SUR*VIVER

Artist couple, Warszawa, active since: 1999 & 2000. Photography as a medium. As illustration for other concepts. Medium is not the main part of the process, ideas. Medium is getting the simplest contact to the reality. Photography is the simplest way to make the ideas work out.

REGULAR RENEWAL OF EQUIPMENT
Cameras, video, computer. It is like it grows around you. First we worked also in other artistic fields (always connected with graphic design – never in companies, always as freelancers, we did posters, illustrations..) and now we finally stopped working in these other fields. It was one leg on this side and one leg on the other – if you want a renovated bathroom or stuff for producing art, it was not a hard decision for us.
We don’t need it, we sell it. Old computer, we didn’t need any more, we sold it. Same with enlarger. Or with panoramic Hasselblad. We rather buy something what we really need.
We borrowed some lights from a shop for a project, because we only needed it for this one project. We try to find the cheapest way, to organize ourselves.
For two years we are more or less doing only art. From time to time we still do other jobs. We have some strings that didn’t run dry, so we didn’t have to cut them. It is a relaxing way of earning money, also refreshing, maybe even inspiring sometimes. It is like a good exercise for your mind. It is good to change from time to time. But these projects were never classical graphic design and they give us a lot of creative input – illustration, toys, website.. so we never had to go to agency at nine in the morning.
Piotr also did photography for an architectural magazine for three years. Was also very good work, very creative.

We have a firm, a one-man company so we can discount costs from taxes.

Since 2 years we earn enough with art. We cooperate with a gallery so we don’t have to do all the things that gallerists do. They organize a lot. We do the production ourselves but sometimes they also help with that. But they do the part we don’t like to do – selling yourself, organizing. The working process is most pleasant.

We didn’t have health insurance for a couple of years. It was not so important for us. In Poland it is always the same situation – the health situation in Poland is very bad - you break your teeth and in the end you have to pay yourself even if you have health insurance. If you really get sick, there is a group of diseases like cancer or something like that, they just don’t pay for it..
Retirement plan we don’t have. Maybe now with the company. It is not so important for us right now. I think the best is to invest in ourselves.
It is a special job. You are completely responsible for yourself and you can use it to develop yourself. It is the best solution in being an artist from my point of view. The job is insecure but is very nice.

GENDER ISSUE:
Agata: I don’t know if in Poland it is different for men and women but you can see this everywhere. A good example is Cindy Sherman, who is the first woman in the art market ranking and she is only 11th. I am not frustrated with this, since I had luck that my work is not taken as female and from some it is. Especially in this job, in artistic area, I think it is not so problematic, more in other fields. How? In our gallery there are more men than women.
What bothers me is more the interpretation of works but for some women it is ok that they are interpreted in this special way.
Piotr: I think there are more women than men who loose the energy too soon.
Agata: at the beginning it was hard for me, like Piotr was the creative, so I had to do some projects on my own and now it is better.
Piotr: For the guys it is easier in the historical sense – they are more like fish in water. Like the woman, if she has a child she has to take care of it. But we are in this special group (artists) where you don’t feel this so much. But anyway this is changing.
When we were in New York, we went to the Metropolitan [Museum of art] and got pissed that there were no women. Like the whole history of art is concentrated on men.

Our financial situation is very insecure because if you get sick you can’t work anymore. If you ask me if we will sell works in 2 years, I don’t know but we won’t die of it. We can go back to the way we did before, so in that way we feel secure. We think it is more a question of if you feel secure with yourself. Like having a broader perspective.
I think the most important thing is health. I don’t feel like you have to have friends with money or power, if you stick with your thing, somehow it will happen. Sometimes even not, but…

Of course we have the better situation since we are together, both in this situation. Anyway every family is a secure net like this. It is like more fun or less fun (in the serious sense of the way).
Of course it is easier in Warszawa. It is easier to find a job, you don’t have to go every party or something - if you do good things, you can be very rude and unpleasant.
Of course you have to have money for production, so you have to have a purpose, like I am earning this money not to spend but for production. You have to set your priorities.

ART MARKET
It is not only buying. If someone buys my work I think the important thing is that it will be seen, to get in contact with the art. And the rich people who collect often show their collections in public. Of course if you look at it that only rich people can buy of course I would like it more if everybody were rich so I could get more money to produce.
I disagree with the negation of selling/buying art. It is not black and white. Because you can go further and ask why the composer gets paid for composing and the architect for making plans and after some time of asking you see that it is not good – the question why it is payable. And in fact this is the only job where you don’t make things because they were ordered. You do it on your own. It would be very hypocritical to say that selling/buying art is bad since this money is very necessary for us. And anyway you don’t make projects because of the selling.
Some friends were at a big fair and they thought it very awful but more in the formal way – the structure. But we don’t know a lot about the market, being fashionable and things like that.

For us making art is somehow having a laboratory of life, like proving theories, but not for others, more for ourselves.

Vienna, July 2006