My previous publications on NET include Klara Kemp-Welch, “Autonomy, Solidarity and the Antipolitics of NET,” in SIEC—Sztuka dialogu/NET—Art of Dialogue, ed. Bożena Czubak (Warsaw: Fundacja Pro l, 2013).
“‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation with Klara Kemp-Welch,” ArtMargins 1, no. 2–3 (2012).
“‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation with Klara Kemp-Welch.”
Possibly a misspelling of the painter Zlatni Bojadijev.
“‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation.”
Jarosław Kozłowski, “Art between the Red and the Olden Frames,” in Curating with Light Luggage, eds. Liam Gillick and Maria Lind (Revolver Books, 2005), 44.
“‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation."
“‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation.”
One of the earliest events to strategically incorporate the post office into an experimental project in Poland had been Tadeusz Kantor’s happening The Letter of 1967 in Warsaw, discussed extensively in my Antipolitics in Central European Art.
“‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation.”
Jiří Kocman, letter to Jarosław Kozłowski, June 17, 1972.
“‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation.”
“‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation.”
Jarosław Kozłowski, “Exercises and Paradoxes: An Interview with Jarosław Kozłowski by Bożena Czubak,” in Jarosław Kozłowski, Doznania Rzeczywistości i praktyki konceptualne 1965–1980 / Sensation of Reality and Conceptual Practices 1965–1980, exh. cat. (Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Znaki Czasu and MOCAK, 2015), 103.
Lucy Lippard, “Escape Attempts,” in Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, ed. Lippard (1973; rpt., University of California Press, 1997), vii.
Dick Higgins, “Statement on Intermedia” (1966), in dé-coll/age 6 (Typos Verlag and Something Else Press, July 1967).
Barry McCallion, email communication with the author, August 2017.
Jarosław Kozłowski and Andrzej Kostołowski, letter to Géza Perneczky, Poznań, March 29, 1972, reproduced in Géza Perneczky, “A KÖLN—BUDAPEST KONCEPT Bizalmas levéltári anyag az 1971-1972-1973-as esztendők magyarországi és nemzetközi Koncept Art mozgalmának a tudományos kutatásához,” unpublished manuscript, 2013, 141.
When the material was returned, Kozłowski also received the prints made from the confiscated roll of film, so that the secret police themselves ended up playing a part in the production of the documentation of the event they had interrupted. “‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation.” See also Luiza Nader, “Heterotopy: The NET and Galeria Akumulatory 2,” in Petra Stegmann, Fluxus East: Fluxus-Netzwerke in Mittelosteuropa, exh. cat. (Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2007), 111–25.
“‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation.”
J. Kozłowski and J. Kasprzycki, “Alternatywna Rzeczywistość, Akumulatory 2,” Arteon no. 4 (2000), 49.
Kozłowski, “Exercises and Paradoxes,” 99.
Kozłowski, “Exercises and Paradoxes,” 99.
Kozłowski, “Exercises and Paradoxes,” 99.
For an overview of the Press see Donna Conwell, “Beau Geste Press,” Getty Research Journal no. 2 (2010), 183–92.
Donna Conwell, “Beau Geste Press,” 183.
David Mayor, letter to Jarosław Kozłowski, October 14, 1972, Kozłowski archive.
“‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation."
Art & Project was the subject of a MoMA exhibition in 2009 entitled “In & Out of Amsterdam: Art & Project Bulletin 1968–1989.”
Luiza Nader, Konceptualizm w PRL (Fundacja Galerii Foksal, 2009), 146–47.
Jarosław Kozłowski, “Program działalności Galerii Akumulatory 2 przy RO ZSP UAM w Poznaniu w roku 1972/1973,” dated October 10, 1972, cited in Patryk Wasiak, “Kon- takty kulturalne pomiędzy Polską a Węgrami, Czechosłowacją i NRD w latach 1970–1989 na przykładzie artystów plastyków” (PhD thesis, Instytut Kultury i Komunikowania, Szkoła Wyższa Psychologii Społecznej, Warsaw, 2009), 253.
Wasiak, “Kontakty kulturalne,” 261.
Kozłowski compares this situation with that in the West and finds that it was favorable: “Everything was more transparent in the East. But the perversity of ownership, and the standard concept of freedom that the West attached to the function of art, camouflaged very clever and insidious forms of pressure and control.” “‘NET,’ Jarosław Kozłowski in Conversation.”
Kozłowski cited in Wasiak, “Kontakty kulturalne,” 253.
Štembera cited in Wasiak, “Kontakty kulturalne,” 261.
An early example is Štembera’s participation in an exhibition with the laconic title “Encore une occasion d’être artiste” organized by Želimir Koščević at the Students’ Cultural Centre in Zagreb. See Novine Galerije SC (December 7–17, 1973).
Marika Zamojska, “Czechosłowacka awangarda w polskim życiu artystycznym lat 70,” Fort Sztuki no. 4 (2/2006) →.
Štembera distributed invitations to his Akumulatory 2 opening internationally, sending one to Jean-Marc Poinsot, among others.
Jiří Valoch, “Incomplete Remarks Regarding Czechoslovakian Mail Art,” in Mail Art: Ost Europa in Internationalen Netzwerk, ed. Kornelia Röder (Schwerin: Staatliches Museum, 1996), 61.
She also writes that as “weather is not subject to political decisions … it represents … the abstract notion of freedom.” Arguably, of course, we now know that weather is subject to political decisions, insofar as political decisions are central to halting the advance of climate change. Maja Fowkes, The Green Bloc: Neo-avant-garde Art and Ecology under Socialism (Central European University Press, 2015), 19. On a less environmentally minded note, the project inevitably also calls to mind Holly Go Lightly’s defense in Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (released as a film in 1961) upon her arrest for visiting a notorious criminal involved in cocaine tracking while he was in prison (who would give her messages such as “Snow flurries expected this weekend over New Orleans” to pass on to his “agent”): “All I used to do would be to meet him and give him the weather report.” Štembera was doing the same, just passing on his weather reports, for his own reasons.
He was also committed to helping disseminate Western literature in Czechoslovakia in samizdat and translated key texts such as Fiore and McLuhan’s The Medium Is the Massage (1967) and, later, writings by performance artists such as Acconci (for Jazz Petit, edited by Karel Srp), presumably with the help of his wife, who studied languages (Štembera had studied social sciences).
Petr Štembera, “Events, Happenings, and Land-Art in Czechoslovakia: A Short Information,” Revista de Arte, Universidad de Puerto Rico, no. 7 (December 1970).
Petr Štembera, “Events, Happenings, and Land-Art in Czechoslovakia: A Short Information,” reproduced in Tom Marioni, Vision, no. 2 (1976), 42.
This text is an excerpt from Networking the Bloc: Experimental Art in Eastern Europe 1965–1981 by Klara Kemp-Welch, published in February 2019 by MIT Press.