P o czet dziek anó w - Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Gdańsku

P R O J E K T O W A N I E G R A F I C Z N E …
that this Janowski of his was some spiritual son of Orwell’s Bowling. Yet soon this multiple
personality of Janowski turned out to be what it really was, Zabłocki’s confabulations, and
we dropped these insinuations. And when a week after that Janowski himself started to
insinuate that we were like Mexicans – overreacting and even openly hostile – at last we
started to regard him as domesticated. All in all, not everyone felt among us like Trocki
might have felt right before an attempt on his life.
When he finally took it easy and stopped scrutinizing us, we even accepted his Tyrmand-like
jacket and the manners of the provincial landowner.
Although the life of the Graphic Designing student may sometimes look as some kind of
a great and stretched in time catastrophe, whoever once managed to catch with their
eyes the smooth movement of the wings of their imagination, would not even think of
giving up. And so Janowski, together with his students, kept investigating the heart of
the matter, more or less loosely following the practical rules. Not only did he turn out to
be a talented educator but also a discrete confessor for those who were troubled. Always
invariably protective and forbearing. Even his sporadic tries at leading us into the realm
of praxeology did not scare anybody away. When he got himself into trouble, it was only
through his excessive attachment to details. In the theatre, for example, when a woman
entered the stage with a suitcase and began to sing an aria about a soup, Janowski insisted
that there should have been a vase and not a suitcase in her hand, a vase with soup!
Pretending that he was not at all aware of the fact that only then did this scene, together
with his loud protest and the still non-existent vase of soup, acquire at least twofold
grotesque dimension. And he burst out laughing then, together with us, and in the end
no one could be sure as to whose leg had been pulled and in what way exactly.
Sylwester Wieczorek, an equally gentle man, and also magnanimous like the best fortune
teller from the children’s book, also managed one studio for some time. One should have
seen him when he trod carefully through Targ Węglowy, wrapped up with a flock of
pigeons like Saint Francis, and one would be certain that he was a real support for those
who were most lost.
In 1972 Zabłocki invites Marek Freudenreich to co-operate, and the letter soon takes over
the management of the Introduction to Graphic Designing classes. The necessity to
divide the faculty into the certificating courses and the courses of elementary designing
is becoming more and more obvious. And this is why another studio of elementary
designing is being entrusted to me.
So in 1975 the Department comprises four separate studios – two certificating studios lead
by Jerzy Zabłocki and Witold Janowski, and two studios of elementary graphic designing,
lead by Marek Freudenreich and Jerzy Krechowicz. The first stage of the creation of the
Department, i. e. strengthening its foundations and marking its territory, was coming to an
end. Intuition, adopted chance, and even mistakes but, first of all, emotions and intuitions,
combine into a special kind of artistic knowledge. And this is this kind of knowledge that
to warn us, you will not find an easy answer – as there is none. Still, the Toothed Ostrich
kept cruising the Academy of Fine Arts for two years, sometimes as the confirmation of
the dilemma, most often, however, as the “devastating” consolation for the inconvenient
situation.
Earlier hints and pressures, and then a long preparation process finally brought about the
changes in the structure of the Academy. The first Graphic Designing Class was started,
then the next ones followed. The Department of Graphic Designing was founded in
1971.
Although the view that could have been regarded from there was far from being inspiring,
the atmosphere in the studio had something to do with the nobility of the foreground.
And even though this big and wild beast, the real world, was still out there, it could have
been redesigned in less then an hour. In this way, our submissive compromise and furious
radicalism collided with the regularity of matter particles in a well-heated substance. The
persistent arrhythmia between what really happened and what one remembers makes it
possible for our memory to improve the vision of the past. Can the real world around us,
however, be taken for what it seems to be?
Jerzy Zabłocki, the first supervisor of the studio, and later also the Dean of the Graphic
Designing Department, existed in several separate incarnations, with only one being
moderately patient. He was always like over-attending, constantly running to and fro,
constantly occupied with oncoming matters, constantly traveling. Neither did he limit
himself to only one circle of artistic creations, and his searching intelligence and impulsive
character soon won him the respect and the acknowledgement. He was a lively example
of the daring intensity of acting and an obvious proof of the need for passion and
determination.
To have such a boss meant to possess the whole flock of Toothed Ostriches. No wonder,
then, that assisting Zabłocki was probably only a bit less exhausting than being polygamous
might have been.
Whenever he busted into the studio, with this intention to kill every problem that has not
been yet solved painted on his face, everybody preferred to stay put. And only after he
transformed himself into one of his gentler versions, would anyone dare to sigh with
relief or giggle surreptitiously. And Zabłocki, already relaxed, would patiently deal with his
students, until the telephones started to ring, and the embarrassed messengers started
to flock in.
In 1971 Zabłocki invites Witold Janowski to Gdańsk. After a long row of difficulties and
conferences, even before the start of the semester, a new studio of graphic designing
comes to live. That Zabłocki was a deceitful trickster many learn only when they personally
suffered from it, and Janowski was not exempt from this faith, as he was described to
us by Zabłocki as someone who is able to make the quorum just by himself. It sounded
equally tempting as the announcement of the obligatory blackout. We started to believe
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