Fragments of the original film tapes of Julian Antonisz, © ownership of Danuta, Malwina and Sabina Antoniszczak. Photo: Weronika Łodzińska
The Zachęta Gallery exhibition is the first major presentation to showcase the work of Julian Antoniszczak (1941-1987) - also known as Antonisz - and simultaneously reveals his method's fascinating inner workings. Subtitled For Me Technology Is a Form of Art and curated by Joanna Kordjak, the Antoniszczak exhibit surveys finished works and details the path the artist took in realising his highly imaginative ideas showing diaries, notes, sketches, newspaper clippings and intricate plans for special machines that allowed him carry out his projects. The catalogue of background material spans decades during which Antoniszczak produced films including Phobia (1967), a portrait of a frustrated painter, Sun (1977), a reflection on pulsing rhythms of the sun's rays, and People Wither like Leaves (1978), in which screen images fade and disappear as the world alters as the seasons change. Antonisz made 36 films, and received awards at home and abroad.
Antonisz's works are characterised by the technique called "non-camera films", with which he explored themes of transience, the battle with time, illness and overall human fallibility - themes that give insight into the artist's preoccupations and fears. Fascinated by kinetic toys, optical machines and the variety of effects attained by experimenting with film tape, he strove to uncover cinema's roots and created devices for producing films using non-camera techniques. Many of these findings were published in 1997 in his Artistic Non-Camera Manifesto. In formulating his vision for producing works directly on film tape, he surmised that "Only films made with the Non Camera technique can be called authentic works of visual, painting, graphic and musical art". Among his priorities were the visual effects and authenticity of his practice, and above all its effect on the viewer, and the reduction of time and machinery required.
The exhibition presents an abundance of Antonisz's devices - the inventions that allowed him to work with non-camera techniques. These "pantographs", "animographs" and "sonographs" were portable enough that he could work independent of institutional interference.Such interference proved invasive for other artists prior to 1989, an era when communist authorities sought control of artistic life and creativity in Poland. The exhibition also evokes the singular atmosphere of the artist's studio-laboratory in which, as Antonisz himself stated, technology became a form of art.
After gaining a musical background as a high school student, he graduated from the Painting and Graphic Arts Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He started making independent films that he directed and animated, composing the music and engineering the sound - all using equipment of his own devising. In 1968 he co-founded the Kraków branch of the Studio of Film Miniatures, which became the legendary Animated Film Studio six years later. The themes of his films were full of thoughtful reflection and humour, and their combination of raw animation and dynamic colour helped define their original aesthetic expression.
Sun was the first film fully produced without a camera, with drawings applied directly to film tape using the "pantograf-animograf". The device's motion effects created the impression of pulsating rays of sunshine. At the film's premiere, Antonisz presented his manifesto, in which he encouraged artists and non-artists to to create their own non-camera works and inventions.
Technology for Me Is a Form of Art from Zachęta on Vimeo
Julian Antoniszczak - For Me Technology Is a Form of Art is at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art between the 22nd of January - 17th of March, accompanied by an extensive publication reviewing Antonisz’s work. The show moves in April to the National Museum in Kraków. For more information, see: www.zacheta.art.pl and www.muzeum.krakow.pl
The Zachęta exhibition is supplemented by the show A Few Practical Ways to Prolong One's Life, which presents works inspired by Antonisz's call for a democratic approach - in the distribution and practical application of knowledge, and on technology's artistic and utilitarian potential. Established and young artists including Piotr Bosacki, Bownik, Rube Goldberg, Igor Krenz, Daniel Malone, Jan Mioduszewski and Radek Szlaga take a similar DIY approach in their craft, which gains relevance in today's "grassroots creativity" in a time of crisis.
Featured works include drawing and painting machines that generate images with little or no human intervention, taking over the artist role while returning to the roots of individual creative activity. The show includes objects from the collection of Werner Nekes, and its title is inspired by a film Antonisz made in 1974. A Few Practical Ways to Prolong One's Life is at Zachęta between the 16th of February - 31st of March. For more information, see: www.zacheta.art.pl
The Iluzjon independent cinema in Warsaw hosts a programme of films by Julian Antoniszczak and his contemporaries Jerzy Kucia, Krzysztof Kiwerski, Ryszard Antoniszczak, Aleksander Sroczyński and Kazimierz Urbański, between the 8th - 10th of March. The films have been restored and digitalised by Iluzjon for the cinema's archive of major Polish cinema works. For more information, see: www.iluzjon.fn.org.pl
Author: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: Zachęta National Art Gallery, Iluzjon, National Film Archives, www.antonisz.com