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Kidnapping The Curator
Palimpses Museum, Lodz Biennale, 2004
project: R.Dziadkiewicz, cooperation Zorka Wollny
 A video installation and a process of negotiation were parallel components of the project. Together with Zorka Wollny, Roman Dziadkiewicz planned and executed the kidnapping of curator of the exhibition (Aneta Szylak). They kept her hostage in a hotel room for the length of time it took to shoot a video stating a list of demands among which included an inquiry into the number of Iraqi casualties by Polish forces, and free entry for the unemployed to the Lodz Museum (where the exhibition took place). But the project was especially extremely grotesque reflection on artist career. It sparked critical reflection on the general ambivalence towards artists' economic situations, conditions and aspirations as being dependent on power structures, administration on one hand, and rebellious and non-conformist towards those structures on the other. In this dynamic, rebellion could be seen as a kind of commodity. A reflection on the condition, involvement and impotence of an art institution in this model was also an important aspect of the project. This issue is especially complicated in Poland, where art institutions are under total control by local government. They are financially dependent, as well as regulated and censored by local administration.
The grotesque nature of the project was represented by the parallel/confrontation of the list of demands (i.e. a honorariums, hotel and a travel expenses covered for kidnappers and the questions of Iraq occupation) and detals of the ten-minute long terrorist-like video.
The Lodz Biennale is first and the only international art biennale in Poland.
     
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