Photo from the set "Performer", 2012, photo: Magda Chołyst / Wajda Studio
Maciej Sobieszczański and Łukasz Ronduda have started filming their latest feature film, Performer, about artist Oskar Dawicki.
It started off as an experiment. Art critics Łukasz Ronduda and Łukasz Gorczyca decided to write a novel, W połowie puste / The Half-empty, about Polish performance artist Dawicki. It became the basis for a screenplay, which was short listed by the Andrzej Wajda Film School to be developed into a film.
Oskar Dawicki has long been associated with the Azorro art group. In his work, Dawicki typically employs a strategy of ironic meta-reflection, characteristic also for the practise of the Azorro collective. In his case, however, it's but a starting point for tackling a other issues, especially those related to identity. Among Dawicki's notable works include O (2002), with the artist employing a private detective to follow him, not knowing the identity of his employer. The resulting report said that the subject is a "peaceful individual, professionally and emotionally involved in the artistic movement". In Master's Thesis (2005), Dawicki hired a ghost writer – also unaware of being implicated in an artistic performance - to write a master's thesis about the artist and his works. The anonymous author wrote about Dawicki's O project: "[...] we have to deal here with a reality which, we suddenly realise, is neither entirely fictional, nor entirely real." An aptly summary of the Master's Thesis project.
With Jan Nowicki, Dawicki made an experimental film called Budget Story (2007). The film was short because of its modest 14,000 złoty budget (about 3,500 euro). With a running time under 10 minutes, audiences watch a dark screen, a voice announces that the budget has run out, and the film ends.
Oskar Dawicki defends his controversial style of art. "I consciously choose the language of clowning," the artist told Wysoki Obcasy magazine. "A sense of humour can be a great vehicle for content which is deadly serious. When the laughter ends, comes a time for reflection."
"Contemporary visual arts and cinema are two totally different areas," Łukasz Ronduda told wajdaschool.pl. "This film is dominated by direct communication. First of all, there is a man: A hero who has adventures. There are emotions, a narrative, a story. It is difficult to talk about these things in contemporary art."
Dawicki and Ronduda invited the writer Maciej Sobieszczański to work on Performer, which was created in close cooperation with filmmakers and artists specialising in the visual and performing arts. The producers say that this is a unique opportunity to test several visual-art techniques in a film – which is traditionally a performance medium. "Performer is not, however, a combination of a conventional feature film with an artistic and experimental one, [but] a new, hitherto unknown quality in Polish cinema," the Wajda School said. "The project by Maciej Ronduda and Łukasz Sobieszczański will be the first art exhibition in the world in the form of a feature film: Oskar Dawicki's work on the screen is connected not only by space and time, but also by the narrative, drama and emotion."
The cofounder of the project was Łukasz Gutt, a cameraman as well as a visual artist. Due to his talents, Gutt was a perfect fit for the project.
Maciej Sobieszczański is a screenwriter, playwright and director. He is a lecturer at the Andrzej Wajda Film School, and at the screenwriting department at the State University of Film and Television in Łódź.
Łukasz Ronduda is a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, and the initiator of the Film Museum project. He holds a PhD and regularly lectures on art history, aesthetics and film theory at Polish and foreign universities, including Princeton and Columbia Universities in New York City.
Performer is is the first feature-length drama film produced by the Wajda Studio.