The album was recorded during the festival of the same name (organized by the Zachęta Gallery), which took place in June 2013 at Skaryszewski Park in Warsaw.
The event showcased the most prominent sound and music projects formed by visual artists in recent years. The featured performers included those for whom working with sound is an integral element of their practice, those who have impressive compositional, concert and publishing achievements in the fields of contemporary and experimental music on an international scale, as well as those who see musical activity as an entirely separate area of their output.
The visual artists’ inclination to engage with sound projects is also related to the perception of the presence on stage as a form of performance, whereby certain rituals and characteristic gestures become elements of a choreography. Some of the featured projects are somewhat theatrical (incorporating devices such as costumes or impersonations), while others are more minimalistic, musically refined presentations in which the lyrics are an important element treated on par with sound.
Cipedrapskuad (Dominika Olszowy, Maria Toboła, Fryderyk Lisek), Krew Kurew with English lyrics
By engaging in musical activity, the artists try to escape the safe, hermetic art world – their concerts take place at popular bars and festivals, as opposed to the restraining ‘white cubes’ of art galleries, while their recordings are played on the radio and distributed in major music stores. As a result, some of these groups have become successful within the music industry, and cease to be regarded as mere art projects. At the same time, a lot of the artists create projects bordering on a number of media, where visual and sound elements intertwine, and the distinction between the visual, musical, and performative components comes across as artificial, and in some cases, impossible.
The Artists includes tracks by such bands as GÓWNO (Maciej Salamon, Tomek Pawluczuk, Marcin Bober, Adam Witkowski, Piotr Kaliński), KASHANTI (Karol Radziszewski, Ivo Nikić and Piotr Kopik), GALACTICS (Rafał Dominik, Krzysztof Czajka, Michał Grzymała), CIPEDRAPSKUAD (Dominika Olszowy, Maria Toboła, Fryderyk Lisek), BORING DRUG (Igor Kłaczyński, Tomek Kowalski and Łukasz Jastrubczak), RANO (Tomek Saciłowski aka Sac-T and Bobi Peru), and compositions by Piotr Bosacki (performed by Krzysztof Dys), Anna Zaradny, Wojciech Bąkowski, Konrad Smoleński, and Adam Witkowski. One will also find on it a 5-second long piece by NAPALM OF DEATH (Igor Krenz, Macio Moretti, Patryk Dąbrowski, Piotr Zabrodzki).
Sources: Zachęta - Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, ed. AS, 25.03.2014, translated with edits by AM 26.03.2014