Monarchia nieskończonej kreacji, czyli metaweryzm Piotra Szmitkego

The article presents the achievement of Piotr Szmitke (1955–2013), a painter, stage design artist, avant-garde musician, poet and playwright based in Katowice. Unquestionably, he was one of the most intriguing and enigmatic fi gures in contemporary Polish art. The article describes Szmitke’s doctrine of Metaverism formulated in 1988, during the artist’s stay in Paris. The metaveristic modus operandi consists in producing fake personalities and ‘their’ works. The avatars such as e.g. Yasmina, Sati, John Beep or Omar Cocola may be associated with Roee Rosen’s fi gure of Justine Frank or Lynn Hershman Leeson’s project – Roberta Breitmore. The article refers Szmitke’s modus creandi to the Baudrillardian notion of simulacrum.