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Duckrabbits
Duckrabbits.com is an archive of postartistic practices that have been occuring in Poland since 2015.
The duckrabbit is the sigil and patron of the archive of contemporary postartistic practices. This hybrid animal was first identified in the 19th century in a German satiric magazine. Duckrabbit is at the same time both this and that – both rabbit and duck, both fish and fowl. How it appears to us depends not only on the angle and perspective, but also on our approach, will and experience.
The duckrabbit is difficult to categorize and is therefore an ideal mascot for those who indulge in postartistic practices, which are neither art nor non-art (nor they are anti-art, though they might be non-non-art). They might be both an oil painting and a banner carried on a demonstration (or an oil painting carried on a demonstration, which is not such a rare thing after all). A manifestation of dissent and a postartistic gesture. Political commitment is mixed with a militant sense of humor, protocols of the art world fuel alternative economies and the artistic imagination is mobilized to support the struggles of social movements.
The very concept of postartistic practices is derived from Polish conceptual art theorist Jerzy Ludwinski, who wrote in his 1971 essay on art in the postartistic age:
“Perhaps, even today, we do not deal with art. We might have overlooked the moment when it transformed itself into something else, something which we cannot yet name. It is certain, however, that what we deal with offers greater possibilities”.
Postartistic practices are de-schooled. They cannot be easily assigned to a single genre – they may use different media, conventions and formats, coming both from within and outside of the art world. Postartistic practices might be camouflaged as well-recognized styles and forms of art (sculpture, drawing, happening), but they also flourish in other spaces: from investigative journalism, through urban gardening and processions to plumbing. Some of them might be confused with art proper (but it also happens the other way round). Others feel better in different ecosystems of ideas, notions and relations (such as activism). Most are infused with a “high coefficient of art” (as Marchel Duchamp would say), shimmering at the intersection of art worlds and everyday situations.
The archive of postartistic practices is open, mobile and subjective. It’s like a snowball trundled by a team of duckrabbit archivists. Their work creates a map of a territory that expands alongside the network of those mapping it. Perhaps they do not share one common vision of postartistic practices, which are by definition difficult to define.
If you want to participate in collective mapping of the frontiers of art and postart, or you know about interesting practices in your milieu, write to bup@beczmiana.pl. Duckrabbits do not have any specific selection criteria, nor do they organize open calls, but they always invite everyone to join the collective journeys across the postartistic pluriverse, In the end, the more the merrier!
Duckrabbits.com
Edited by: Sebastian Cichocki, Jakub Depczyński, Marianna Dobkowska, Bogna Stefańska, Kuba Szreder, Vład Błyzniuk
Archivists: Jakub Depczyński, Julia Dudzińska, Julia Kinaszewska, Bogna Stefańska, Barbara Swadzyniak, Aleksy Wójtowicz, Weronika Zalewska
Website: Michał Szota