The first weekend of autumn marks the beginning of the artistic season. There's no better time to get to know the artists and curators, visit galleries, discuss and immerse oneself in artistic life.
Warsaw Gallery Weekend brings together all the actors of the industry: experts, enthusiasts of contemporary art and those looking for alternative routes on the cultural map of Warsaw. The event's exhaustive programme brings into clarity the currents and trends of visual art. Tradition and the classics also found their deserved place.
Released for the 4th edition of the Warsaw Gallery Weekend is a review by Dwutygodnik about art and more. It will be sold in all the participating galleries and Empik stores.
Foksal Gallery Foundation
Jakub Julian Ziółkowski, "Untitled", 2013 oil on canvas, 80 x 88 cm, Fundacja Galerii Foksal, photo WGW
For three days, Foksal Gallery Foundation is moving to the new – still unopened – building of the Academy of Fine Arts on Wybrzeże Kościuszkowske. The building was designed by JEMS Architects. Close to 200 paintings by Jakub Julian Ziółkowski will be on display in a specially designed wooden structure. The exhibition was set up by Andreas Angelidakis, known for the project Crash Pad at the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art 2014. An essay commenting on the Ziółkowski exhibition was written by professor of psychology Bartłomiej Dobroczyński.
Raster Gallery
Aneta Grzeszykowska, "Selfie", Galeria Raster, photo WGW
Raster Gallery (Wspólna 63) presents an exhibition by Aneta Grzeszykowska under the catchy title of Selfie. The artist, who obsessively breaks her image down into parts and disappears altogether or takes on an entirely different persona, presents here works of photography and sculpture. The life-size models of parts of her body are made of pig skin.
Aleksander Bruno
"Fifth force" exhibition 2013, Galeria Aleksander Bruno, photo WGW
Aleksander Bruno Gallery (Bracka 3/1a) celebrates its first birthday during the Warsaw Gallery Weekend. They exhibit Agnieszka Brzeżańska's Homeland.
lokal_30
Zuzanna Janin, "Seven fathers" (Leszek),lokal_30, photo WGW
The exhibition Seven Fathers by Zuzanna Janin is a review of her artistic output since the early 90s. Her first individual exhibition at lokalu_30 (Wilcza 29a/12), a gallery which she co-founded, is a presentation of her sculptures. The works Dron (2014) and Seven Fathers (2014), reveal the mentors, authorities and men who played important, though not just positive, parts in her life. Also to be found at the exhibition is the video End. Chapter 1. Journey to fear (2013), created during Janin's trip to remote parts of Russia undertaken in solidarity with the imprisoned members of Pussy Riot and following in the footsteps of Janin's ancestors.
Monopol Gallery
"Nine Nameless Mountains" exhibition, Galeria Monopol, photo Paweł Grześ / WGW
The exhibition W tobie jest moje szczęście, że mnie jeszcze nie znasz in one of the youngest galleries of Warsaw reflects on two legendary figures of Polish neo-avant garde: Andrzej Partum and Zbigniew Warpechowski, a precursor of performative art in Poland and the world. What brings the two together is not only a desire to cross the borders of art and experience it directly and completely, but also their lifelong friendship. These links are explored by Roman Dziadkiewicz at Monopol gallery (Al. Jerozolimskie 117).
BWA Warszawa
Olga Mokrzycka-Grospierre, "A Glass Shard in the Eye", 2014, BWA Warszawa, photoWGW
BWA Warszawa (Jakubowska 16) presents an exhibition by the married couple Olga Mokrzycka and Nicolas Grospierre. She is a painter and set designer, often collaborating with the New Theatre in Warsaw. He is a photographer, one of the most well-known Polish artists of his generation, winner of Polityka Magazine's Passport award and the Golden Lion at the Architecture Biennial in Venice. They have been creating joint projects for nearly a decade. Their work for the A Glass Shard in the Eye exhibition revolves around a common theme - crystals.
Dawid Radziszewski Gallery
Dawid Radziszewski gallery (Krochmalna 3) presents the work of a young abstract painter from Krakow. The exhibition's curators comment, "Using a Latin term, Krzysztof Mężyk calls his art qualia, referring to the intuitive properties of subjective sensory experiences that cannot be expressed in conceptual language".
Stereo Gallery
Piotr Łakomy, "Untitled", Galeria Stereo, photo WGW
The exhibition Tomorrow Will Be Smaller by artist and curator Piotr Łakomy at Galeria Stereo (Miedziana 11) displays "the broad spectrum of painting - installations and objects which Piotr Łakomy often places in public space"– writes Ewa Gorządek on Culture.pl.
Le Guern Gallery
Natalia Załuska, "Untitled", 2013, mixed technique on canvas, 150 x 120 cm, Galeria Le Guern, photo Elsa Okazaki / WGW
Le Guern Gallery (Widok 8) presents an exhibition by Natalia Załuska The Mechanism of Small Changes. The young artist was raised in Krakow and currently works and lives in Vienna.
Profile Foundation
Irena Kalicka, from the series "Gossebumps", 2014, photograph, 100 x 100 cm, Fundacja Profile, photo WGW
Irena Kalicka's new photography series Goosebumps is on show at Fundacja Profile (Franciszkańska 6). White geese and people wearing white dresses pose as if for wedding photos. But Kalicka’s brides are usually not maidens at all...
M2 Gallery
Kamil Kuskowski, "Insult 1" (procekt), 2014 from the series "Insults Portrayed", acrylic, canvas; 50 x 80 cm, Galeria „m²”, photo WGW
The author of the m2 gallery (Oleandrów 6) exhibition Insults Portrayed Kamil Kuskowski recently made headlines not because of his art or lectures at the Academy of Fine Art in Szczecin but because of a legal case against him. Kuskowski and his friend Agata Zbylut offended the directors of the Trafostacja Sztuki contemporary art centre in Szczecin and were found guilty by the court of spreading false information.
Lookout Gallery
Andrzej Świetlik, "Camel Light", 1995, photo Lookout Gallery, WGW
Andrzej Świetlik was brought to fame with the artistic neo-avant garde group Łódź Kaliska. The Lookout Gallery (Puławska 41/22) exhibition Artists Did Try To Come, Willingly shows another side of Świetlik – photographic portraits used for advertising. The work reveals the changed nature of commercial portraits which today restrains the liberty of artists. Świetlik's work is itself a portrait of an altered industry which once put icons of pop culture and other protagonists in the limelight.
Fundacja Arton
Wojciech Bruszewski, installation, 2013, "Across Realities", Fundacja Arton, photo WGW
The exhibition Across Realities at Fundacja Arton (Mińska 25, Soho Factory) brings to light the work of Wojciech Bruszewski, a pioneer of video art in Poland and Mateusz Sadowski, a young artist from Poznań. The exhibition is the result of the foundation's two years of work on Bruszewski's private archive. They managed to reconstruct a part of the artist's lost work, among others, the installation Outside (1974-75).
Piktogram/BLA
Tomek Saciłowski "Untitled", 2014, 94,5 x 190 cm, Piktogram, photo WGW
Piktogram gallery (Mińska 25, Soho Factory) presents a joint exhibition titled Zombie Formalism. The featured artists are Szymon Małecki, Tomek Saciłowski, Jacek Sempoliński, and Kajetan Sosnowski.
Asymetria Gallery
Marek Piasecki, "Mianitury", 1950-1960, mixed technique, 6,4 x 9,3 cm, Asymetria, photo WGW
Exhibited at Galeria Asymetria (Jakubowska 16) are works by Marek Piasecki: The Miniatures and
Roger Ballen: The Apparitions. The gallery is the first Polish art gallery with a display of Polish artistic and historical photography.
Czułość
Janek Zamoyski, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", 2014, photograph of the exhibition, Czułość, photo WGW
Czułość is famous for having changed its address several times. Now located at Widok 5/7/9, the gallery presents works by young artists: Nampei Akaki, Franciszek Buchner, Paweł Eibel, Stanisław Legus, Weronika Ławniczak, Witek Orski, Johann Winkelmann, Vova Vorotniov, and Janek Zamoyski, co-founder of Czułośc.
Starter Gallery
Mikolaj Moskal, "Sunrise-Sunset", visualisation of the sculpture, 2014, Galeria Starter, photo K. Iwańska / WGW
Starter Gallery (Andersa 13 and Autor Rooms at Mamastudio Lwowska street 17/7) brings Sunrise to the public – an exhibition commenting on the large format sculpture by Mikołaj Moskal which will appear on a street in Warsaw in the near future. It will be made of abstract geometrical forms and rays of sun. Other works related to the sunrise were made by Bownik and Marcelina Gunia, Alicja Bielawska, Michał Grochowiak, Magdalena Karpińska, Agnieszka Grodzińska, Janusz Łukowicz, and Anna Zaradny.
Archeology of Photography Foundation
"American trick. Multiphotographs from the Collection of Ewa Franczak and Stefan Okołowicz", Archeology of Photography Foundation, photo WGW
The Archeology of Photography Foundation (Andersa 13) presents American Trick. Multiphotographs from the Collection of Ewa Franczak and Stefan Okołowicz. Multiple portraiture, associated in Poland mostly with the archives of Marcel Duchamp and Witkacy, was one of the most popular photographic pastimes in the early 20th century. Private collections and home archives still hide photographs with the multiplied images of models. The Russians called it the “American trick,” while the Americans referred to it as multiphotography. It arrived to Poland thanks to Witkacy, who brought the idea from St. Petersburg. The Archeology of Photography Foundation presents a unique collection of multiphotography from around the world, many of unknown authorship, belonging to Ewa Franczak and Stefan Okołowicz. The exhibition features an attraction: a multiphotography booth for visitors to take their own photographs.
Leto
Konrad Smoleński, "It’s on", 2012, Galeria Leto, photo Bartosz Górka / WGW
Leto's (Mińska 25, Soho Factory) addition to the Warsaw Gallery Weekend is the collective exhibition Touched For The Very First Time featuring works by young artists: Aleksandra Chciuk, Kaja Dobrowolska, Łukasz Kuś, Łukasz Filak, Andac Karabeyoglu, Magdalena Kulak, Paweł Jóźwicki, Kajetan Pluis and Katarzyna Parejko.
Pola Magnetyczne
Antje Majewski, "Połamana muszla" from the workshop of Jeanne Mammen, 2013, oil on wood, 48,7 x 73,9 cm © Antje Majewski, Pola magnetyczne, photo courtesy of the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin / WGW
Pola Magnetyczne gallery (Londyńska 13) shows The Museum in the Garage by German artist Antje Majewski based on a text by Sebastian Cichocki (curator at the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw). Cichocki tells stories from the end of World War II in which a young man with the initials S.R. (Robert Smithson) is creating a collection at the Earth Museum.
Propaganda
Gurdun Kampl, Propaganda, photo © Anne Greuzat 2014 / WGW
Skin is a solo exhibition by the Austrian artist Gudrun Kampl which shows a world which has two sides: soft and pleasant on the outside, bloody and dirty on the inside. Most of the works are made of smooth velvet ― the artist’s favourite material.
SVIT Gallery
Photo of the exhibition "Nova sin Coming to Reality", 2014, SVIT , photo WGW
The Prague-based SVIT gallery is the first foreign gallery to take part in the Warsaw Gallery Weekend. The exhibition on display is Universe by Austrian artist Erwin Kneihsl. The building at Aleje Jerozolimskie 51 which hosts the exhibition is home to Europe's oldest Kaiserpanorama.
Side events
Important Warsaw institutions have prepared a rich programme of side events for the Warsaw Gallery Weekend. Among others, a performance by Zbigniew Warpechowski at the Zachęta Gallery of Art opening, the release of an album by Zuzanna Janin (published by ArtBazaar), a debate about creating collections organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Wieża - an opera by Karolina Breguła and Eli Orleans and a review of films at the Museum of Modern Art. Additionally there will be workshops for children at the National Museum and guided tours around the galleries.
Author: Agnieszka Sural, translator MJ 23/09/2014