Kawiak Tomek.
Self-Titled.
Germany: International Artist's Cooperation, 1973.
Single sheet folded into 16 pages including covers.
Near fine, but for minor creasing.
International Artist's Cooperation (I-A-C) No. 39 published by Klaus Groh.
Artists' book by Polish artist Kawiak Tomek.
"Tomek Kawiak (“Kava,” b. 1943), the painter, sculptor, and creator of many art actions in the Polish avant-garde, was also actively involved in the international mail art network. In 1970 he produced La Douleur de Tomek (Thomas’ Pain), the first ecological and social action undertaken in Poland under the country’s communist regime. As an act of protest, Kawiak bandaged the crowns of trees that had been “brutally” pruned a few days earlier by municipal employees in Warsaw as part of a project to take care of the city’s trees. A simple action, but a highly suggestive one, given the censorship in effect at the time.
The authoritarian climate in the country led Kava to emigrate to Paris, where he joined the international network of artists working in the experimental field. He took part in Prospectiva 74, a key exhibition organized by the MAC-USP in São Paulo in February 1974, overseen by the professor and director Walter Zanini. Works were sent to the event by mail from all over the world, in some cases from countries under repressive regimes, as Brazil was at the time (1964–85). Kava presented his screenprinted work Célébration du pain (Celebration of the [Daily] Bread) and reproductions of Certificado de Intercambiothat was part of the action Operación Intercambio.
He also took part in Video, the exhibition jointly organized by the CAYC and the Galería Wspolczesna in Warsaw in May 1975. This newsletter includes a work by Kawiak in which, with the repetitive use of a self-portrait, he suggests a graphic language that relies on humor."
- https://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/item/1477385
This is likely a later printing.
