The article discusses artistic experimentation from the art historical perspective with regard to two approaches: radical (avant‑garde) and empirical. Although dissimilar, they both lead to the recognition of experimentation as a practice producing novelty and effecting qualitative change in art. Departing from an empirical definition, the paper examines methodological transformations in art history – the shift from research on styles and formal development to an inductive approach based on case studies. This shift has enabled a more accurate identification and elaboration of artistic experimentation. Revealed is the role of the art historian as a researcher responsible for identifying experiment, determining its scope, degree of novelty and significance for the field of art which leads to the conclusion that the position is arbitrary and involves assigning meaning to experimentation and identifying its consequences.
The article looks into the question of artistic research in Poland, focusing on the difficulty in defining the phenomenon and how this ambiguity affects its functioning within the academic and institutional fields. By examining the tension between the anti‑disciplinary nature of practices combining art and science and the requirements of systems designed to finance, evaluate and classify knowledge, the author intends to determine whether the vagueness of these practices constitutes a drawback or an essential cognitive property. Theoretical considerations are supported by a case study of Miranda Zarzycka, casting light on the relation between methodological awareness and the experimental nature of creative activities. The paper demonstrates that artistic research is a dynamic and processual field in need of new institutional models to foster its development without shrinking it to fit the requirements of traditional disciplines.
The growing popularity of artistic projects that take the form of research prompts reflection on their knowledge‑creating potential and connection to science. Findings obtained through artistic activity often defy verbal description. This is art’s strength as well as limitation as it prevents its full participation in academic debate. Is it possible to include art in scientific discourse? The author seeks to present science and art not as opposing approaches, but as partners whose collaboration may prove essential in meeting the challenges of modernity.
At the heart of this essay is the question of whether experiment/ation in art is a value in itself. In order to answer it, Alan Kaprow’s theoretical thoughts on experiment as a creative imperative are looked into. A discussion of the theoretical suggestions put forward by John Cage, Michael Nyman and Alvin Lucier as to defining experimental music serves as an introduction to the presentation of the musical experiments conducted by Leszek Możdżer – a composer and pianist who has been searching for new means of artistic expression outside the realm of traditional tonality for years. His journey has culminated in the album Beamo, recorded with Lars Danielsson and Zohar Fresco, on which the artist plays three different pianos: A = 440 Hz, A = 432 Hz, and a bespoke piano with decaphonic tuning.
CZĘŚĆ II – EKSPERYMENT JAKO FORMA POZNANIA I KONSTRUKCJI RZECZYWISTOŚCI
By applying the tools of speculative realism the author demonstrates how the works of Irmina Rusicka and Kasper Lecnim generate the experience of a world unmediated by humanist categories. The artists indicate a reality that eludes human minds, one fraught with risk and uncertainty and displaying an irresistible sense of the bizarre. Their speculative artistic strategy can be referred to, to quote Graham Harman, as weird realism, a belief that the reality of things is revealed through their weirdness (aesthetic), or their incompatibility with human categories from which objects can emancipate themselves to achieve real existence.
Contemporary design is going through a major crisis manifesting itself in the former’s entanglement with consumerism, planned obsolescence and ecological devastation. Numerous theoretical proposals – from Papanek to Escobar – strive to reform design practice from within. This paper takes a different approach: instead of performing a direct examination of design practice, it begins by analysing how we relate to the objects it produces. The rationale behind such decision lies in the very nature of design: the existence of a designed object is complete only within a network of usage that updates it. To speak of design, therefore, is to speak of a designing act that acquires meaning solely through practices of use, which in turn implies that it is the analysis of the modalities of relationships with things that opens the most direct access to design. The departure point is the opposition between the collector and the creative user. Both figures are confronted at the level of aesthetic experience – both resist the epistemocratic model of design which imposes the only right relationship with the object, but they do so in different ways. The collector suspends function to restore the presence of things; the creative user multiplies functions through experimentation, discovering the hyper‑utility of objects. Functional experimentation becomes a central category here: it opens up a space of the unforeseen where the epistemocratic model of design closes it.
This article looks at selected works from the exhibition Motion That Comes Back to the Body staged by the Bunkier Sztuki Gallery in Kraków. The curators Marta Lisok and Agnieszka Sachar asked younger artists to reinterpret works from the Bunkier Collection in order to create a bridge between the “old” and the “new,” and update their meanings. The resulting dialogue activates subsequent layers of interpretation: the narrative is woven from the perspective of body memory. I discuss the issues of multisensory turn, new materialism, the practice of weathering (Astrida Neimanis) and the baroque perspective (Rosemarie Garland‑Thomson). I pose the question of what artistic brand means today and where the avant‑garde is situated. I interpret the eponymous basalt as congealing conservative lava, and ash as a matter that fertilises the field and provokes ferment. How is the basalt line to be negotiated and what does the sowing of ash stand for? What conditions does it take for the avant‑garde to germinate today?
CZĘŚĆ III – EKSPERYMENT JAKO FORMA OPORU, RYZYKA I TRANSFORMACJI
This article challenges the persistent and politically motivated claim that queer solidarity is incompatible with Palestinian solidarity. By drawing on studies demonstrating the intersections between queer theory and movements for Palestinian freedom, I demonstrate how struggles against heteronormativity, settler colonialism, and racialized state violence share deeply entangled histories and futures. Far from existing in opposition, these movements often find common cause in their mutual resistance to systems of erasure, dispossession, and control over bodies, identities, and lands. To ground this argument, the article examines a selection of pro‑Palestinian works by queer artists from the late twentieth century to the present. Through these case studies the article shows how visual art can take the role of social activism and cultivate alliances among the marginalized communities. In their aesthetics, contexts, and reception, these works enact a shared commitment to dismantling oppressive structures. I contend that queer resistance has long understood its liberation as inseparable from the liberation of others, from AIDS‑era activism to contemporary transnational justice movements. Since the start of the genocide in Palestine, there has been a growing tendency, mostly among the far‑right social circles, to critique the queer people’s anti‑Zionist activism. At the same time, queer persons have been among the most outspoken allies of Palestinians. This article shows that this alliance dates back to the twentieth century and has found its expression in visual arts on numeral occasions.
The article examines selected practices of visual culture in the southern West Bank as forms of political activity under occupation. Points of reference are provided by the film No Other Land and the actions taken by Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem. These initiatives are interpreted as interventions in the order of visibility (similar to Jacques Rancière’s “distribution of the sensible”) determining which experiences and images can appear in the public sphere. Artistic practices – embracing film, archives, sound works and projects related to land and landscape – are presented as forms of experimentation that change how conflict is perceived and maintain communal forms of knowledge, memory and resistance.
The article examines contemporary feminist art as actualisation of selected categories from Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, including the Dionysian, the revaluation of all values and the superman. The starting point is the thesis of the special role art assumes in metaphysical crisis and the weakening of traditional meaning structures when artistic practices perform functions previously attributed to religion and philosophy. In this approach, art does not fulfil a solely representative function but becomes a space for knowledge production, transformation of subjectivity and redefinition of social order. The article juxtaposes the Nietzschean concept of creative becoming with feminist theories of subjectivity, particularly Rosi Braidotti’s concept of the nomadic subject, revealing the tension between individual self-overcoming and a relational understanding of the subject. Scrutinised are selected artistic practices in which the body, affect and performativity act as tools of cultural critique and transformation. Feminist art is framed here as an area in which to actualise Nietzsche’s project of affirming life and creating new values that go beyond existing normative structures.
This article examines the experimental, transnational, and still largely understudied trajectory of Leopoldo Haar, a Jewish artist born in Poland whose career unfolded between prewar Kraków, the cultural and military context of the Polish 2nd Corps during WWII, and postwar Brazil. Active as a musician, designer, photographer, war artist, typographer, and teacher, Haar experienced imprisonment, exile, and geographic displacements that shaped the reinvention of his artistic practice. The paper analyses his contribution to modern art and design, addressing his participation in the early development of design education in Sao Paulo, his work within the Italian community, and his influence on the Rupture group through the introduction of constructivist ideas and the integration of art, technique, and functionalism. The article also offers a critical assessment of his activity, roles, and oeuvre, and examines the significance of his creative output to twentieth‑century transnational art history and the history of design. Drawing on scarce archival materials in Poland and Brazil, the study reconstructs the legacy of a figure nearly forgotten, revealing how his work connects European modernisms, the visual culture of war, and cultural modernisation in postwar Brazil, thus expanding our understanding of artistic circulation in the twentieth century. The paper’s main contribution lies in restoring Leopoldo Haar’s agency within the narratives of twentieth‑century art and design. By tracing his passage from prewar Poland to postwar Brazil, it demonstrates that his personal and professional journey was instrumental in shaping the discourse on concrete art and in laying the groundwork for modern design practice in his adopted country.
