video of the month #67: Spectrum
01 May - 30 June 2011
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| © Katarzyna Kozyra
Summertale, 2008
video 19.58 min
collection of Zacheta National Gallery of Art |
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VIDEO OF THE MONTH #67: SPECTRUM
From the Zachęta Video Collection
1 May - 30 June, 2011
Spectrum. From the Zachęta Video Collection - kuratiert von Anna Tomczak
The compilation of videos presented in the ursula blickle videolounge is
a selection of works from the Zachęta video collection. The thematic
screenings of videos form a kind of spectrum; in other words, a
specifically organized selection of phenomena and concepts analyzed by
the authors of the films. Outstanding artists of the young and middle
generation created this presentation of the newest video art in Poland.
The screenings that comprise the project Spectrum have been divided into
the following thematic blocks: sound, gender, social portrait and
roles. The technical conditions of the place of presentation partially
shaped the selection – the videos are one-channel projections, whose
theme and aesthetics made them appropriate to be shown in the proposed
form. These works were also chosen as an attempt to emphasize the range
of themes engaged in by Polish video artists. It shows both a
cross-section and the spectrum of problems relevant today in Polish art.
This should not be treated as a full picture, but rather as an overview
of Polish video art of the last two decades. The artists use a variety
of film techniques – from animation to the aesthetics of documentaries,
films or television (for example, reality shows). Through the medium of
the camera, they record the signs of the times in which they work.
Aufgeteilt in vier Screenings:
02.05.11 - 15.05.11: SOUND
Sound, music and silence – we hear them around ourselves, our daily
lives are played out in an audio-sphere determined by our own
physiological make-up and also the environment in which we live and
evolve. Only disturbance or a change focuses our attention on the
specificity of this sphere. Althamer invites a choir of professional
singers to jointly create an untypical audio background in the
labyrinths of the Moscow metro. Music helps the characters of Katarzyna
Kozyra’s fairy-tale Summertale communicate with one another and music
finally frees the unusual location of the film’s action as well as its
heroes from the spell cast over them. In contrast, Anna Niesterowicz’s
HH surprises the viewer with its total silence – by depriving the film
of a soundtrack, the viewer must concentrate on the gestures of the
dancing girls. Karol Radziszewski, in the work Praise the Flowery
Meadows, creates a duet: he records his singing, mixing it with songs
sung by his grandmother. Artur Żmijewski then records very different
sounds with a deaf choir.
Paweł Althamer, Chór w metrze moskiewskim / Choir in the Moscow Metro, 2004, video, 13.05min
Katrzyna Kozyra, Summertale, 2008, video 19.58 min
Anna Niesterowicz, HH¸ 2002, 9 min
Karol Radziszewski, Chwalcie łąki / Bless the Flowery Fields¸ 2007, 6.36 min
Artur Żmijewski, Lekcja śpiewu 2 / Singing Lesson 2, 2003, video, 16.3 min
16.05.11 - 29.05.11: GENDER
The issue of gender, as a set of features that are as much cultural as
physiological and as a defining instance in deciding a person’s social
functions, has become an object of artistic works. Anna Baumgart, for
example, returns to the former stereotypical depiction of women:
hysteria and ecstasy. Her work relates to the problem of the
auto-aggressive behavior of women that in the contemporary world has
become a signal of psychological problems; despair, expressed in the
language of the body – while still remaining a taboo subject. Aldona is
the portrait of a transsexual who tells of his/her life. Aldona’s day
also reveals the story of her transformation from a man into a
housewife, caring for her partner, her appearance and the home. In the
pop video Cheerleader, Katarzyna Kozyra comments on femininity as
created by American stereotypes. Julia Wójcik, in her turn, during a
performance recorded in Zachęta’s Mały Salon, refers to the feminist
manifesto-actions of the 1970s. The character HalfAWoman created by
Jacek Malinowski is a woman suffering from PDS (Pelvic Degeneration
Syndrome), as a result of which she has lost half her body. The use of
documentary conventions means that the viewer believes in this story
without reservation. Illness has made it impossible for the hero to
participate in a society, although she herself has no desire for this to
be the case.
Anna Baumgart, Ekstatyczki, histeryczki i inne święte / Ecstatics, Hysterics and other Saints, 2004, video, 11 min
Piotr Wysocki, Aldona¸ 2006, video, 15 min
Katarzyna Kozyra, Cheerleaderka / Cheerleader, 2006, videoclip, 4.3 min
Katarzyna Kozyra, Dzidy z serii chłopcy / Spears from the series Boys, 2001–2001, 5.20 min
Julita Wójcik, Obieranie ziemniaków / Peeling potatoes, 2001, video, 10.05 min
Jacek Malinowski, HalfAWoman, 2000, video, 12.4 min
30.05.11 - 12.06.11: ROLES
Taking on the role of a different character is not something that, in
the works presented, should be understood as remaining on the level of
an actor "playing” a director’s instructions. Instead, it results from
studio work and emotional experiences. In Marta Deskur’s work, children
turn into wild animals: they bark at the viewer, take up threatening
poses and strive for the associations provoked by the given animals.
Paweł Kruk, in preparing for his work Larger Than Life, watched many
interviews with Michael Jordan into order to play this figure more
fully: the text spoken by the artist are fragments of authentic
interviews by the sportsman, with care taken to repeat every gesture,
mimic or pause of the recited phrase as closely as possible. The master
of mystification, Robert Kuśmirowski, takes on the role of a cyclist who
cycles a given distance on a motionless bike. Artur Żmijewski in
Repetition refers to the famous Zimbardo experiment. Through this, he
demonstrates how human conduct is conditioned by particular social
functions and the behavioral clichés attributed to them. Joanna
Rajkowska, in collaboration with the Freedom Theatre, records actors
workshops. The participants are given the task of expressing the
emotions linked to the tense political situation in Jenin and the
participants’ social roles.
Marta Deskur, To jest Klara, a to jest Pico / This is Clara and This is Pico, 1998, video, 2.11 min, 4.39 min
Paweł Kruk, Większy niż życie/ Larger than life, 200, 9.3 min
Robert Kuśmirowski, Jazda godzinna na czas / One Hour Ride on Time, 2007, video
Artur Żmijewski, Powtórzenie / Repetition, 2005, video, 40.2 min
Joanna Rajkowska, Camping Jenin, 2008, video, 34.2 min
13.06.11 - 30.06.11: SOCIAL PORTRAIT
From details to a general view – thus, you could describe the strategies
used by artists creating social portraits. AZORRO’s Family is a staged
and over-exaggerated discussion between the members of a fictional
family. A lazy afternoon drifts by with them discussing contemporary art
and its classic artists. Unnatural dialogues on the theme of classic
works of contemporary art reveal the artifice of the family relations.
Bąkowski’s Spoken Movie is an anonymous portrait of a person and his
frustrations. The artist’s poetry uses specific language to express the
thoughts of a participant in a gray and repetitive daily life. Alicja
Karska’s Space design and organisation, however, is a portrait of a
place – the artist returns to the ruins of a hotel; through a rhythmic
choreography, she recreates the routines of service: the uniforms,
repetitive movements and continually the same retrodden paths. In a
similar way, Julita Wójcik’s film Idyll concentrates the viewer’s
attention on a place. The work presents the artist lying on the grass in
the sun against an industrial background with the smoking chimneys of
factories creating a worrying scar on the overall view. The artistic
group WUNDERTEAM, in their turn, portrays the homeless guard of the
Magdalena Abakanowicz statue at the Citadel in Poznań. The comments of
the film’s hero create an image of the people who view art in public
space and lead to a wider reflection concerning the status of a work of
art in today’s society.
Wojciech Bąkowski, Film mówiony 3/ Spoken Movie 3, 2004, video, 9.41 min
AZORRO, Rodzina / Family, 2004, video, 9.15 min
Alicja Karska, Projektowanie i organizacja przestrzeni / Space design and organisation, 2002, video, 9.1 min
Julita Wójcik, Sielanka / Idyll, 2004, video, 3.55 min
WUNDERTEAM, Przyczepa / RV, 2005, video, 11.16 min
Zachęta is an institution whose roots date back to the mid 19th century
(as the Zachęta Fine Arts’ Society) and whose mission, both then and
now, is promoting contemporary art, albeit understood rather differently
in different epochs. Zachęta possesses a collection of contemporary
art, whose particular character has been formed because of the
historical changes in Poland that the gallery has both witnessed and
participated in. After the World War II, the National Museum received
the enormous collections of Polish art gathered by the Zachęta Society
of the Fine Arts during the 19th century. The Zachęta Society was also
replaced by the Central Bureau of Artistic Exhibitions, an institution
designed to realize the state’s cultural politics through the purchase
of artworks (during real socialism, the state, as the only patron,
purchased works from artists on a broad scale). This collection, uneven
from an artistic perspective but fascinating from a political one, has
been systematized and transformed into a genuine collection by the
Zachęta team only after the 1990s. After the change of system in 1989,
the Ministry of Culture supported Zachęta’s transformation into a
national gallery with an autonomous program and the potential to
independently purchase works for the collection.
The video collection was begun at the end of the 1990s. Zachęta has
co-produced some of the newest videos added to the collection. Some were
made for exhibitions and projects organized by the gallery in Poland
and overseas (such as the Venice Biennale).
www.kunsthallewien.at
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