KANTUTA QUIROS & ALIOCHA IMHOff - Overlapping Biennial

earn their living - a task with which they would not identify with at all. In this situation created by Paweł Łubowski, the guards lost
their reliable character, their whole authority being questioned, although their behavior continued to be an impressive, professional
and sober one. Both visitors and guards acted under the pressure of strange circumstances – the artistic experiment demonstrating
that the authority can be neutralized by a simple change of roles. The surveyor’s power is therefore greater than the surveyed one’s.
Hence, there are strong links between the ability of observation and power.
the museum. reducing the power oF an art institution.
In 2004, Hubert Czerepok made a video entitled The Museum - a work that presents the artist during a discussion with a director
and museum curator. The film takes place in a museum that exhibits a broad collection of modern and contemporary artworks.
Both men walk through the numerous rooms of the museum, the director answering the guest’s questions and providing information
and details on that cultural institution. While watching the video, the viewer cannot tell whether he is seeing a real interview
with the museum’s director or just a successful mise-en-scène. Although this issue remains unclear, the question regarding the
authenticity of the interview loses importance. The essence of the work is precisely the possibility the viewer is offered, to keep a
museum director under observation and learn a lot of details about the institution, without making the director believe he should
self-censor his explanations in any way.
The two men talk about the exhibited works and their talk shows there is no way we can define art precisely and unambiguously. We
understand that the selection of a work for the exhibition in a museum collection ultimately depends on many factors - not only on the
extent of his/her artistic value. Thus, the museum director noted that many of the works exhibited had been secretly included in the
collection, given the artists efforts to have their works shown in that museum. Other paintings were exhibited given the large debts
that the museum’s director had to their author: including the paintings in the exhibition would have absolved him from debt. Later on,
both men can be seen playing with some interactive chairs in the museum. The museum director also mentions the visitors’ alleged
expectations – that they would seek pleasure and entertainment everywhere, including art institutions. For this reason, the director
says, we should seriously reflect whether we should need to serve popcorn to the public, given the guests’ or visitors’ legitimate wish
to feel in a museum like in an amusement park. This relaxation could be induced even by new comfortable furniture. In this context,
we find out that the Museum benches were actually made by some relative of the director’s, the same relative who is then asked
to make copies of Philip Guston’s paintings, which were stolen while the guards were having their breakfast. The two men visit the
museum restaurant – which the director is clearly proud of -, where we can hear two potential art thieves speaking in the background
about the inadequate monitoring system from the medieval art department. Later on, the director gets to his relations with various
art students, all members of the local community, who, he believes, should be deeply grateful to him for finding some time for them,
despite his high office position in a prominent cultural institution. At the end of the visit, the director can be seen talking openly on the
phone about the large sums that they have just received from the sale of some artworks. Finally, he takes a brief farewell and disappears
while the abandoned guest - the artist, Hubert Czerepok – seized by anger and frustration, destroys a piece of furniture from the
museum, realizing that, as a young Polish artist, he has basically no chance to ever exhibit his works in a museum.
Only later we understand that the full discussion is actually an ironic mise en scène, a scathing satire on museums as embodiments of
an equally important and influential cultural institution. The Polish artist critically examines the power mechanisms of this institution
- in this case represented by the museum director. The Museum’s deficiencies were certainly exaggerated in order to fully highlight
the existing distortions. Those who watch the video will often laugh, but they will also understand that the discussions it raises are
far from being some funny and nice ones. We note that there isn’t any objective criteria in the virtue of which one could value and appreciate
the works of art, that people put into responsibility positions, such as the museum director, strictly follow their own interests,
their only concern being to earn as much money as possible without jeopardizing their job in any way. They use their position and
influence, either to make cheap acquisitions on the art market, or to support all kinds of relatives or acquaintances with artistic ambitions,
not for fair cooperation with all noteworthy artists. Czerepok’s work unfortunately reveals a generally valid situation in the art
world: money and connections have been and still are the crucial factors for the artist hoping to see his work exhibited in a museum
gallery or wanting to sell one or more pieces to such a cultural institution. In Czerepok’s video, the museum director is presented
as an extremely cynical, thoughtless and unscrupulous person who understands his position as a pure sinecure, worth keeping and
taking advantage of in order to gather a considerable personal fortune. Not only does the Polish artist’s work regard the disclosure of
the power levers in museums or other art institutions, but it also reveals the confusion and lack of accountability in the selection of art
exhibits. Although our helping smile or laugh while watching Czerepok’s work weakens, albeit minimally, the authority representing
the museum’s administration, we are unable to change the overall situation in any way. Cultural institutions will continue to dominate
the art world and to determine the assessment criteria for the artistic area. The “reverse” monitoring of these relations might help us
all better see the system’s failures and breaking the rules. Accordingly, criticism could be more accurately expressed and targeted.
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