Identyfikacja | Identification

Antoni Karwowski (1948-) studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Mikołaj Kopernik in Toruń. After his studies he was connected with West Pomerania, especially with Świnoujście, Szczecin and Chociwel. As a performance artist, he has participated in and organised numerous festivals and performance gatherings in Poland and abroad. In 2016. The National Museum in Szczecin organised a comprehensive exhibition of the artist's work. The collection included materials documenting Karwowski's early activities from the early 1980s. These include the photographic documentation of the performance Identification, which Karwowski describes in an author's commentary: "It is 1980, I arrived in Polkowice, where I took up a job as an in-house visual artist at the KGHM Polkowice copper mine. Originally I was supposed to design the visual identity of the mine, but I became part of the propaganda department of the PZPR unit there. I became increasingly involved in making artwork for national and regional holidays, painting slogans and portraits of Lenin, inscribing diplomas and letters of commendation. I lived in a workers' hostel, and every day I suffered acute loneliness and mental alienation. (...) I lacked space for intimacy, individuality, respect for privacy and freedom of choice. I tried to respond to the situation in which I find myself. I returned to projects that help me to "carve out" a space of my own from the reality around me". Identification is a response to a situation of unintentional entrapment in the de-individualised space of late socialism. Karwowski executed it in three successive parts. The central prop of each is an identification plate with the date of birth and initials - AK-130448, which in its format and visual design resembles a car number plate. The first of the actions took place in September 1980 in a car park next to the workers' hostel on ul. Legnicka in Polkowice and lasted 60 minutes. During the performance, the artist stood still, holding the 'number plate' in front of him. Magdalena Lewoc