The concept for the site-specific installations jointly known as Ready for Use dates back to 1980.

The artist used tree branches and trunks painted white, red, and black and similar glossy foil applications. The form of these extraordinarily expressive objects conjures up an abandoned or stranded ark, or a forsaken warehouse full of dust-covered standards or banner poles.

The prop motifs, taken from the non-artistic reality, represent an implied repository of readily available weapons, symbols of power, and life-saving appliances. Initially titled Permanent Readiness, the series comprises allusive elements of identification and means of uniting communities in a state of extreme danger.

The most notable presentation of Ready for Use took place at the Stoffwechsel show in 1982, accompanying the documenta 7 in Kassel: this was the artist’s largest realisation abroad, right after leaving the country and upon the introduction of martial law in Poland, which—alongside the characteristic, oppressive atmosphere of the arranged spaces—only intensified the political interpretations of the works. Also in the following years the artist did not refrain from direct references to symbols derived from the political realm (e.g. The Red Square Folded, 1984).

Written by Krzysztof Siatka