Binary City Reference Image

The Binary City canvas painting is a never-ending project registered in consecutive parts and presented on photos that accompany the painting, demonstrating the changing places where the work is exhibited. The principle behind each successive presentation of the Binary City is that in every single case the painting is painted over, which is performed by the curator according to the instructions given by the artist, and the hanging of photographs in a chronological order, from the oldest one to the newest one. At present, the canvas is a grey monochrome, and the last picture in the collection comes from the exhibition titled Filling in the Empty Spaces, which took place at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń. The curator, Piotr Lisowski, dedicated the exhibition to the outstanding art critic Jerzy Ludwinski, who spent the last years of his life in Toruń. The date of the project’s completion has been expressed as “2003”, which makes it unfinished and open, thus suggesting that the painting could be painted over once more, referring to an agreement made with the author, which was signed on the occasion of the mentioned exhibition. [A. Markowska]

The Binary City canvas painting is a never-ending project registered in consecutive parts and presented on photos that accompany the painting, demonstrating the changing places where the work is exhibited. The principle behind each successive presentation of the Binary City is that in every single case the painting is painted over, which is performed by the curator according to the instructions given by the artist, and the hanging of photographs in a chronological order, from the oldest one to the newest one. At present, the canvas is a grey monochrome, and the last picture in the collection comes from the exhibition titled Filling in the Empty Spaces, which took place at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń. The curator, Piotr Lisowski, dedicated the exhibition to the outstanding art critic Jerzy Ludwinski, who spent the last years of his life in Toruń. The date of the project’s completion has been expressed as “2003 (–...)”, which makes it unfinished and open, thus suggesting that the painting could be painted over once more, referring to an agreement made with the author, which was signed on the occasion of the mentioned exhibition. In the agreement, Gilewicz stated that “each time the work is exhibited and in the case it is rented, or presented publicly in any other way, the oil painting must be painted over, so as to make it correspond to the colour of the surroundings in which it is going to be exhibited. Should the work be exhibited at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń, it shall be painted over by an employee of the Centre, or any other person, appointed by the Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń. Should the work be rented to a third party, the curator of the exhibition or any other person responsible for exhibiting the work in the place of rental, shall appoint a person responsible for painting over the work. The materials used to paint over the painting shall exclusively be oil paints for artistic purposes (such as: Rembrandt Extra Fine Artists’ Oil Colour, Van Gogh Super Fine Oil Colour, or Daler Rowney Georgian Oil Colour). The binding material shall be composed of turpentine oil and linseed oil, in a 1:1 ratio.”
The aforementioned agreement – including the sequence of photos demonstrating each stage of the project – was an equivalent element of the work at the exhibition dedicated to Jerzy Ludwiński.
The artist started the Binary City project in 2003, in Warsaw, where he exhibited his paintings in the public space of the capital city, making them resemble various fragments of architecture in the city, so as to make them blend in with the surroundings and virtually invisible. After some time, the paintings included in the exhibition arranged in the mentioned manner were collected and exhibited again, three years later, in Łódź. While on exhibition in Łódź, the artist carried out some minor interventions in the paintings, so as to make them blend in with the new landscape. Thus, the process of painting over the work required its adjustment to new conditions and context. Thereby, the canvas became a recorder of the unique colour scheme of both Warsaw and Łódź, representing the title “binary city”. For that reason, the transplantation of the canvas by Grzegorz Borkowski saw “a ritual blending of two cities” and “identification of the paradoxical potential of painting.” Although it was initially related to the BINARY CITY: Łódź–Warsaw. Utopia and Reality (curators: Krystyna Potocka-Suwalska and Grzegorz Borkowski), the canvas acquired for the collection in Toruń did not complete the cycle of its changes, once the project had been finalised. On the contrary, the work is constantly open to a new session of painting over, unfinished, without any deliberate masterly finale, having a permanent status of in statu nascendi (in the nascent state).
In his previous project – The Aporia of Painting (2006–2007) – Gilewicz applied the “truffle pig” method, using the term coined by Hans-Ulrich Obrist for quite a different occasion, and made the audience look for his pictures scattered around the city. They became an inherent part of the architectural space in Wrocław, according to the principle of mimesis. They mimicked landings, window sills, doors, and other details of buildings, so perfectly that they became virtually indistinguishable. The artist undertook a similar course of action in Paris, where he used painted stretcher bars to cover paving slabs, fragments of walls, or basement windows. In that context, mimesis and unification tendencies related to globalisation mixed with the ideas of traditional trompe l'oeil, and reached a point of peculiar helplessness (aporia), in which one is at a loss as to whether the artist meant to mock painting or demonstrate its triumph.
In truth, ambivalence seems to be the most favourite state of mind the artist designed for his audiences. For that is exactly the relation the artist has with the work of his master Leon Tarasiewicz (whose work is part of this collection). This is yet another case where rapture turns into an analysis of the means of artistic expression, while systematic research turns into irony streaked with an undertone of doubt as to the role of painting, after the period of conceptual art. [A. Markowska]