Cancelling Rafał Jakubowicz's exhibition in “Wejście” Gallery, Centre for Contemporary Art Zamek Ujazdowski

Wojciech Krukowski, Director of the CCA Zamek Ujazdowski, cancelled the exhibition “Miejsce” (Place) by Rafał Jakubowicz, which was due 9 April 2009. The main component of the exposition is a huge wooden box with the artist's name and surname, referring to the Archive boxes at the Foksal Gallery (Fot. 1.). According to Jakubowicz a gigantic copy of the box used as an exhibition space is an example of a dialogue based on references and interpretations, which frequently takes place in art. However, the Foksal Gallery considers this project plagiarism. Indeks 73 presents the full documentation of the case, including the accounts from Rafał Jakubowicz, the artist; Ewa Mikina, the exhibition curator and Wojciech Krukowski.


Rafał Jakubowicz's account (summary)
The course of events:
In February 2008 I presented a project of a new exhibition to the then Director of the Foksal Gallery, Jaromir Jedliński (I had already had two exhibitions there: “Forma” 2004 and „Mittel Weiß” 2005), which he rejected in a quite crude letter. A few months later Ewa Mikina proposed the rejected exhibition to Wojciech Krukowski, Director of the CCA Zamek Ujazdowski.

The project is based on an idea to enlarge the box I have got in the Foksal Gallery Archives to the size of a gallery (the hight from the floor to the ceiling is 3.25 meters), which also might be entered like a gallery. The event was to be accompanied by posters and folders similar to the 'Foksal' ones, yet inviting to the exhibition at Zamek Ujazdowski, and to a discussion panel by the end of the exhibition. The project was accepted by Wojciech Krukowski and the opening was planned in “Wejście” Gallery at the CCA on 9 April 2009.

On 1 April on my way to Warsaw to put up the exhibition I learnt Wojciech Krukowski had decided to call of the event.

At the meeting with Ewa Mikina and me, Wojciech Krukowski presented a letter from Wiesław Borowski, the former Director of the Foksal Gallery, which had influenced his decision. In this letter Borowski, without even mentioning my name, states that each attempt to use any ideological or physical component of the Foksal Gallery Archives in any public artistic presentation is piracy.

I enclose emails and letters concerning the case (eg. between Katarzyna Krysiak, the current Director of the Foksal Gallery, and me), a few photos of the box, the designs of the folders and posters inspired by the Foksal prints and prepared by Katarzyna Krysiak.

Statement:
I would like to express my great astonishment and embitterment concerning this situation, which may be described as preventional censorship. It seems to me quite improbable that a retired director of the Foksal Gallery, Wiesław Borowski, is able to influence decisions of the current Director of Zamek Ujazdowski, Wojciech Krukowski, and to make him cancel the exhibition on the day of its installement. I don't understand why Borowski came out against an artist, and what is more, the artist connected with the Foksal Gallery since 2004.

The accusations concerning copyrights are out of the question, as my installation is not a case of PLAGIARISM, but INTERPRETATION (quite common in contemporary art), which I had clearly explained in my letter to the current Director of the Foksal Gallery, Katarzyna Krysiak.

The aim of my exhibition wasn't to “attack” the Foksal Gallery, the evidence being the fact I had offered to present the project at the Foksal Gallery in the first place. My two previous projects „Form” and „Mittel Weiß" (exhibited at the Foksal at the time Wiesław Borowski was the director) attempted, in fact, to revise the tradition cultivated at the Gallery, yet there were no reservations whatsoever concerning this fact, or the fact the medicine boxes and the wall paper used in the projects had their authors.

I use my archive box, with my name on it. It is my play with my own history included in the history of the Gallery. The exhibition was supposed to ask questions about the concept of the archive and revise the gallery/archive tradition of modernism.

The Foksal Gallery should be a place of dialogue and free discussion, especially, it's not a commercial, but a public institution. Meanwhile Wiesław Borowski monopolises its history. Consistently, one should ask Richard Prince if he had obtained permission from Malboro, Jeff Koons about the permission from the vacuum cleaners producer, and Andy Warhol about the permission from the Campbell's soup producer. The issue of piracy was used in this case as a tool of preventional censorship. Instead of cancelling the exhibition, Wojciech Krukowski should have passed on Borowski's letter to the artist and the curator to let them (us) refute the arguments.

I believe I will be able to carry out this project in another institution.

Rafał Jakubowicz

The curator, Ewa Mikina's account – 5 April 2009(summary)
“(...) I'm not going to behave like a victim under pressure. I just want to point out that the basic rules, such as freedom of artistic expression and cultural recycling, have been violated. The most important battle concerning culture is about copyrights. On one hand, we, the society, are convinced culture is a common good. If we start to build fences with appropriation regulations, if we agree on privatisation of culture, the dialogue will cease to exist. How far can can privatisation of culture go?”

Then Ewa Mikina describes Wiesław Borkowski as a private person with no administrative power or legal arguments, who excercises private preventional censorship, quite successfully, as one may judge on the basis of Wojciech Krukowski's nervous reaction. Krukowski suggested negotiations with Wiesław Borowski, however Mikina and Jakubowicz claim they can't see the point of such negotiations, especially in their opinion the incident breaks all democratic rules.

Indeks 73 Initiative commentary:
From the perspective of one-year activity of Indeks 73, the initiative supporting expansion of freedom in art, Wojciech Krukowski's decision cancelling the exhibition seems unbelievable, as it hampers the discussion on important issues of contemporary art in Poland.

Cancelling the exhibition “Miejsce” is an infringement of Article 73 of the Polish Constitution, which guarantees freedom of artistic expression and free access to cultural goods. Article 73 guarantees an inalienable right to reinterpret works of art, myths and symbols and to present own opinions, visions and rights.


The Director of Centre for Contemporary Art Zamek Ujazdowski, Wojciech Krukowski's letter – 6 April 2009 (summary)
In his letter concerning the project “Miejsce” at Wejście Gallery in Zamek Ujazdowski, Wojciech Krukowski states that as an artist he will always choose the author's right. Therefore, he says, at the first meeting he asked Rafał Jakubowicz the question about the Foksal Gallery's rights and permission to use the image of its “relics”. He claims Jakubowicz said he obtained the permission, and then Wiesław Borowski and Krzysztof Wodiczko claimed something contrary. And this has influenced his decision cancelling the project. For Krukowski the Foksal Gallery and its copyrighted goods are landmarks situating Poland on the artistic map of the world and the authors of those goods have a moral right to protect them.

The Foksal “relics” - commentary by Rafal Jakubowicz and Ewa Mikina in response to Krukowski's letter (summary)
Jakubowicz and Mikina point out that in Jaromir Jedliński's letter rejecting the project at the Foksal Gallery there wasn't even a question of Borowski and Wodiczko's copyrights concerning the exhibition. They also claim Krukowski's account manipulates the facts: he never in fact asked about Borowski and Wodiczko's permission to use the Foksal Archive's box, which was standing on his very desk during their initial talks and arrangements. Jakubowicz and Mikina told Krukowski about a critical aspect of the project and the fact the exhibition (created initially to be presented at the Foksal Gallery) had been rejected by Jedliński – this was a starting point of all the arrangements. If Krukowski had made a condition the artist needed Wodiczko and Borowski's permission at the very beginning, Jakubowicz would have had to obtain such permission before carrying out the project. Yet, the project “Miejsce” was accepted, despite cuts in the CCA's budget.

Jakubowicz and Mikina point out that talking about Foksal Gallery's opinion Krukowski didn't specify if he meant Borowski and Wodiczka, or Turowski and Jedliński, or logically thinking, Katarzyna Krysiak and Lech Stangret who are currently in charge of the Foksal Gallery including the Gallery's Archive. It is surprising the director Krukowski doesn't refer to legal rights of the Gallery but to Borowski's moral rights.

Also the concept of the “relics” employed by Krukowski to describe boxes from the Foksal Live Archive (where 'live' and 'relic' are surprisingly juxtaposed) didn't appear during initial arrangements but only now, which may explain Krukowski's motivation and this surprising case of preventional censorship. If the Foksal Gallery should be treated as a sanctuary of Polish art, the artis's transgression goes apparently too far. Yet, if the wooden boxes are 'relics', what is the role of the artists of the Foksal Gallery? What does the name “Rafal Jakubowicz” on the box mean? Is it an ornament? A component of the “reliquary”? Who has a right to use the Foksal “relics”?

Jakubowicz and Mikina give an example of the exhibition “Autor” (Author) by Konrad Pustoła launched at Okna Gallery in 2006, in which the author presented his interpretation of the iconic picture “Panoramiczny happening morski” (Panoramic Sea Happening) by Tadeusz Kantor stored in the Foksal Archives. Why can some archive materials be used and transformed, and others not?

There is a question of Milada Ślizińska (Foksal curator) and her indirect attempts to sabotage the project “Miejsce”, instead of taking part in the open debate after the exhibition opening.
Additionally, it seems Krukowski himself had asked Borowski to give an opinion on the project and later cancelled the event on the basis of this opinion.

Who would suffer damage if the exhibition “Miejsce” had taken place? Borowski? Wodiczko? Ślizińska? And maybe the idea itself of the box-'relic' of the Live Archives? What artistic or legal repercussions Krukowski is talking about would the exhibition induce? - after all a dialogue in art indicates that former values are still alive.

A would-be exhibition has revealed interesting and surprising mechanisms and tensions. Things which were supposed to be open and live, are closed and dead. And maybe this is the way the project is meant to be accomplished?

Rafał Jakubowicz, Ewa Mikina


Did Jakubowicz violate the copyrights?
Commentary on complex relationships between an artist and a cultural institution, such as the Foksal Gallery by Jarosław Lipszyc
At the time of the informative society effective censorship, which is getting rid of the information from the public circulation, is impossible. According to John Gillmore, in the network – the invisible mechanism of the informative society, censorship is diagnosed as an error of the system and repaired through maximum dissemination of the blocked information. The name of the rule “Streisand's effect” comes from an incident that happened a few years ago. Barbara Streisand discovered an air photograph of her house among many other photos on the scientific website presenting examples of shore line erosion. Streisand demanded to remove the picture, which resulted in huge media coverage. The picture, which was supposed to be hidden among thousands of other pictures on the website visited by a limited number of scientists, became generally popular and recognised.

A similar thing is going to happen with the exhibition by Rafał Jakubowicz at the Centre for Contemporary Art Zamek Ujazdowski, which would be visited only by a few hundred spectators at most. The subject of the exhibition – relationships between an artist and a cultural institution, such as the Foksal Gallery – is not very attractive to the general public. The Foksal Gallery puts the artists' works into distinctive boxes and stores them in the Archives. Jakubowicz wanted to reconstruct his box in a bigger scale and make it possible for the audience to enter the box and see his works closed there. Yet, the exhibition is not going to happen. Wojciech Krukowski, the CCA Director, cancelled it at the last minute at the request of the former Foksal Gallery director, who probably felt concerned his life work would be critically analysed.

The informative society diagnoses censorship as an error of the system and immediately copies the blocked information. The moment I'm writing these words the information about the exhibition is available on a few websites, together with the whole docummentation and correspondence between contending parties. The exhibition is being discussed the way it wouldn't have been if Jakubowicz had been allowed to build his wooden box. All the critical questions concerning the Foksal Gallery sound much louder and clearer. A success?

Not really: although we discuss the exhibition, it doesn't exist, an official reason being an infringement of the copyrights of the Foksal Gallery boxes (...) The infringement of the copyrights is a very convenient excuse, as it doesn't need any explanations. After ten years of the phonographic consortia's propaganda regarding all violations of the copyrights “piracy” one doesn't need to give any evidence or prove the law has been, in fact, violated. Labelling something “piracy” is like stigmatizing, and artists don't know the law well enough to ask questions. The copyright law is nowadays the most effective way to block artistic projects with no need for further justifications and discussions.

It seems in this particular case Jakubowicz did not violate and wasn't going to violate the copyrights. The law allows creative recycling of the work as a legal artistic practice, otherwise there would be no parody, pastiche or collage in art. The demands to cancel the exhibition should have been, after legal consultations, discarded. And if they hadn't been discarded, the artists should have obtained a legal analysis instead of vague arguments. This did not happen. However, the artists objected to being called pirates and decided to fight in defence of their work. And this battle should tell us more about complex relationships between an artist and a cultural institution such as the Foksal Gallery than any gigantic woden box, which hadn't been created.

Jarosław Lipszyc

Read more:
LEGAL OPINION concerning admissibility of Rafał Jakubowicz's work “Miejsce” (Place) at Wejście Gallery at the Centre for Contemporary Art Zamek Ujazdowski according to the regulations of the copyright act from 4 February 1994. Anna Demenko

Polish version

Translated by Małgorzata Głombiowska