Elżbieta Jabłońska: 83 Waiters and an Assistant

The action prepared for Atlas Sztuki in Łódź draws on the many ambiguities inherent in the ceremony of an exhibition opening. It is meant to be pleasant, like a social gathering, but unexpected discomforts will be waiting. In the hierarchy of openings, waiters guarantee an event’s high status. So let there be a hundred of them. We like to be served—but to such an extent? Will the omnipresence of waiters not first provoke embarrassment and then irritation? What is more, the diligently served audience will walk across loose floorboards. On the one hand, then, there is the waiters’ overprotectiveness; on the other, uncertainty with every step. At an exhibition opening, one does not think about avoiding getting a heel stuck between the floorboards. Here, suddenly, visitors must watch their step and forget their social ease. There is also a glass display case placed in an unstable position, set trembling by the audience’s footsteps and intruding with its rattling into the hubbub of voices at the opening. Absurd? But what exactly is absurd here?