{"id":10629,"date":"2013-10-08T12:08:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T10:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=10629"},"modified":"2013-10-08T12:08:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T10:08:00","slug":"wojciech-kosma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/","title":{"rendered":"Wojciech Kosma"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" Wojciech Kosma, far right, with The Family. Photo \u00a9 Maxime Ballesteros for Sleek<\/p>\n

Art as a feeling, de-performed through loving and fighting.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What comes out when anything goes? You might wonder after seeing a performance (usually at\u00a0Berlin\u2019s LEAP Gallery) by the Polish artist Wojciech Kosma. One Saturday evening not so long ago, he and the Londoner Dwayne Browne spent a couple of hours pseudo-fighting, hugging, willy -waving and narrating anecdotes, opinions and arguments to each other in a performance\u00a0entitled \u201cAn Example\u201d (its e-flyer showed a picture of two fighting cocks). What was it, this intangible thing of seemingly unrehearsed, often homoerotic interpersonal play fighting that flips between brutality and sentimentality, the intimate and the aggressive, between sex, violence and friendship,\u00a0like a brawl outside a pub?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kosma\u2019s method produces no narrative, or certainly one without a concrete conclusion, but instead instills a deep affect. His material is people (\u201cMy biggest asset is my friends,\u201d he says) and his content is the way we relate today, or fail to relate as perhaps we once did, or could relate when\u00a0fa\u00e7ades are dropped and the hidden personality steps forth. \u201cI construct a situation so primitive that it\u2019s almost irrelevant to the context,\u201d he says. \u201cThe only reason to do it is: don\u2019t give [the audience]\u00a0an interpretation, any patronising feelings. We embark on a discovery, this seeking mode. Be as honest to our impulses, producing all this emotion. What they make out of this emotion is up to them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And what do they make of it? One response is galvanised fascination at the raw human effluvia that surges out, another is blank confusion; other possibilities could be horror, or indifference. Yet as with the theatre (Kosma paraphrases Anne Carson\u2019s dictum on the actor\u2019s purpose: they go down to the pits of yourself so you don\u2019t have to), the lie of performance permits the truth of being. \u201cWe are using this trick to be true to be ourselves,\u201d he says. \u201cThe more I get fucked up, the better the performance is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seeming unrehearsed is another trick: Kosma says he and his dramatis personae \u2013 both men and women \u2013 may make up to 10 rehearsals and though the thing is unscripted, it remains cued; there are physical turns and exchanges that make it into the final event. \u201cI think of it as nodes of\u00a0 personality or nodes of relationship. Of course, if we like doing a particular movement,\u00a0it will come up. In my naive way of looking at it, there is a stream of general unconsciousness,\u00a0if we tap into that and don\u2019t filter any of the experience, then a great performance is a side\u00a0effect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The nuance in the work is that while it affects to tell nothing, it reveals an unedited something.\u00a0\u201cPeople expend a great deal of energy trying to hide. The only way we can produce a real emotion\u00a0is for people to be surprised. So, we enter a fraudulent situation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

So too are they performances which in one sense deny the notion of performativity. He says that,\u00a0yes, he has been accused of manipulating his co-performers, and as on the psychotherapist\u2019s\u00a0couch or in the cinema banquettes, extreme reactions can occur. \u201cUpon entering the space you make a decision, okay, something will come up \u2013 people cry sometimes. I don\u2019t ever want it to be therapy, people are pretty sorted. But they can feel uncomfortable about it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, these deep hacks into the human animal may be speculative but they are also far from unplanned. Kosma was previously a computer scientist and, versed in the language of algorithms, he explains how he saw a possibility to simplify the artistic process, from, in his words, \u201cidea\u00a0to object to production to reception: that\u2019s not successful, there are too many steps, beauty is\u00a0simple. But, intimacy to affect to reaction: Bang.\u201d If in the end the \u201cart\u201d of this intangible, object-less interaction is a feeling, one wonders how long he has strived to create those artworks?\u00a0\u201cAll my life,\u201d he concludes.<\/p>\n

Text by Kevin Braddock<\/strong><\/p>\n

www.the–family.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wojciech Kosma, far right, with The Family. Photo \u00a9 Maxime Ballesteros for Sleek Art as a feeling, de-performed through loving and fighting. What comes out when anything goes? You might wonder after seeing a performance (usually at\u00a0Berlin\u2019s LEAP Gallery) by the Polish artist Wojciech Kosma. One Saturday evening not so long ago, he and the…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10172],"tags":[34,322,23,815,391,958],"class_list":["post-10629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-berlin","category-film","tag-berlin","tag-kevin-braddock","tag-maxime-ballesteros","tag-sleek-38","tag-studio-visits-2","tag-wojciech-kosma"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\nWojciech Kosma Wojciech Kosma<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wojciech Kosma Wojciech Kosma\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wojciech Kosma, far right, with The Family. Photo \u00a9 Maxime Ballesteros for Sleek Art as a feeling, de-performed through loving and fighting. What comes out when anything goes? You might wonder after seeing a performance (usually at\u00a0Berlin\u2019s LEAP Gallery) by the Polish artist Wojciech Kosma. One Saturday evening not so long ago, he and the...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-10-08T10:08:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sleek team\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3\u00a0Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. This creativity manifests itself in SLEEK\u2019s quarterly print publication, digital and social media channels.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"de\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"de\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"\",\"contentUrl\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/\",\"name\":\"Wojciech Kosma Wojciech Kosma\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-10-08T10:08:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-10-08T10:08:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c5f3e8e696c044fb822d2530a768f11c\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"de\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Wojciech Kosma\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c5f3e8e696c044fb822d2530a768f11c\",\"name\":\"sleek team\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"de\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/404b6a6d9dfd8710d349055eb5f6e3eb12a480b0445e12debd7785cc1963dfb1?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/404b6a6d9dfd8710d349055eb5f6e3eb12a480b0445e12debd7785cc1963dfb1?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"sleek team\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/author\/sleek-team\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Wojciech Kosma Wojciech Kosma","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/","og_locale":"de_DE","og_type":"article","og_title":"Wojciech Kosma Wojciech Kosma","og_description":"Wojciech Kosma, far right, with The Family. Photo \u00a9 Maxime Ballesteros for Sleek Art as a feeling, de-performed through loving and fighting. What comes out when anything goes? You might wonder after seeing a performance (usually at\u00a0Berlin\u2019s LEAP Gallery) by the Polish artist Wojciech Kosma. One Saturday evening not so long ago, he and the...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/","og_site_name":"Sleek Magazine","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/","article_published_time":"2013-10-08T10:08:00+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@sleekmag","twitter_site":"@sleekmag","twitter_misc":{"Verfasst von":"sleek team","Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit":"3\u00a0Minuten"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/","name":"Schlankes Magazin","description":"Sleek ist Deutschlands f\u00fchrendes unabh\u00e4ngiges Medienhaus\/Marke f\u00fcr Kreativit\u00e4t und Innovation mit Sitz in Berlin, der kreativen Hauptstadt der Welt. Diese Kreativit\u00e4t manifestiert sich in der viertelj\u00e4hrlich erscheinenden Print-Publikation, den digitalen und Social-Media-Kan\u00e4len von SLEEK.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"de"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"de","@id":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/#primaryimage","url":"","contentUrl":""},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/","name":"Wojciech Kosma Wojciech Kosma","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2013-10-08T10:08:00+00:00","dateModified":"2013-10-08T10:08:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c5f3e8e696c044fb822d2530a768f11c"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"de","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/article\/wojciech-kosma\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Wojciech Kosma"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#\/schema\/person\/c5f3e8e696c044fb822d2530a768f11c","name":"schlankes Team","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"de","@id":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/404b6a6d9dfd8710d349055eb5f6e3eb12a480b0445e12debd7785cc1963dfb1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/404b6a6d9dfd8710d349055eb5f6e3eb12a480b0445e12debd7785cc1963dfb1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"sleek team"},"url":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/author\/sleek-team\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}