Becoming-Sarmatian, becoming-Steppe. Deleuzoguattarian multiplicities / thresholds / potentialities and the art-work of Marek Konieczny

Abstract

The present dissertation maps out the artistic practices of the Polish neo-avant-garde artist Marek Konieczny between 1962 and 1986. Marek Konieczny is a Warsaw-based artist who since the late 1960s has embarked on a singular artistic trajectory across a wide range of different media and genres - including geometric abstractions, Conceptual, body, video and performance art as well as textured metal reliefs. Konieczny is best known as the creator of the unique strategy called 'Think Crazy' in 1974. The present dissertation probes the turbulent process of experimentation that has produced Think Crazy but at the same time explores the implications of Think Crazy that were still being unravelled in Konieczny's practices in the 1980s. In particular, the thesis investigates qualitative change in Konieczny's practices as operating on two interconnected levels: (1) a logic of sensation and (2) a diagnosis of cultures. Such coexistence finds its expression in the division of the thesis into three parts - corresponding to an exposition of onto-aesthetic concepts, an examination of Polish art and culture, and, finally, a case study of Konieczny that binds the two previous threads together.