Partum A.
It is poetry from which Andrzej Partum’s works have sprung forth. Between the early 1960s and the 1970s, he self-published five books that present him on a trajectory from verbal to concrete poetry. With Partum having begun to gravitate toward neo-avantgarde and conceptual artistic circles during the late ’60s, 1971 saw him found a private institution: Poetry Office (Biuro poezji), located in Warsaw at 38 Poznańska Street, which soon became an important node of the international mail art exchange network. The lion’s share of its space came to be occupied by a growing archive of correspondence.
The office presented itself as a conceptual parody of bureaucratic officialdom and was used by the artist to issue his statements. These were circulated through the mail or printed as posters. Poetry Office also served as an exhibition space, and Partum’s anti-institutional attitude extended to his own performing and exhibiting practice. During the “Kinolaboratorium” festival of new art in Elbląg, he organized an action entitled “Film Does Not Need a Screen” (“Film nie potrzebuje ekranu”, 1973) in which he manipulated a mirror close to the projector in order to reflect the film into different parts of the room. In 1977, at the Repassage gallery in Warsaw, he presented a work entitled “Stench” (“Smród”). It consisted in a large object made of sulfur that was placed on a table. It produced a very strong smell, which drove the visitors away. In the 1980s, Partum became an important point of reference for the new generation of artists associated with Pitch-In Culture (Kultura Zrzuty), representatives of which belonged to the underground collective that edited the art-zine “Tango.” 1984 saw the artist move to Denmark, where he founded two new institutions: the Szkoła Pozytywnego Nihilizmu Sztuki (School of Positive Nihilism) and the Światowe Hospicjum Sztuki (World Art Hospice). Poverty forced him to paint with anything on anything, and stolen car paints became his basic medium. He had most likely become familiar with this technique through Alfred Lenica, who had experimented with this material. He also painted with varnish on canvases or boards as well as on various objects that he often adapted with his own hands for painting purposes. These works were a logical extension of his poetry and likewise utilized words and abstract forms. D.M.
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