PERMAFO
1970-1981

Published by
Wroclaw Contemporary Art Museum/
Motto Books
English
22 x 30 cm
456 pages
Hardcover
ISBN 9788363350093

Price: 148 lei


The exhibition 'Where is PERMAFO?' is the Wrocław Contemporary Museum’s attempt to tell the founders’ myth of the young, open city, through the figures of two artists Natalia LL and Andrzej Lachowicz. A beautiful and deeply in love couple makes a space and atmosphere and creates art anew – a surprising, even impossible combination of conceptual art with pop-art. In the splice of art and joie de vivre, tiny revelations appear that change the confines imposed by The People’s Republic of Poland into absurd usurpation. Soon, people appear in PERMAFO, without divisions into artists, scientists, dilettantes and devotees, discussions till dawn and certainty that all “begun in Wrocław” – modernity, art and life in a fresh context and mutual relation. The PERMAFO artists chose democratic means like photo cameras. One of the main ideas of PERMAFO – permanent registration – was completely transparent towards life. It’s life attitude that was becoming a form. Participation in art, with the preference of participating, not the work itself, caused the work become a trace of real experience and that (an not the aesthetic form) protected against ideology. Is it possible to recreate after years the tameless, free spirit of the 70s, the paradoxical connection of avant-garde and counter-culture?

Permafo Gallery was established by the art group with the same name which consisted of the artists: Natalia LL, Andrzej Lachowicz, Zbigniew Dłubak and the art critic Antoni Dzieduszycki. It conducted its activity during the years 1970 – 1981.The activity of the gallery was interrupted by the introduction of martial law in Poland.