In his Confessions of a Pseudo-Avant-Gardist (1994), Robakowski wrote that he had adopted the role of an “organisational drone” whose goal it is to spread energy. The exhibition contains photographic objects from his time with ZERO-61, a group that he founded with several other artists in Toruń. It also includes short films: time-lapse footage, films made without the use of a camera and film performances in which he tested the relationship between the camera’s “seeing” and his own body. His performance Furniture Sale (Wyprzedaż mebli, 1971) dates to his time with the avant-garde group Warsztat Formy Filmowej (WFF), which was founded by students and graduates of the Lodz Film School. The group’s analyses of the language of film and media were inspired by Eastern European conceptual tradition. In the early 1970s, its members began to establish international contacts and to exhibit abroad.

Another possible way of exchanging energy was offered by Exchange Gallery (Galeria Wymiany), which Robakowski and Małgorzata Potocka founded in 1978 in their home as a personal archive of independent art. Following the political events of 1981, Robakowski resigned his professorship at the Lodz Film School and turned to more intimate ways of working with the image. In his film About Fingers (O palcach, 1982), his fingers recount their personal histories. From my Window (Z mojego okna) consists of commented footage shot from Robakowski’s window in the years 1978–1999.

Józef Robakowski continues to create personal, often ironically conceived video performances and uses his photographic cycles to explore the relationship between reality and depictions of reality. His conviction that art is above all an exchange of energies is expressed in the video The Energy Manifesto! (Manifest energetyczny!, 2003). Robakowski’s work reflects the evolution of the moving image in Eastern Europe and the search for alternatives to official art.