We're Open To Collaboration with Business

Grupa ETC [The ETC Group] (Antoni Michnik, Anna Płonka, Maciej Ratajski, Agnieszka Szostakiewicz) performative intervention Jesteśmy otwarci na współpracę z biznesem [We're Open To Collaboration with Business] in Sopot was a reaction to a lawsuits threatening two students of Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw: Agata Grabowska and Olga Rusinek.

Grabowska and Rusinek, students of a curatorial workshop by Dawid Radziszewski, curated Dekadencja / sklep z pamiątkami [Decadence / Gift Shop] exhibition at Klubojadalnia Eufemia. The exhibition was a protest against the planned closing of this student canteen during the day and a legendary independent club with a rich cultural program at night located in the basement of the Academy of Fine Arts. The academy's authorities decided to gentrify the space, allegedly to make it more pleasant for business meetings and attractive for tourists. Grabowska and Rusinek's proposed going even further and putting there an Academy of Fine Arts gift shop. They invited 10 artists to create tongue-in-cheek interpretations of the Academy's principal, Adam Myjak's very recognisable sculptures made for a Dekada retail chain. In response, Grabowska and Rusinek were threatened with a lawsuit for alleged trademark infringement and decided to cover exhibited works with empty crisps packets.

For their performative action Grupa ETC [The ETC Group] covered one of the original Myjak's sculptures with an empty crisps packet, inspiring others to do the same with Myjak's sculptures across Poland.

Video documentation of the performance was displayed at the Pokazówka [Showpiece] event curated by Wojtek Zrałek-Kossakowski on the 6th of October 2023 at Jasna 10: Społeczna Instytucja Kultury Krytyki Politycznej.