Winning the Water: A Public Performance by Pawel Kruk October 16, 2010

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Aquatic Park, 890 Beach Street, San Francisco, CA 94109

Event Summary: Performance in which the artist will enter the water at Alcatraz (9 AM) and swim to Aquatic Park (anticipated arrival 10AM) while accompanied by the band Coconut. The public is invited to gather at Aquatic Park.

Continuing his artistic inquiry into the heroic nature of athletes and athletic feats, Pawl Kruk will swim from Alcatraz to Aquatic Park surrounded by a group of friends contributing to the performance in various ways. As the public cheers from the shore, Kruk’s swim will be accompanied by the two-person band Coconut performing live music on a small vessel propelled by oars, a videographer and photographer documenting the sounds and scenes of the performance, and another vessel carrying a group of spectators, whose presence will also contribute to the work. San Francisco’s South End Rowing Club’s history and their role in the dynamics of the interaction between people and the Bay will underlie the entire event. Documentation will be posted on the SFAC Gallery web site.

Kruk, a performance artist originally from Warsaw, spent a short time at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2002, and then returned as an Affiliate Artist in 2007. In 2008 he was a Fellow at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley. Kruk exhibits internationally and in 2003 was included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s major exhibition The American Effect. He had a critically acclaimed solo exhibition at San Francisco’s David Cunningham Projects in 2009 and is currently a finalist for the 2010 SECA Award at SFMOMA.

Acknowledgments: David Cunningham, Buck Delventhal, Justin Limoges, Airyka Rockefeller, Richard T. Walker, Members of the South End Rowing Club and Electric Works.

This performance is part of Transplanted at the SFAC Gallery. Read more about Transplanted here:

http://www.sfartscommission.org/gallery/2010/press-release-transplanted-three-commissioned-projects-by-bay-area-newcomers/