Józef Robakowski, a key figure of the 1960s and 1970s neo-avant-garde rebellion, is a master of structural cinema and a pioneer of Polish video art. In his practice he has tested viewers’ perceptual habits, developed ideas about mechanical recordings beyond any aesthetic convention, and criticized methods of visual persuasion in films, highlighting in particular the pompousness of political spectacles. A radical experimentalist and media analyst, Robakowski is known for his unique approach, “his own cinema,” in which autobiography replaces dubious history, and in which the artist proposes his own scenario for perceiving the reality of life under communism.

This publication is an unedited reprint of the catalogue originally published by de Appel in 1980 as a follow-up to the international art manifestation Works and Words. The event sought to break with the one-way traffic of Western artists traveling to the East by inviting artists from Eastern Bloc countries to Amsterdam. The invited artists, theoreticians, film-makers, and art historians represented a broad spectrum of practices, theoretical approaches, and developments. Including artists such as; KwieKulik (Zofia Kulik and Przemysłav Kwiek), Július Koller, Jiří Kovanda, Dóra Maurer, Sanja Iveković and Dalibor Martinis, Mladen Stilinovic, Jozef Robakowski amongst others.

You can find more information on the exhibition here.