Andrzej Pierzgalski
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Andrzej Pierzgalski is not a formally educated artist. His road into art lead through the social relationships he developed with the £ód¼ artists’ milieu during the seventies. At that time an important figure was his brother Ireneusz, who then ran the Artists’ Club of the Polish Artists Union. Andrzej Pierzaglski’s lack of formal artistic education became his trump card. During the time of the domination of the conceptual pattern, his knowledge of literature, and interest in theatre was perfect material for artistic inspiration. However, he began his artistic activity when he started to co-operate with Treliński in his 80x140 Gallery. Piegrzalski located his own A4 Gallery in the 80x140 Gallery, which happened in May 1972. In accordance with its name, a sheet of paper in an A4 format hung in the space of the 80x140 Gallery and in his gallery, Pierzgalski exhibited the documentation of his own work and the work of other artists. But above all it was the most radical project in the conceptual gallery movement of the seventies.
The gallery was in fact a leaflet distributed within the milieu, with a stamp saying: A4 Gallery (in the 80x140 Gallery), arranged by A. Pierzgalski.
Leaflet A4 no. 1 presented information in a few brief paragraphs about the 80x140 Gallery and its programme and it should be considered as a second manifesto of the 80x140 Gallery. The author then asked himself a question about the program and replied: In a situation when the word »art« means almost everything with which we name it, it is more reasonable to replace the program with action. It is a key credo, which also expresses the typical consciousness of that time. The starting of the A4 Gallery meant that Pierzgalski correctly understood the meaning of “creative readiness” and responded by expressing his own readiness expressed within the possibilities created by the formula of conceptual art. The calling the A4 Gallery into existence was actually the very first work completed in this gallery and it was Pierzgalski’s artwork.
The A4 Gallery ran in the 80x140 Gallery until 1974. In 1976 Pierzgalski turned towards theatre and the staging Samuel Beckett’s plays. The A4 Gallery then started to act as GAW (Gabinet Aktualizacji Warto¶ci [The Updating Values Office]). Acting under two names became a way to stress the continuity of the project and the artistic relationship during the period of co-operation with the 80x140 Gallery. The GAW A4 project functioned till 1993, although its activity never officially ended. It was then continued on the Internet as a blog (or a photoblog) in which Pierzgalski presented photo compositions, usually consisting of four elements. In this way one could see the sources of his awareness which originated in experiments of a conceptual nature. In 2010 as part of the 2nd Art & Documentation Festival and exhibition in the Art Museum in £ód¼, Pierzgalski made a new A4 leaflet and an action at the opening. He asked viewers to imagine the following text “in capital letters” on an empty gallery wall: AS A MATTER OF FACT ART HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONLY INSIDE OF US. AND ALL WE DO FOR IT – WE DO FOR OURSELVES.”
See more: £ukasz Guzek, „Najbardziej radykalne postawy w ruchu galerii konceptualnych lat siedemdziesi±tych. Galeria 80x140 Jerzego Trelińskiego i galeria A4 Andrzeja Pierzgalskiego” [The most radical attitudes within the movement of "conceptual galleries" in the 70s. Jerzy Treliński's Gallery 80x140 and Andrzej Pierzgalski's Gallery A4] Sztuka i Dokumentacja no.4 (2011): 49-68
£ukasz Guzek
