* 1973 in Warsaw, Poland
Polish artist collective
Known for: Participatory performances in civic space on the threshold between Political Art, Activism and Experimental Theatre
Akademia Ruchu ("The Academy of Movement" aka "The Theater of Behavior") is an art collective founded in 1973 by Wojciech Krukowski (he ran it until 2014) in Warsaw, where it brings together a group of performers from a wide range of academic and athletic backgrounds – from ballet to martial arts. The group has consistently pursued the "politicization of aesthetics" as a strategy to interact with the general public, and has engaged in insightful reflections on communist and post-communist Poland, finding ways to communicate even when particular forms of speech and action have been censored. Since the 1970s, the collective has organized hundreds of happenings, anonymous interventions in the public sphere, theater performances, and political actions, often involving non-members or bystanders. Described as a theater of gesture and visual narrative, their performances relate to the most basic situations and signals "found" in social spaces. The group currently consists of artist members Janusz Bałdyga, Jolanta Krukowska, Cezary Marczak, Jan Pieniążek, Zbigniew Olkiewicz, Jaroslaw Żwirblis, and Krzysztof Żwirblis.
Exhibited works
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2nd | A | In June 1977, Akademia Ruchu took part in the Łódź Theater Meetings (Łódzkie Spotkania Teatralne) and chose to perform in urban space, outside the official festival program. The sixteen-hour event in the center of Łódź, organized under the common name City Theater, included 19 shows and performances prepared by associates and friends of Akademia Ruchu, as well as by actors from new Warsaw theaters. The performances adopted the form of brief anonymous interventions in urban spaces, such as wiping bus and tram windows (much to the surprise of the passengers), manifestly throwing away newspapers after skimming the front page, or forming artificial queues leading nowhere, in the opposite direction of the real queues to a meat shop. Queue Going Out of the Shop and Queue to Nowhere were formed by individuals with seemingly endless time for waiting – queuing most often outside of butcher shops, but reversing and abstracting the direction of the real waiting lines. |
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Kolejka donikąd (Queue to nowhere). Łódź. 1977 2nd | A | A parallel line was formed next to an existing line near a meat shop in Łódź, Poland. |
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Gazety (Newspapers), 1977 2nd | A | This was a series of actions in which a number of people were queuing to buy the morning paper, with each of them, one after another, demonstratively dumping it into the nearest trash bin after reading the headlines. Performed in Warsaw. |
Links
Film Documentation | Museum of Modern Art Warsaw | Further informations 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Credits
All reproductions © Stowarzyszenie Przyjaciół Akademii Ruchu