An Unprinted Story

On 18 May 2012, during the opening of the new exhibitions and the Night at the Museums, visitors made a mural – together with the artist Artur Wabik – which showed a diagram of an imaginary printing press. The artist’s design was inspired by the printing process. The white line running across the wall represents a sheet of paper in the printing press. The painters filled the diagram with their own ideas. The result was CMYK at MOCAK – a work created in the basic colours used in the printing process: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.

In the 1990s, on the site of today’s Museum of Contemporary Art (to be precise, where the MOCAK Café now is) there used to be a polygraphic printing works, run by Artur Wabik’s family. The artist’s first studio was located next to the machine room. No wonder he admits to a very personal attitude to the Museum, ‘It was in this very building that I grew up – surrounded by printing presses.’

The story of Artur Wabik demonstrates that the chasm which appears to separate the historic, industrial Zabłocie from its contemporary guise is not as great as one might think. It reveals something that could be called a dynamic lack of self-awareness of the place. A dozen or so years back, where there are now the galleries, in Building A young people would spontaneously organise open-air art events. By inviting us to participate in the collective painting of the mural, Artur Wabik wanted to make a connection with those events. And show also, that a public space can be a place of personal significance, of memories, of growing up. The artist would like the ‘mural to become a homage to polygraphy, a profession receding into the past.’

Do have a browse through the photos of the event!