"Sky blue - my favourite color"

“I am rather a painter. I consider this work to be an ordinary painting, an image. But I also need a motion. So this is not a classical view o painting.” - Marek Sulek.

Let us return to the works of Marek Sulek. In December there was a summary of his "disposable statues" project in One hour of suffering thread. Now it's time to fulfill the promise given in one of the comments on that article and show another unusual action called "Mixing".

Dagmara Brodziak - who also played the role of living statue...

...mixing with Michal Krzywicki.

"Mixing" staged on Baltic beach for Polish branch of MTV.

The Mixing is thought as something about dynamic creation of living painting. The role of canvas is played by human body. Usually female and usually naked. In short: the participants are creating the painting on each other, until the moment they become indentical. Is it that simple?

Painting before the show...

White girl almost ready, sitting on the floor and waiting for others...

Final retouching...

Prior to show the models are covered entirely with different colors, but the paint itself is a kind of non-drying substance. During the show all of performers are touching and rubbing each other, transferring the paint between them, slowly mixing the colors in an unplanned way. The more they're touching, the more the paints are mixed, gradually creating new color. Quite like on the color circle but in this case, only white and blue are used. The show is over when participants are covered equally with new uniform hue - the resultant of their default colors (hence the name Mixing).

Love how those girls are painted with bare hands...

Toast and photos before the show...

They're coming! Finally!

The beginning and first touch...

This series of performances requires a close physical contact from all of the participants. It seems that it was usually played by females, but not always - as you could see, it was also performed by woman-man duo. In this case, Mixing is staged by team of four fully naked women - show's idea has strong erotic base, same as it was with "disposable statues". The models are exposed in front of a large crowd of spectators. Acting involves to strike very evocative, sometimes shameless poses. To fully mix the paint, they have to stay close, touching their bodies often in very intimate way. This leads to quite obvious associations with the act of lesbian group sex. And the fact that it is done publicly makes it the more fascinating.

"People who get involved in my shows simple do it for free. They just want to do it. They even argue with each other, so to speak, who will play the bigger role here. Bigger, but also much more difficult, much heavier physically. I'm pleasantly surprised, really. Those people who participate in it are also co-creators of the whole process. They influence the final effect, they affect the appearance of the entire work. It's just a lot of improvisation. These actions are not very carefully planned. They don't have a very precise script. They also always rely on intuition, on some very primitive, basic feelings and yes - certain impulses transmitted by people who participate. Also by the audience, which by exerting a certain pressure, which behaving in a certain way forces me to react and influences the appearance of the work itself." - Marek Sulek about Mixing.

At this point the performance reached its goal...

The performance is over when all models turned light blue. The artist explains: "Sky blue - my favorite color. The color of the sky. Natural color - at the same time very inorganic, alien to biological tissue. The color that contrasts with it the most and in my opinion, best suits my projects."

These particular stills and videos are taken from movie interview with Marek Sulek, conducted in New York, where the performance took place at the Aurora Gallery, Chelsea in April of 2003. The documentary is in Polish, entitled simply "Mixing. Marek Sulek in New York City". Full version is hosted on Vimeo, but selection of the most interesting parts is here. Original video contains also a commentary from the artist about his point of view on his works, his performance and models' engagement. Ending credits of full movie mention the names (or maybe aliases) of starring girls: Abbey Dehnert, Jennifer Harmer, Eliza Littrell and Courtney Rowe. But there's little chance to find anything about those girls in the web. Even while watching the video we don't know who is who. Unfortunately, there are no higher resolution pictures avalaible from that event, even on artist's website.

"Mixing. Marek Sulek in New York City". Directed by Gabryela Komarnicka. Full movie is shared by Silver Archives Studio on Vimeo. The most interesting fragment is here, cut into three pieces for easier sharing:

Definitely Mixing in New York gallery is one of the most outstanding if it cames to erotic performance category. Though almost not known, it could stay in line with the famous Monothone Symphony of Yves Klein or similar ones. As for the Marek Sulek himself, after watching the Mixing and after previous encounter with his living statues, one can certainly say that he is a master in exposing the eroticism of the human body and employing it for creation.