creative way. I also use myself: as material, a tool, biography, vehicle, a container full of chemical elements or a medium. In each case instead of building my own identity I try to go beyond it and become someone else.
Joanna Rajkowska

a selection of fragments from the exhibition catalogue

• Organizers