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February 17, 2007
Kraków
There's a painting I particularly wanted to see so I took myself down to Kraków to have a look, spending a few days in the old place. I picked up a copy of the local paper and was dismayed to find that the good people of the newspaper are obssessed with Wrocław. How much money was invested in Wrocław last year? How much in Kraków? How rich how fast can you get in Wrocław in comparison with Kraków?
While in the National Museum looking for the painting I was reminded of a Billy Connolly joke: why do police officers always want you to describe what happened in your own words? “I don't have my own words. What would I want with them?” he asks. In the museum there was a video playing of an artist from Israel. At first I thought she was speaking Hebrew, as I did not understand any of it but then I read the accompanying blurb (the writer of which was good enough to tell me what I was supposed to feel when I looked at the images). In fact, the artist was talking in a language of her own invention. So there you go, Billy: if you had your own words instead of other peoples' you could be an internationally celebrated artist.
I also picked up a copy (the 92nd) of Aktivist, hoping to find that the kids were still on the verge of rioting. The editorial was written by one Łukasz Figielski: “We believe that your intellectual capabilities do not end with choosing the right gladrags.” It would be slightly more stirring if the magazine had not had three full-page ads for clothing manufacturers. To the untrained eye, sated with the radical pages of this guerilla publication (it's free), activism is about nightclubbing and fashion.
Posted by hgrodsk at February 17, 2007 07:05 PM
Comments
Well, and you think: mags print themselves for free or what? Check the content of Aktivists - it's not (only) bout clubbing'n'shit, but bout squatting and politics (criticism)as well, dude...
Posted by: well at May 22, 2007 10:04 PM