Group exhibition:
ID: E20.5
Title:
All of Poland.
The Journey to the Source of Art
(Non-institutional
Art Spaces in Poland).
Vol. 2
︎
Date:
June 5 — August 22, 2020
Place:
Gdańska Galeria Miejska, Gdansk, Poland
Curator:
Anna Mituś
Artists:
9/10 (Jakub Borkowicz and invited artists: Ula Lucińska and Michał Knychaus, or Inside Job), Centrum Centrum (Łukasz Jastrubczak and Małgorzata Mazur), Radzionków Gallery (Maciej Cholewa), CSW Wiewiórka (Cecylia Malik and Bartolomeo Koczenasz), Domie (Katarzyna Wojtczak and Martyna Miller), Elementarz dla mieszkańców miast (Arkadiusz Półtorak, Martyna Nowicka and invited artists Mikołaj Małek and Leona Jacewska), Czynna Gallery (Łukasz Ogórek, Marcin Polak, Tomasz Załuski and invited artist Paweł Kowzan), Komputer Gallery (Łukasz Radziszewski, Szymon Kaniewski, guest artist Bartosz Zaskórski, Piotr Marzec), Groszowe sprawy (Maja Demska), Jak zapomnieć (Karolina Jarzębak, Tomek Nowak, Arek Dec), JEST (Agata Lankamer, Iza Opiełka, Magdalena Kanawka, Krzysztof Latarowski, Piotr Bzdęga), Kalektar.org (Sergey Shabohin), Latarnia Górska (Konrad Brynda, Piotr Bujas, Paweł Krzaczkowski, Katarzyna Szumska), Łęctwo (Przemek Sowiński and invited artists Grzegorz Bożek, Agnieszka Grodzińska, Paweł Marcinek, Przemysław Piniak, Zuza Piekoszewska, Paweł Szostak), Obrońców Stalingradu 17 Gallery (the gallery team and invited artists Rafał Pietrusewicz, Iga Świeściak, Grażyna Monika Olszewska), Potencja (Karolina Jabłońska, Tomasz Kręcicki, Cyryl Polaczek), Pracownia Portretu (Katarzyna Stańczak, Maciej Łuczak and invited artist Jakob Forster), Żurnal Zin (Emilia Bocianowska, Nico Carmandaye, Anna Maria Koronkiewicz)
With the special participation of Tri-City initiatives: Gnojki, Instytut Cybernetyki Sztuki (Marek Rogulski), Kolonia Artystów (Sylwester Gałuszka), Kolonia Teraz Artists’ Foundation (Alicja Jelińska, Mikołaj Jurkowski), Tajna Gallery (Marcin Zawicki), Wolne Pokoje (Marta Koniarska, Basia Nawrocka), UL Gallery (Piotr Mosur, Piotr Mańczak)
With the special participation of Tri-City initiatives: Gnojki, Instytut Cybernetyki Sztuki (Marek Rogulski), Kolonia Artystów (Sylwester Gałuszka), Kolonia Teraz Artists’ Foundation (Alicja Jelińska, Mikołaj Jurkowski), Tajna Gallery (Marcin Zawicki), Wolne Pokoje (Marta Koniarska, Basia Nawrocka), UL Gallery (Piotr Mosur, Piotr Mańczak)
Work:
Information wallpapers Kalektar.org
Sergey Shabohin:
information wallpapers Kalektar.org,
2019
information wallpapers Kalektar.org,
2019
Explication:
The curator wishes to thank the following curators and artists for their recommendations: Monika Drożyńska, Ewa Tatar, Inside Job, Aleksandra Kołodziej, Joanna Rzepka-Dziedzic, Łukasz Dziedzic, Zorka Wollny, Adam Witkowski and Anna Witkowska, Anna Orlikowska, Ewa Łączyńska-Widz, Maryna Tomaszewska, Paweł Kowzan, Katarzyna and Stach Szumski, Piotr Stasiowski.
Public institutions of modern art are currently going through a crisis related not only to the new economic censorship, but also to the accusations of elitism on the one hand and involvement with mass culture mechanisms on the other. Governed by the politics of spectacle, the institutions whose existence depends politically and financially on the number of visitors often trade attendance rates for media-publicised names. Consequently, they tend to lose their truly critical creative potential, which is now moving to private intimate institutions, galleries run by artists and off-the-clock freelance curators. The last such serious erosion of trust in mainstream and public media communications was witnessed during the martial law in Poland in the early 1980s. At that time, in the wake of spiritual elation art curators, critics and theoreticians set off for journeys referred to as “pilgrimages”, visiting studios and art school departments in various cities to look for what could have been censored by the official accounts.
Perception of art nowadays is to a large extent perception of its media image. Studies have shown that only a small percentage of people who claim to be culture participants visit galleries or artists’ studios or meet the artists themselves. This applies even to curators who must often rely on their intuition, initiative, travel budget and coopetitive contact network. Hence the idea of reconstructing the seemingly outdated ways and tools for recognising the most active artistic areas and milieus, while avoiding strict distinctions between disciplines and genres of the practiced art.
The All of Poland exhibition was born out of telephone calls, numerous meetings in small towns, gardens, building sites and other places where the heart of the Polish art beats. The objective was to check and compare what we know from “media”, “the net” and the institutional channels with what is being created directly in social practices, during meetings, talks, and eye-to-eye contacts.
For that reason, we decided to travel around Poland and see for ourselves how art of 2010s/2020s is made and in what circumstances. This exhibition would not have been possible without new contacts and without listening to numerous recommendations, learning the perspectives of local connoisseurs, without rejection of the fear of surprises, or without accepting one’s own locality. In the end, we are always alone in our individual reception of art and our cognition has no physical limitations. No location is privileged in the post-geographic world.
All of Poland is therefore a provoking title without undue aspirations. It merely indicates the extent of the area which in reality cannot be comprised by any exhibition. Gdańsk and the Tri-City represent a unique space in the symbolic map of Poland, with long tradition of collective efforts and self-organisation, giving rise to such well-known and reputable institutions as Instytut Sztuki Wyspa (Wyspa Institute of Art) or its festival Alternativa.
The Gdańsk edition of the exhibition, created at the invitation of and in collaboration with the Gdańsk City Gallery, would not be complete without some of the Tri-City’s non-institutional initiatives, including the ones by Marek Rogulski as the continuator of the transgressional spirit of Totart and continuously active experimental groups, and his Instytut Cybernetyki Sztuki (Institute of Cybernetics of Art). Other contributors include Kolonia Artystów (Colony of Artists), or one of the longest active artist-run spaces in the Tri-City, Kolonia Teraz Artists’ Foundation, Tajna Gallery, Wolne Pokoje, UL Gallery and Gnojki. At the exhibition, Tri-City non-institutional art spaces will be marked on a special “map”; their actual contribution to the exhibition will be in form of a special events program.
- - -
The exhibition is accompanied by the book by Maryna Tomaszewska Kuratorzy (Curators). The book is an attempt at understanding the role of curators, the mythical promoters and first recipients of art, often treated with caution by the artists themselves and rarely noticed by mass art consumers. The publication is a humorous counterpoint to the exhibition in which the curator’s authority is actually put on hold. In this way, Tomaszewska’s project questions the ostensibly elitist character of the curator’s profession and opens space for discussion on the status of and the need for this function today.
Public institutions of modern art are currently going through a crisis related not only to the new economic censorship, but also to the accusations of elitism on the one hand and involvement with mass culture mechanisms on the other. Governed by the politics of spectacle, the institutions whose existence depends politically and financially on the number of visitors often trade attendance rates for media-publicised names. Consequently, they tend to lose their truly critical creative potential, which is now moving to private intimate institutions, galleries run by artists and off-the-clock freelance curators. The last such serious erosion of trust in mainstream and public media communications was witnessed during the martial law in Poland in the early 1980s. At that time, in the wake of spiritual elation art curators, critics and theoreticians set off for journeys referred to as “pilgrimages”, visiting studios and art school departments in various cities to look for what could have been censored by the official accounts.
Perception of art nowadays is to a large extent perception of its media image. Studies have shown that only a small percentage of people who claim to be culture participants visit galleries or artists’ studios or meet the artists themselves. This applies even to curators who must often rely on their intuition, initiative, travel budget and coopetitive contact network. Hence the idea of reconstructing the seemingly outdated ways and tools for recognising the most active artistic areas and milieus, while avoiding strict distinctions between disciplines and genres of the practiced art.
The All of Poland exhibition was born out of telephone calls, numerous meetings in small towns, gardens, building sites and other places where the heart of the Polish art beats. The objective was to check and compare what we know from “media”, “the net” and the institutional channels with what is being created directly in social practices, during meetings, talks, and eye-to-eye contacts.
For that reason, we decided to travel around Poland and see for ourselves how art of 2010s/2020s is made and in what circumstances. This exhibition would not have been possible without new contacts and without listening to numerous recommendations, learning the perspectives of local connoisseurs, without rejection of the fear of surprises, or without accepting one’s own locality. In the end, we are always alone in our individual reception of art and our cognition has no physical limitations. No location is privileged in the post-geographic world.
All of Poland is therefore a provoking title without undue aspirations. It merely indicates the extent of the area which in reality cannot be comprised by any exhibition. Gdańsk and the Tri-City represent a unique space in the symbolic map of Poland, with long tradition of collective efforts and self-organisation, giving rise to such well-known and reputable institutions as Instytut Sztuki Wyspa (Wyspa Institute of Art) or its festival Alternativa.
The Gdańsk edition of the exhibition, created at the invitation of and in collaboration with the Gdańsk City Gallery, would not be complete without some of the Tri-City’s non-institutional initiatives, including the ones by Marek Rogulski as the continuator of the transgressional spirit of Totart and continuously active experimental groups, and his Instytut Cybernetyki Sztuki (Institute of Cybernetics of Art). Other contributors include Kolonia Artystów (Colony of Artists), or one of the longest active artist-run spaces in the Tri-City, Kolonia Teraz Artists’ Foundation, Tajna Gallery, Wolne Pokoje, UL Gallery and Gnojki. At the exhibition, Tri-City non-institutional art spaces will be marked on a special “map”; their actual contribution to the exhibition will be in form of a special events program.
- - -
The exhibition is accompanied by the book by Maryna Tomaszewska Kuratorzy (Curators). The book is an attempt at understanding the role of curators, the mythical promoters and first recipients of art, often treated with caution by the artists themselves and rarely noticed by mass art consumers. The publication is a humorous counterpoint to the exhibition in which the curator’s authority is actually put on hold. In this way, Tomaszewska’s project questions the ostensibly elitist character of the curator’s profession and opens space for discussion on the status of and the need for this function today.
Link: