Vol 2: Enthusiasm

This book accompanies the exhibition Enthusiasm; it features an interview with the curator Anthony Spira, and commissioned essays on the films and film programmes - Love, Longing and Labour, from Art Historian Amelia Jones, anthropologist Rachel Moore, artist and critic Carles Guera, political theorist Magda Pustola and previously unpublished film stills; it's tri-lingual.

The whole publication is released under a Creative Commons: Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike v2.0 License

from the Introduction to Enthusiasm

2005 marks the tenth anniversary of Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska’s collaborative work. They exert a subtle but pervasive influence in numerous cultural spheres; their committed art practice continues to generate networks of collaborators, colleagues, friends and supporters. And, despite the accelerated development of their art projects, Cummings and Lewandowska have remained deeply committed to teaching, they provide an inspiration to younger generations of artists and thinkers.

Over the years, each individual project has added momentum to a wider critical undertaking that scrutinises the invisible power structures, the modes of communication and exchange, that regulate our everyday lives. They have worked with Museums, Banks, Galleries, Archives, places of Education and Department Stores in London, Geneva, Copenhagen and Paris. They have explored the entanglements of art and capital in 19th century Manchester and researched trafficking and smuggling of surrogate goods on the Polish Ukrainian border; documented lost property recovered by London Transport in a single day, and impersonated a famous art dealer. Their projects, although diverse, have consistently engaged with the cultural institutions that designate and mediate art, and the increasingly devolving experience of art, to their public.

This publication forms part of the latest manifestation of 2 years of research into films produced by Poland’s amateur film movement from the 1950s to the mid 1980s. Under the Socialist regime, ‘leisure’ in Poland was organised through numerous factory-sponsored clubs, the most popular of which were perhaps those encouraging the making of films. This publication and the accompanying exhibition explore how such amateur endeavour became an asylum for the marginalized; for dreams of happiness, love and freedom.

In the summer of 2004, ‘Enthusiasts’ curated by Lukasz Ronduda was first exhibited at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw. It was accompanied by a publicationn that explored the social and cultural context in which the amateur filmmakers worked. With a deft sleight of hand, the project’s subsequent title and focus has shifted to ‘Enthusiasm’. A move aimed at opening up the phenomena of enthusiasm to a universal audiences; and concentrating on how enthusiasm affects and motivates us all.

Ranging from short satirical animations and ‘experimental’ films to ambitious documentaries and epic romances, a selection of the films found by the artists are arranged in three themes - Love, Labour and Longing – for the duration of the exhibition. In this publication, Historian Amelia Jones describes how love becomes a highly subversive force in the hands of these amateur filmmakers. Anthropologist Rachel Moore situates ‘longing’ between ‘private repression and public violence’ while political theorist Magda Pustola traces how the films ‘inconspicuously transform homo laborans into homo faber. In his essay, film critic Tadeusz Sobolewski evokes the complexity of life ‘behind the iron curtain’ and compares consumerist advertising in the free world to propaganda under a Socialist ideology. Artist Carles Guerra meanwhile, situates Cummings and Lewandowska’s Enthusiasm in a contemporary social and political context. Grzegorz Laszuk, designer of both volumes has, together with the artists, sensitively and intelligently brought all of the disparate parts of this publication together. We would like to thank all of these people, and many more, for their shared passion and enthusiasm, without which this project could not have taken form.

We are equally indebted to Wojciech Krukowski at the CCA, Warsaw, Grzegorz Boguta of the Culture Foundation (Fundacja Kultury) Warsaw for his continued commitment to the cause and to Grzegorz Molewski, Tomasz Piatek at Kino Polska for helping with the release of the official newsreels.

Finally, we would like to thank the artists, Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, for their unstinting generosity and energy. This partnership of institutions and individuals is indebted to them for their creative and inspirational involvement in every aspect of this publication and the exhibition it accompanies.

Iwona Blazwick, Whitechapel Gallery, London
Anselm Franke, Kunst-Werke, Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Nuria Enguita Mayo, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona

Read an interview between us and the curator Anthony Spira From Enthusiasm to the Creative Commons.

Buy the book from the Whitechapel or Artwords