Name: WOJCIECH GILEWICZ
Title of project and short description
“SCULPTURES” video (2017, work in progress) aims to rethink, in rather a provocative, ironical, but at the same time quite funny way, the role of sculptural representations in the public realm in different places around the globe. While often decorating or aspiring to decorate, they are in fact simply objects in public space funded by local governments showing off, or manifesting their power by shaping popular aesthetics.
Therefore often giving to the general public quite a false perception of what sculpture is, and how it should, or could be interpreted.
My ongoing project is a series of various video-recorded performative actions I perform in a guerrilla way by using sculptures located in various public spaces including Poland, USA, Taiwan, Korea, Russia, France, South Africa. Often before performing with a given sculpture I ask for some advice or expertise of a professional art conservator or other specialists in the field of restoration.
How have you chosen to interpret the theme “SENSE?”
Senses give us great ability to be there in the world, for real. To sense it. As part of the animal kingdom, they are vital for us as humans. Nowadays however, modern world and civilization that so grealtly improved the quality of our lives make us less reliant on them, especially as modern consumers we expect strong emotions and sensory external incentives. A big metropolis like NYC for instance make us “sense” less too, given the overwhelming number of stimuli around us, to the point of physical saturation (imagine yourself in Time Square or in any other busy part of NYC, or in a subway for instance, where we tend to alienate ourselves to stay in our small bubbles). Also, we do not ask ourselves questions about what is around us that much as we used to. We take things for granted, as standardized parts of our lives, including sculptures in public spaces, that we sometimes do not even notice anymore. My video performative project aims at inviting us to give a second look at what is around us; to notice things, to see things, really, and to critically analyze them and the role they play. Are they important, intriguing, responding to the surroundings, having a dialogue there in any way through their scale, form, theme, material, color, etc.? Or they are just another city architecture props put in the public realm, where they are not of so much importance that they could be anywhere. Do they provoke any emotions in us, do they make us interact with them, etc.
Why do you believe 14th Street is a compelling site for creative response?
14th street is a meeting place connecting very diverse NYC areas from the East River to Hudson River. This diversity, and the number of people using it every day, makes this street a great place for such an art project as AiOP, with Union Square as a hub connecting all the dots. I hope my “Sculptures” video project will creatively inspire people to look more around them.
What reactions are you hoping to draw from the public?
I hope that my video piece about the role of sculptures in the public realm will provoke some reflection from the part of viewer on the reality surrounding them, and public sculpture in general.
