BORIS NIESLONY
HISTORY, OCCASION AND FACTS IN THE ART OF BEGEGNUNG

(There is no good translation for the German "Begegnung". I relies a lot to the definition of "communitas" what V. Turner made in his book "From ritual to Theater)

(Performance Art as a "picture of events that constitutes the society - the gesture")

1979 I was inspired by some words and events that became essential for my activities and led me to the Art of Begegnung.
Antonin Artaud in his "Alchemistisches Theater": "... the principal rules behave like dolphins, they rise up, show themselves for a short moment to vanish again in the deepness." (For me that's the merest definition of Performance Art.)
George Brecht, Robert Fillou: "If you want to know something you should spend your time with somebody who knows something.
The books of Martin Buber: "Ich und Du" and "Der Balschem".
The thought, maybe the idea is: Nothing in the world is intended or found by one person alone. This thought, which was developed out of my occupation with alchemy and the theory of Buddhism was and still is the gravitation of all my activities.
I met Fluxus, the bushmen are speaking of the dream which is dreaming myself.
1979 in November and December, I organised a series of exhibitions, installations, concerts and performances with the title "Two month of experimental work." I carefully looked for the different forms of co-operation, the behaviour of couples and groups and other possibilities of interaction.
The following questions were interesting for me: What are the forms of invitation, what could be the framing conditions (padeluun & Rena Tangens) which don't installate a hierarchy in the "Begegnung" and don't let it fall down to conflicts in relationships, to interdependencies and normal group process, but instead of this normal group problems creates new pictures? (the condition is the picture.)
Which pictures are real interactive pictures? What is the real basis of Performance Art which shows itself as a picture, which is a picture, and how can Performance Art distinguish itself from normal daily actions? (Project Allotropy of the working-day)
1978 - I met the group minus delta t, Mike Hentz + Karel Dudeseck.
1979 - I got to know the monthly Life . project Kunoldstr. 34, organised by J.O. Olbrich.
I met Kees Mol.
1980 - I moved to the artists run space to connect life and art (Allotropy of the daily life) and I met Carola Riess. She founded the project Gästehaus (guests house) in the artists run space which was located in the Künstlerhaus Hamburg. Engelmann lived three month with me and we created the concept for Das Konzil, for the nomads and for the pieces of emigration.
1980 - Reindeer Werk performed their piece Prediction in Hamburg and Hannover. Tordoir Narciss told me the story of Todays Place in Antwerpen.
The meeting with Jacques van Poppel.
1981 - raised live-situations between 10 and 30 days. Together with the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart I organised in September Das Konzil. 70 persons (40 of them invited guests) were confronted with each other, sitting around the specially for this situation created The Table. The guests had been chosen from persons, which I had met in the projects I organised during the last three years in my Kleinen Ausstellungsraum Hamburg. The most important influence to this Tool Group had Harrie de Kroon, Mike Hentz, Jacques van Poppel, Franklin Alders, Firma Bender & Nern.
The Tool Group was an open, nomadic and chaotic system of Performance Art.
Parallel to that exists the Panoramagruppe (although nomad performances), the Stil-Gruppe (talking and speech performances) and open groups like Quasi mythische Orte (quasi mythic locations) who organised performance travels, which let for example to the canalisation of Stuttgart, to the jail of Stammheim or to the highway during the daily rush hour.
1982 - in Mai I continued Das Konzil during an event of 30 days. 10 days in the Künstlerhaus Hamburg in the Kleiner Ausstellungsraum, and, at the same place, 10 days of seclusion. After this followed with Marina Kern and the Theater Dankerrt an open Live-situation with to containers from over-seas in the street and in the theatres-space. First idea for a network of Performance Art.
In the same year Die Schwarze Lade of the Konzil was the first time published. This sculpture of public interest have three sections (1997):
a. information about alternative art spaces, projects with political works, projects interaction and network ideas.
b. materials for developing ideas, definitions, pictures and objects, which are free to use in interactive projects
c. the archive of Performance Art with 500 dossiers, literature, reviews, articles etc.
1983 I gave up the artists run space to get more mobile. With the company Bender & Nern, Marina Kern, Kyoko Shimono and Bernhard Schwarz we founded the Projektkunst e.V.. The most important effort was the installation of MOBICOBU, some containers as a mobile Live-situation which could be moved for various projects.
Founding of Die Stifter, who organised in autumn the project Das Fest in Cologne.
1984 - meeting with Norbert Klassen and Zbigniew Warpechowski.
Since 1984 different interactive projects with different peoples and changing interventions. (see other biography)
The idea of an open group grows. I thing of seven persons. This association should be more solid as the different groups before should although have this interactive moment of Begegnung.
1985 - I met the theatre group THEAT and the philosophical performance program of the Aufmerksamkeitsschule of Zygmunt PioTrowski. I meet Tomas Ruller, whom invite for a performance, and Jürgen Fritz. Now we are seven.
In the discourse with Zygmunt PioTrowski, we found the name Black Market for this kind of meetings. This name should not represent the group but the principal ideas of the work.
1986 - I organise the first series of Black Market events.
1986 - I found the performance association ASA. The structure of ASA is opposite to that of Black Market but is refer like Black Market to an idea of Das Konzil: den Service. First publications of ASA in Bologna at the festival NO WALL. The first host had been together with me padeluun, Rena Tangens, Raoul Marek, Peter Meier, Ute Meta Bauer.
1987 - ASA and are invited to take part at the documenta.
1990 - ASA - European is founded. ASA-European organised different performance meetings and events (look it own biography)
1990/91 - changing in Black Market: Zygmunt PioTrowski and Tomas Ruller are leaving the group, Alastair MacLennan, Nigel Rolfe and Roi Vaara are joining. The new name is now: Black Market International. Corporations and meetings for examples with Neue Horizonte and different guests.
1993 - Black Market International invites 15 international artists for the performance piece Empedokles in the framing program of the Documenta 9. ASA organises the project 100 days of service, the Quantenpool Köln, with Peter Farkas, Bernd v.d. Brincken, Van Gogh TV and 3Sat etc..
1995 - I initiate the founding of the permanent Performance Konferenz. Connections from theory with practice as performance. Since its foundation there happened three conferences in Cologne. (The next will happen in Hamburg, Bangkok and Linz.)
1997 - I leave Black Market International to find other forms of Begegnung in the Performance Art, to find new constellations of persons in the art of Begegnung.

Translation:
Jürgen Fritz