It is difficult and almost impossible to answer unequivocally the question about the meaning of repetition. The multitude of contexts, references and levels makes it easy to lose oneself in classifications which still may not be functional because of continuous data flow blurring their meanings. The act of repetition situated somewhere between nature and idea can be traced back to the history of philosophy as well as the history of representation, although in a less abstract way. The latter allows to perceive more or less stable manifestations of this phenomenon in a slightly limited, yet still complementary sense. Since the first footprints or grooves man became aware of while dragging branches on the ground until his realization that a mask restored a trace of a dead body, the act of repetition has constituted the core of metaphysics of presence. Yet in order to make it happen, one needs a gesture or movement which, despite its apparent simplicity, will never be free from various discussions and disputes.

In his famous Repetition Søren Kierkegaard recalls an old saying which classifies people into officers, servants and chimney sweeps. According to the philosopher the proverb makes one aware of the limitations to the classification framework of an object of study. At the same time this example points to an inspiring role of coincidence played in attempts at classification. Going back to the question of repetition in our narrower sense, it may be said that there is still a piece of terra incognita between hope and recollection, in anthropological cartography of images, or a borderline that can be reached only by acknowledging a parallel existence of both options.

In this cartographic way, having acknowledged the pros and cons of repetition, Grzegorz Drozd poses a question concerning this complex term. The artist decided to create a modern version of Rembrandt's painting The Departure of the Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq (1642) better known as The Night Watch, although the scene takes place during the day. Drozd's work is deprived of linearity, and preparations for the action are as vital as its final effect. The photographic session with Warsaw Municipal Guard held in the main hall of the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, at first seems to be a facsimile of Rembrandt's work and a documented “living picture” with its own history set in different time and place. The meaning of the new composition as well as the audio and video recordings of the session was intensified by the name of the gallery which housed the exhibition – Kordegarda (guardhouse), the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the vicinity and the guards marching towards it. All these aspects emphasized the performative character of the action.

To some extent the construction of Drozd's Night Watch resembles mechanisms employed in gossip. Its structure too, is based on repetition and affects imagination by means of an irritating but still unnoticed potential of an old photo film. In other times the departure of guards could symbolize the moment of signing an important pact or propaganda efforts of organizing a space flight into the outer space with the purpose of inevitable colonization. This could have been the vision by Bronisław Linke. However, in today's Warsaw there are fewer surprises as everything happens within the scenario of a rational utopia. Every day municipal guards' steps shape and mark the city area, confirming the inhabitants' acceptance of a set vision of the world in its monotonous, controlled rhythm. This situation has been changed due to a slightly theatrical replacement – the city guards have been moved from the streets - their place of daily work - to the temple of art, or even further, into the picture.

Figures emerging from the shadow and lighting up the city – this is how Rembrandt perceived the scene and how the watchmen wanted to see it themselves. To some extent this motive was followed by Drozd when he made the guards change into actors. Total agreement to achieve a common aim suggests a particular moment of action. One deals with the allegory of military strength of Amsterdam/ Warsaw and their militiamen, who guarantee order and prosperity in the city. The group with an extremely modern armor visualizing their skills regardless of circumstances (Rembrandt painted the Kloveniers unit equipped with fire-arms) emerges from the building's gate to make their round of the city. The critical moment of their leaving is at the same time an attempt to control preliminary chaos by means of forming ranks and giving orders. The very act is then transformed into a parade or a ceremonial public show of shooting training. All questions based on Rembrandt's iconic model are consistent – repetition is about to occur. Yet for some reasons modernization of the scene so heavily exploited by pop culture, and atypical location of its main characters do not have to be trusted.

In the above context, however, it is enough to take a closer look at the artist's previous actions exploring in a number of ways the questions of control and supervision, in order to state definitely that Drozd is not a “pop” artist in this aspect. It would be even more difficult to call him a pompier who recreates old plots. He might prefer to be named a chimney sweep mentioned in the previous classification. This category would be associated more with a desire to steal the composition, or irony, rather than to make up for its imperfections. In Municipal Guard the artist is looking for a totally different kind of repetition and finds himself a mediator within stratified Warsaw Municipal Guard. This fact explains the gap in the hierarchy of importance of particular stages of the whole action for its direct and indirect participants. It is enough to watch the session materials. They display divergent interests and expectations towards the final composition and the role it has to fulfill. The actors do their best to reproduce Rembrandt's painting, yet they forget that they try to overcome the chaos of contradictory information, their supervisors' guidelines, their own expectations and the increasing passivity in confrontation with the artist who leaves the decision to them. Supervisors and their PR specialists do not pay much attention to the original and work on their own model of the public image. At the same time they try diplomatically to persuade the artist to their point of view and gain the guards' obedience through orders, generating a “lapse of activities”. The confusion is used by the artist-stage designer in control of the situation. He makes this tiny yet reliable machinery stop operating. In the skillful, uninvasive game of desires and means the artist keeps going on with his own subtle narration in which the guards (re)gain their “new-old” functionality.

According to Drozd some areas of life have been colonized by monotony of gestures of encoded power symbolized here by the functional identity marked with symbolism of uniforms. However, a repeated gesture or a habit is not one-sided. The artist is not satisfied just with the aspects of supervision and negative connotations of the very gesture of repetition. He is interested in who each of the guards was and what they might have been thinking about. That is why they are presented with their individual reactions. This fact may yet suggest that what seems to be usually sheer repetition and monotony, is often inextricably related to coincidence (caused by fate or triggered off by skillful manipulation).

Finally, the guards stop representing “a potential virtual threat” (this is the dark secret of prevention exemplified by the thinking of this kind: “Since there are guards here, there must be something dangerous”), and so they stop being just a conventional and the most familiar symbol among limitations the city dwellers got used to. In art galleries nothing happens for real, so the guards may be themselves despite their uniforms. Moving smoothly from a static concept to the gesture of the Commandant's order to leave, the artist makes the power insignia visible, though at the same time meaningless. The guards taken into the old picture are grotesque, pompous and disturbing but, most of all, recognizable again as the tool representing the supervisors' (and the artist's) power. To decide the question of both symbolism of the performance and safety has to be done individually by each of the spectators. Krzysztof Gutfrański, 2009