Maciej Stępiński
Drive (Rendez-vous à Poznań – prequel)
At the end of September 2012, Maciej Stępiński drove his Range Rover from Warsaw to Poznań, to get to the opening of his exhibition Rendez-vous à Poznań at the Arsenal Gallery. The artist, conquering the distance between the two cities was driving across country, keeping a straight, ideal line connecting his house with the gallery in Poznań. The exhibition Drive. Rendez-vous à Poznań - prequel i the {Bank Pekao Project Room}, is a direct continuation of this project and at the same time, a collection of visual references for this action.
The project Rendez-vous à Poznań, combines in itself the conceptual assumptions and performative form with the romance of the road, the mythology of motorization, and the almost boyish dream of deviating from the common path and doing the impossible. The journey from Warsaw to Poznań, performed by Stępiński, is an abstract drawing in space. The expedition to the exhibition at the Arsenal Gallery transformed into a performance, the creative process became a perverse exercise in the economy of art; the conceptual character of the entire project was infected with an adventure virus, and the car became the material and at the same time the tool for creating art.
Stępiński opens the exhibition Drive at the CCA the day after closing the exhibition at Arsenal Gallery. The Warsaw project is a direct continuation of the Poznań presentation. Drive is not so much a part of the second exhibition at the Arsenal, as it is its prequel. At the CCA, the artist presents that which was earlier, before the four-day journey to Poznan – he presents a selection of his projects from over the last ten years, where he dealt with culture, mythology, and the aesthetics of motorization. The prequel takes the form of all, in which Stępiński mounts his latest performance in the context of passion, which borders on obsession.
