The origins of dé-coincidence in traditional Chinese architecture and art lie in the specific worldview of the Chinese, which was formed over thousands of years under the influence of local beliefs – Taoism and Confucianism, and borrowed Buddhism. It is significant that in China, as well as in Japan, these three teachings did not oppose each other, but formed a specific religious syncretism, since they were all built on a similar basis – the belief in the variability of phenomena in the universe, nature as a model of perfection, as well as the absence of the image of the Creator, present in the monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam.The essence of dé-coincidence in traditional Chinese and Japanese art is to endow the hidden essence of the phenomenon with the properties of ideal beauty. Therefore, this hidden essence can only be felt "from heart to heart", with the heart, not with the mind. Thus, the sacredness of the act of the artist's creativity lies in the "moment" of merging of the artist with nature and transferring through artistic means how the energy of nature turns into the energy of creativity and from it into the energy of a work of art.

The avant-garde maintains a dialectical relationship with history. On the one hand, it is oriented toward change, and on the other, it strives to establish an eternal now – a utopia, the achievement of which would end all history and the need for any further change. In this context, Yves-Alain Bois analyzes the historicism of Katarzyna Kobro and Władysław Strzemiński, concluding that the system they created, Unism, was destined to fail because, despite taking into account the workings of history, it did not break with the utopian ideal of unity, towards which art and the social world were ultimately intended to strive. This text is a polemic against this thesis and, at the same time, an expression of doubt regarding François Jullien's suggestions that utopian thinking, associated with projecting great change, is counterproductive and, in fact, counteracts the possibility of a genuine transformation of the world. In this text, I propose a pragmatic approach to the relationship between change and utopia, invoking the concept of the prototype for this purpose. I approach the work of Kobro and Strzemiński as successive iterations of the prototyping process, demonstrating the positive relationship between utopian vision and practical action in history.

This article offers a reinterpretation of Hugo Ball’s creative work through the lens of dé-coïncidence, understood not as an isolated concept but as part of a broader semantic constellation –including dissonance, dissensus, Zerrissenheit and shevirat ha-kelim – that finds its culmination in Dadaism as an art born of discordance. The analysis unfolds in three main sect-ions. The first one examines Ball’s 1916 performance at the Cabaret Voltaire, focusing on his recitation of the Six Sound Poems and the appearance of the “magical bishop,” interpreted as an echoed liturgy. The second one explores Ball’s notion of “flight out of time” (Flucht aus der Zeit) in relation to the kairotic temporality of performance and the sonorous medium as a site of primeval memory. The third one turns to his critique of instrumental language, which gives rise to an aesthetic alternative grounded in childhood and the playful handling of linguistic remnants. Ultimately, Ball’s work is presented as one of the earliest and most original artistic forms born from the spirit of dissonance. His Dadaist practice emerges as a poetic and philosophical response to the collapse of modernity, fusing linguistic mysticism with both theological reflect-ion and political critique.

The subject of this text is the relationship between art and de-coincidence understood as arts operandi that promotes innovation, creativity and the rediscovery of possibilities. This issue is examined against the backdrop of a comprehensive analysis of philosophical discourse, especially positions expressing a departure from the philosophy of being and the relationships/differences between the category of difference in the works of Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault and the cat-egory of de-coincidence introduced by Jullien. In order to familiarise the reader with the concept of decoincidence, the author cites a number of examples of the de-coincidental in art, such as the emergence of impressionism, which can be understood as the discovery of new possibilities in painting, or the construction of the Eiffel Tower as an example of a processual transition from coincidence in architecture and the model of ‘beauty’ to de-coincidence. This narrative develops the main thesis, which emphasises the liberating significance of the de-coincidence attitude in art, which, through enlightenment, enables the discovery of new possibilities and promotes awareness of the enslaving significance of coincidence, which reassures the subject in the reproduction of established forms and meanings.

The aesthetics of Indigenous Igbo masquerade are critically examined in this article using François Jullien's dé-coïncidence theoretical paradigm, which holds that when routine behaviours deviate from the normative or habitual, authenticity and renewal must take place. Masquerade in southeastern Nigeria has historically represented metaphysical presence and communal renewal, but its material practices today increasingly undermine this philosophical underpinning. There is growing conflict between spiritual symbolism and environmental cost due to high-level ecological extraction involved in costume creation, which includes animal species depletion and deforestation for raffia, bark and wood. Instead of being an agent of de-coincidental innovation, masquerade in its current form looks more like extractive economies of unsustainable cultural reproduction. The argument proposed in this article is that Igbo masquerade must reconsider its ecologically exploitative material conditions and rethink its aesthetic and ritual frameworks in order to remain valid and relevant in the face of ecological disaster. Based on a transdisciplinary methodology that balances environmental field observation, Indigenous ecological morality and performance analysis, the work identifies important avenues for sustainable dé-coïncidence, including the use of biodegradable materials, regenerative costume making, the enforcement of environmental laws and community-based conservation strategies. Finally, Igbo performance art (especially the masquerade) must undergo de-coincid-ental change that strikes balance between ecofriendliness in Southeast Nigeria and historical respect for ancestors. François Jullien's dé-coïncidence ideals provide a profound lens which indigenous Igbo performances could leverage on in the teeming search and yearning for post-humanist consciousness as planetary health assumes universal concern.

The study analyzes the unique phenomenon of one of the varieties of Petrykivka painting – paintings on paper, based on continuity with folk traditions of wall painting and ornamentation. Versions regarding the origin of Petrykivka painting are analyzed, using the example of the works of the master Pelageia Hlushchenko, and the techniques of using paintings and materials are described. The concept of the “ideal natural world“ in flower compositions is characterized. Petrykivka painting is inherently connected with folk traditions of paintings based on the convention of images and specific techniques of execution. The original appearance of such compositions is due to the use of egg tempera, which gives the effect of transparency of colours, homemade tools and techniques of the four basic strokes.

In her work, Zyta Rudzka shows the sphere of periphery, exclusion and the edges of human histories, both in individual and collective dimensions (World War II, fate of German women from post-war recovered territories, Jews at various historical moments, June 1956 in Poznań, March 1968, December 1970 events from the Gdańsk Shipyard, destinies of rural and working-class communities, the poor, the underprivileged and victims of the political and economic shifts of 1989). In the realm of Zyta Rudzka's literary creations, her main characters find themselves suspended, residing precariously on the fringes of reality's tapestry. She dares to cast a spotlight on negative aspects of existence, boldly elevating them to prominence. The hallmark of her characters' lives is a perpetual state of non-transition, lingering impermanence marked by uncertainty. Rudzka weaves enigmatic figures, whose nature is elusive, non-obvious and often disconcerting, capable of provoking extreme, frequently adverse emotions, yet paradoxically eliciting empathy and a slender strand of sympathy. These transgressive denizens of her prose and dramas remain stuck in the liminal zone. The way they are presented brings to mind the Derridean metaphor of the parergon. Rudzka employs a language rich in sensuality, veering from the brutally blunt to the elegantly poetic, as she introduces readers into borderline twisted worlds that defy categorization and escape simple narratives. What is important in the lives of the characters is what happens in the in-between – a world devoid of belonging, teetering on the precipice, caught in a suspended state, where ruptures, voids and the gradual erosion of identity hold sway.

The paper aims to present the criterion of art, which is the act of accepting the status of a work of art by the artist after the completion of the creative process. The analysis includes a distinction concerning the interpretation of a work of art as conducted in a diversified and multi-directional manner from a possible discussion about the issue of whether a given object or process is a work of art. The article contains a thesis about the impossibility of depriving a work of art of this status. The discussion refers to the concept of the creative activity, the reception process, the concept of Artworld and the institutional definition of art, recognizing the latter as too far-interfering with the nature of art and containing suggestions on relational understanding of a work of art.

The text describes Grzegorz Sztabinski's treatment of the topic of transcendence in his philosophical reflection on modern art and the interpretation of works, as well as in his own artistic work. In the first, largest part of the article, relevant fragments of the professor's most important publications are summarized and analyzed. They concern the place of transcendence among the tendencies to intellectualize art, in geometric abstraction and in art cultivating spirituality among "over-aesthetized" reality. Then, an artistic cycle with transcendence in its title is analyzed and interpreted. Finally, the professor’s ideas are applied to a contemporary exhibition on metaphysics. In this way, the sources and manner of Grzegorz Sztabiński's "aesthetic thinking" are shown alongside the possibility of its contemporary application.