Sztuka w pociągu relacji Łódź – Koszalin

The term ‘Pitch-In Culture’ first showed up in Łódź, in the middle of 1984, during an artistic-social meeting. The text describes the problems and controversies associated with research on this phenomenon. Problematic issues refer to both the scope and the time frame within which it acted, and the list of the participants. The author states, that maybe with time it grew so much that it started to function independently of its primary source. He pays attention to achievements that apparently existed on the margin of Polish art, but when considered with regard to the perspective of the Pitch-In Culture, they can show the whole phenomenon in a new light. The text describes a few selected events, that took place in Koszalin or were undertaken as initiatives of artists from Koszalin in the eighties. The author points to a few important elements that in his opinion are characteristic of activities within the Pitch-In Culture. He points to the modernist intellectual heritage and the post-modern approach to problems within the art of that period. Following Janusz Zagrodzki, the author of the term ‘Private Art’, the author focuses the functioning of the Pitch-In Culture within the private and unofficial sphere and following Józef Robakowski he focuses on keeping an individual and independent attitude as an element that is essential for making art. The author further states, that in the way Pitch-In Culture or ‘Private Art’ functioned, there are four important elements: the personal relationships and contacts of the participants, the spaces – enclaves that allowed for the organisation of events and confront attitudes, activating and annexing the activities of people from outside of so-called art community, as well as self-publishing. According to the author, probably the greatest manifestation of the Pitch- In Culture and ‘Private Art’ was the Artist Pilgrimage organised in September 1983 in Łódź. As part of the Pilgrimage there were exhibitions, concerts, film screenings, actions, performances and theoretical appearances that were presented on an equal basis and always ended with long discussions. The Christmas call event entitled NO SLOGAN [BEZ HASŁA] organised in Koszalin between the 10th and 12th of February 1984 was an event in return for inviting the artists from Koszalin to the Pilgrimage that happened a year earlier. The organisers were the people who participated in the event in Łódź: Ewa Kowalska, Grażyna Bogusz- Wolska, Andrzej Ciesielski and Stanisław Wolski. They invited 85 artists from the whole country, plus there also came many artists who were not formally invited but associated with the Pitch-In Culture movement. The next initiative by artists from Koszalin was a cyclical event, organised between 1982 and 1988every year in mid-December, AFTER A YEAR organised by Andrzej Ciesielski and Andrzej Słowik. Artists from the whole of Poland presented their current art practice. For the Koszalin community open-air workshops were an important activity, that were in fact connected with the tradition of the Osieki workshops organised since 1963 and ended after the imposition of martial law in 1981. The situation was changed by a series of workshops organised under a name “We invite you to work” between 1987-1989 in Karlino and in 1990 in Darłowo. The initiators and first artistic curators were Andrzej Słowik and Maria Idziak who in 1989 entrusted the function to Wojciech Zamiara and in 1990 to Andrzej Ciesielski. Also important for the functioning of the Koszalin community within the Polandwide circuit was the Presbitery (Na Plebanii) Gallery run by an artist Andrzej Ciesielski and between 1986 and 1990 there were 35 meetings organised in it. As the author states, the Pitch-In Culture was born out of the need for a totally different way of presenting one’s own artistic practice, the exchange of information and joint action. Without friendship, knowing one another, a willingness to work and even without some personal antagonisms, the whole movement would not have had a chance to spread so broadly around the country and accept so many versatile artists as for example as it happened in Koszalin.