Trash Bash Rejectamenta. Chapter 2. The Artist Upside Down

Trash Bash Rejectamenta is a series of performances given by artists from the Sędzia Główny (Chief Judge group) beginning in 2008. The project is run in parallel to other actions designated by the artists as chapters (numbered with Roman numerals) and which belong to the main area of their artistic explorations. The Trash Bash Rejectamenta are numbered with Arabic numerals and constitute a supplement to the above mentioned actions. They are intentionally failed and based on rejected and hopeless ideas.

The Artist Upside Down event took place in the courtyard of the Branicki Palace in Białystok*. Two transparent plastic containers were placed in a delineated area with dogs running around it freely. Men dressed in suits and sunglasses placed the artists, held upside down, in the containers, repeating the action three times. At the very start the viewers were told that what they were about to witness was not a performance but a photo shoot open to the public. By providing the caveat, the whole action was not to be seen as an artistic undertaking. Nevertheless, as one critic wrote, despite the declarations that the whole event would be completely hopeless, “nobody left.”

In Trash Bash Rejectamenta the Chief Judge group takes on the problem of a failed work of art based on banal concepts. By doing so, the artists turn the piece into one which deals with the question of skill and the conditions of a performer’s work, as well as the issue of art institutions and the art market. By revealing their mistakes, the artists are venting the pressure created by choosing performance as a medium for artistic expression, as well as stemming from the choice of subject matter, which requires from them the effort to overcome their own limitations. The photo shoot format, which is associated with show business more than with art, as well as the images of the half-naked artists standing on their heads (maybe doing so for success), can be a reference to the notions of excess and scandal, which can guarantee five minutes of stardom in the world of art. The event is set against a background of the institution and the audience, referencing the problem of valuating artistic endeavours. Taking into account the fact that the artist’s success depends on exhibitions and galleries, can he/she actually afford mistakes? But the action also provokes other questions: why has nobody left? Out of curiosity? Because of the quality of the action? Or perhaps out of a conviction that the event cannot be hopeless if it is organized under the auspices of a gallery?

Izabela Kopania

*  The action took place on 16 May 2008 as part of the exhibition Raise the Curtain – (or) Theatre on Sale. Basia Bańda, Grupa Sędzia Główny, Tomasz Kowalski, curator Wojciech Kozłowski, 16 May – 15 June 2008, Arsenal Galery in Białystok.