Artistic Valorisation
1st stage
leaflets with information about the action (date, time – the main hall of the Central Railway Station in Wrocław) distributed in the venue (Railway Station), in the city (Market Square), by taxi drivers, sent via the Internet;
2nd stage
on a given day at a given time (opening of the 4th edition of SURVIVAL, 12.05.2006, 6.30 p.m.) an announcement is issued through the public address system…
“Attention! A very important message for all those gathered in the main hall of the railway station! Thank you very much for coming in such large numbers and devoting your time to us. Art exists because the art world exists, with qualifying institutions whose owners determine what is to be a work of art and what is not. It is people determine it, not the material criteria of a given object. At a time when anything can acquire artistic value, non-essential and non-substantive values are decisive. Among them is the effect of prestige, i.e. the permanent assignment of a given characteristic (label) to a given social entity. Qualifying institutions decide that someone who has once acquired the status of an artist shall remain an artist for the rest of his life, and his products shall be called works of art. But for an object to achieve the status of a work of art, it must undergo artistic valorisation. The qualifying institution must agree to grant a given object the status of “pretender to dissemination.” (…) These institutions are represented by the owners of galleries, auction houses, representatives of the mass media, etc. The status of “pretender to dissemination” is granted by these representatives to a given object. It results in the presentation of the object in a specific cultural context (in a museum, gallery, on television, as press publication, etc.) in order to disseminate it. The dissemination of the object is achieved as a result of being perceived by the audience. For the process of artistic valorisation to take place, you need an audience with a certain level of cultural competence. (…) Dissemination takes place when the audience come to the gallery. And so a work of art is created. The question arises: Is it the artist himself who creates art? Is it not the audience, since its presence grants the status of a work of art?
Example: Right now you have participated in the process of obtaining the artistic status and granting the status of a work of art. And according to the assumptions of this project, by coming here to the train station at a certain time, you have in a way turned yourselves from an audience into a work of art.”
Congratulations, Judyta Bernaś