Andrew Partum, E = mc2, 1987

53.0 x 70.5cm - oil, fiberboard signed on the reverse in black paint: A. Partum

below in pencil: 1987 Kobenhavn



Andrzej Partum was initially engaged in literature and music. He did not graduate from any art school. He created theoretical and literary texts, artistic manifestos and slogans, which he exhibited in galleries and distributed through the mail, becoming a forerunner of mail art on Polish soil. He was the founder of the Poetry Bureau, a quasi-institution whose headquarters was his apartment. This activity of an actioner, a contestant of official artistic life, made him an important figure and authority in the circle of the Polish neo-avant-garde of the 1970s. At the beginning of the 1980s, he was surrounded by representatives of the youngest and most radical generation of the neo-avant-garde, which included, among others, Jerzy Truszkowski, Jacek Kryszkowski and other members of the Zrzuta Culture. In late 1984, Partum left for Denmark, where he was granted political asylum. Since the 1990s, he visited Poland frequently.

The work E = mc2 well represents the nature of Partum's visual work - ostentatiously poor, not to say abnegative in terms of technique, it takes Einstein's formula trivialized to the point of trivialization by pop culture as its subject. The location of the inscription in the upper part and the signature on the back seem to resolve the top-down orientation of the painting. However, the central, unremarkable shape (ship?) irresistibly prompts the painting to be rotated 90 degrees to the left. Surprising, annoying, embarrassing? - All Partum.

♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, will be added a fee resulting from the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on copyright and related rights (droit de suite)

Andrzej Partum was initially engaged in literature and music. He did not graduate from any art college. He created theoretical and literary texts, artistic manifestos and slogans, which he exhibited in galleries and distributed through the mail, becoming a forerunner of mail art on Polish soil. He was the founder of the Poetry Bureau, a quasi-institution whose headquarters was his apartment. This activity of an actioner, a contestant of official artistic life, made him an important figure and authority in the circle of the Polish neo-avant-garde of the 1970s. At the beginning of the 1980s, he was surrounded by representatives of the youngest and most radical generation of the neo-avant-garde, which included, among others, Jerzy Truszkowski, Jacek Kryszkowski and other members of the Zrzuta Culture. In late 1984, Partum left for Denmark, where he was granted political asylum. Since the 1990s, he frequently visited Poland.