curated by Sebastian Cichocki with Łukasz Jastrubczak
Knoll Galerie, Vienna
with Robert Barry, Susanne Kriemann, Paweł Kruk, Małgorzata Mazur, Agnieszka Polska
The exhibition revolves around excerpts from “Minus Twelve”, Robert Smithson’s notes on the qualities of minimal art (1968). All the displayed objects – artworks, documents and found objects – are related to the “Mirage” project (2011- ongoing) by the visual artist Łukasz Jastrubczak and the curator Sebastian Cichocki – which initially materialized as the book of the same title. It consisted of correspondence between the authors, in the form of a game or “duel” of images and text. Jastrubczak’s photographs arose during the artist’s journey around the United States, and Cichocki’s textual responses (treated as “curatorial guides and references”) were written in Poland and based, in part, on earlier essays by Smithson and other artists active in the 60s and 70s. In response to photographs sent by email, texts arose that were guides for the taking of subsequent photos, and so on. The authors had only 24 hours to respond.
The book was then reinterpreted in a series of staged lectures, concerts, public readings, and finally the film “Mirage: In Order of Appearance”. The film was shot in the summer of 2014, when the authors decided to go on an American journey in the footsteps of theirs protagonists: the pioneer of green conceptualism John G. Lee, his partner Anna Zaloon and the teenage hitchhiker Mia.
Some elements in the exhibitions are cameo appearances by guest artists (including the legendary conceptual artist, Robert Barry), works interwoven into the somehow cinematic sequence of events.