It’s getting better and even better

The neon sign It’s getting better and even better, is an element of a multimedia project Zdania napowietrzne [Aerial Sentences], which the artist carried out on the basis of the notes he had been taking since 1990, under the draft title Bigos [Hunter’s Stew]. The recorded ad hoc thoughts and connotations are captured in a form of cohesive poetic statements, whose grammatical construction resembles those of advertising slogans. The artist places them in a new non-literary context – on billboards, neon signs, displays in city buses and other popular advertising platforms. The choice of the presentation surprises the viewer, enforcing a confrontation with an ambiguous message introduced in an unexpected place.

The artist thus attacks the mechanisms of advertising, undermining the role of flashy slogans aimed at perpetuating the already wild consumption. On the other hand, Grzyb is very skilled at taking advantage of what the medium has to offer, its suggestiveness and ability to draw attention. However, whilst a typical ad is able to get the viewer focused for just a moment, the unobvious messages of Aerial Sentences create confusion and force the audience to seek their private meanings. In this aspect, the project resembles the mode of social advertising. The applied lyrical form of the messages makes them more forceful in their expression.

Critics relate the project to Grzyb’s observations about the position of art and the artist in the circumstances of a consumer society. Aerial Sentences evoke a reflection on the visibility of art, which is determined by the market, and the differences between the level of public interest in artistic actions spilling over the city space, and in the presentations of paintings in galleries. This seemingly banal observation draws on the issues of the definition of art and its shifting borders, as well as the circumstances conditioning the status of the artist and his/her place in the communication chaos and the overloaded visual sphere of everyday life. It’s getting better and even better does provoke the above questions, at the same time (perversely) emanating a positive message.

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