SURVIVAL on Crisis?
Anna Kołodziejczyk, Michał Bieniek

SURVIVAL is changing. The eighth edition has, for the first time, a key phrase. The name has been shortened to Art Review instead of Young Art in Extreme Conditions Review. SURVIVAL is still held in spaces and buildings which are about to be renovated. But this year the venue is special: the bunker (air-raid shelter) in pl. Strzegomski, which in two years’ time will house the Wrocław Museum of Modern Art.

SURVIVAL Art Review started almost eight years ago as simply SURVIVAL. A dozen or so artists, mainly students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, wanted to ‘do something together’ in conditions different from the traditional white cube. But the fourth edition, held at the Central Railway Station in Wrocław, revealed the true potential of SURVIVAL – its emphasis on process, interaction with the surroundings and involving the audience. The subsequent editions followed in the same direction.

SURVIVAL is a story of an adventure – with perceiving, understanding and financing modern art in Poland. The first three editions were based on passing the hat around; the fourth one, by courtesy of the Academy, could apply for subsidies to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. From the fifth edition onwards, obtaining funds for SURVIVAL has been handled by the ART TRANSPARENT Foundation of Modern Art. However, the Review has not been organised thanks to institutions but people – it is their adventure, their effort and experiences that form a picture of changes in thinking about contemporary art. It is an experience of the so-called ‘third sector’, but especially of ideas and possibilities of carrying something out from the very beginning, under our own rules and in order to change the status quo.

Architecture and crime

The key phrase of SURVIVAL 8, ‘Architecture as a scene of crime’, was coined while finding a solution to a difficult financial situation of the review and was supposed to be connected with organising an exhibition of ‘impossible’ art, i.e. choosing and exhibiting artistic projects which would remain only in the sphere of thought (on paper) because, in the current situation, it is impossible to complete them. That is how we understood the title crime – as an act of omission and an unwillingness to change the situation. And it was not only about SURVIVAL but culture in Poland as a whole.

Under the term ‘architecture’ was included a reference to the Strzegomski Shelter itself (its complicated, maze-like structure), to SURVIVAL as a whole (the traditional map of the Review and the connection between a work of art which is being ‘exhibited’ and the venue) and to historical transformations of the city, its destruction and rebuilding. Architecture is a witness to crime, and crime is being committed in architecture and on architecture. Moreover, crime has its own structure and logic – its own architecture. What is unattainable, impossible and (un)imaginable may be encapsulated in this logic.

[Shelter] to survive financing culture

SURVIVAL 8 will take place – although after many years of hard work and cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and the Marshal’s Office we did not receive a subsidy. In the first case, the reason was a so-called ‘technical error’ of including the accounting costs (1.5% of the subsidy we applied for) in the Ministry’s subsidy. The Marshal’s Office in turn did not substantiate its decision to reject our application at all (the application underwent formal evaluation positively).

We think that a situation when people who create contemporary culture, who are driven by clear and real need and sensitivity to themselves and their surroundings, are forced to abandon their dreams and plans in the name of imaginary issues determined by unclear ‘criteria’, is unacceptable. Equally unacceptable is a general uncertainty which accompanies creators of art – especially those who operate in the so-called ‘third sector’ – and a lack of concern about their comfort of work.

We owe persevering with the idea of SURVIVAL to the determination of the people who create it: months-long negotiations, searching for funds – and to a general motivation of the team, which stems from our work to date and its effects. Among these effects is a wide interest of the audience – contrary to an opinion promoted by the media and accepted by officials that such artistic undertakings are incomprehensible and hermetic. In all these years, the Review has achieved Poland-wide recognition and an international scope manifested by an interest of artists from all over the world. When it seemed we had to call off SURVIVAL 8 and concentrate on writing applications better fitted to institutional guidelines (or give up work in the sector altogether), months-long efforts bore fruit. The city, due to its running for the title of the European Capital of Culture 2016, decided to subsidise SURVIVAL with more money than normally. We still do not know if we will be able to afford e.g. publishing a catalogue. We have been forced to cut down the number of works of art, the music scene and film screenings. The festival club has been sharply limited. But SURVIVAL has survived (sic!).

Was, is, will be

The audience that participates in the Review is growing in number. With each edition, we observe a change in the audience’s awareness and expectations. Although SURVIVAL is organised in the public space, which is obviously a zone where the private struggles with the common, we are not ‘doomed’ to accidental passers-by. Our audience consists of people who not only want to learn about modern art, but are also willing to develop, experience themselves and meet with others – who are also searching.

For years, SURVIVAL has been supporting the process of creating a modern recipient of art who undergoes a change from a passive participant to an active co-author and co-creator, whose opinions and experience are in turn taken into consideration by artists and curators. The pessimistic view that authentic art which reaches the depths of life is not needed in the times which have generated a cult of effectiveness and work (which is additionally increased by a perspective of huge earnings), is no longer current. SURVIVAL, which repeats its cycle in different venues, always open to new ideas and held in inspiring, full-of-meanings urban spaces, can only accelerate this change.