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In the foreground - documentation of Teresa Murak's performance piece ZASIEW / SOWING, 1996-2001; in the background - Natalia LL, SZTUKA KONSUMPCYJNA / CONSUMER ART, 1975, photograph |
A long-awaited permanent exhibition of the International Collection of Contemporary Art opened recently at the Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle (CCA) in Warsaw. Although continuous in nature, the exhibit is hardly destined for stagnation as organizers foresee modifying it at intervals and expanding it to include new acquisitions. The collection will react in a timely and lively manner to the new phenomena that appear on the world art scene.
The opening of the exhibit is indubitably an artistic event of significance as it is the only such extensive and permanent presentation of contemporary art in Poland. In the 1930s artists linked to Jan Brzekowski (1903-1983) created an international collection of what at that time were the works of the avant-garde (later deposited with the Museum of Art in Lodz). Poland has been waiting since that time for the creation of a museum of contemporary art. Recent designs for a museum in Warsaw devoted exclusively to contemporary art by Anda Rottenberg, former director of Warsaw's Zacheta Contemporary Art Gallery, also fell through. For years art collections based in Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow, and Wroclaw have not reflected the variety of new artistic phenomena that have surfaced on either the Polish or international art scene. Deprived of government subsidies for new acquisitions, museums are left to rely on occasional donations and deposits.
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Richard Long, KAMIENNE KOLO / STONE CIRCLE, 1977, installation - rocks. In the background the paintings of Tomasz Ciecierski |
The current exhibition at Ujazdowski Castle was preceded by three temporary presentations of parts of the CCA's collection, titled in order "Kolekcja" / "Collection" (1992), "Kolekcja II" / "Collection II" (1994-1995), and "Kolekcja III" / "Collection III" (1996-1997). Currently the Centre's international collection - some 10 years after it was first created with only a handful of works - includes approximately 600 pieces by 133 artists. On view at present are 98 different works by 76 artists.
Exhibition curator Wojciech Krukowski (who is also the director of the CCA) has divided the works according to the themes they touch upon and distributed them between a series of spaces. The first section of the exhibit consists of pieces created in the 1960s - a time when art broke free of established categories delineated by the succession of styles. Conceptualism, a genre that arose during these years, is something a reference point here. With examples of this movement, Krukowski begins his narrative about art after World War II.
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Pawel Althamer, POSTAC STOJACA / STANDING FIGURE, 1991, grass, wicker, animal hides |
The second section of the exhibit presents the works of artists interested in nature and the environment, whose pieces very much fall within the genre of Land Art. Artists represented in this section include Tomasz Ciecierski, Teresa Murak, David Nash, Leon Tarasewicz, Dennis Oppenheim, and Ursula von Ridingsvard.
Subsequent rooms contain works that reflect their creators' focus on the condition of man and his social determination. Represented artists include Edward Dwurnik, Katarzyna Kozyra, and Zofia Kulik.
Other sections of the exhibit are devoted to public art as exemplified in the works of Pawel Althamer, Christian Boltanski, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, and Krzysztof Wodiczko, and art that tackles issues of human corporality and the body, manifested in the works Zuzanna Janin, Oleg Kulig, and Artur Zmijewski among others.
The deeper one penetrates into the exhibition space, the more the focus seems to shift towards works that express a new awareness of art and strive incessantly to push the boundaries of convention. Evident here is a departure from creating material objects in favor of works that are actions, manifestations, and happenings. Works in this section are by Jerzy Beres, Zbigniew Warpechowski, and Janusz Baldyga.
Much attention has also been given to various manifestations of Conceptualism. Alongside pieces by classics of the genre like Andrzej Dluzniewski, Dennis Oppenheim, and Emmet Williams, a separate room is occupied by The Corridor of Two Banalities, an installation prepared especially for the CCA by Ilya Kabakov and Joseph Kosuth.
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Jaroslaw Modzelewski, HYGENE / HYGIENE, 1990, acrylic on canvas |
The exhibition also aptly reflects the incredible variety inherent in art created over the past twenty years. Apart from paintings by Jaroslaw Modzelewski and Marek Sobczyk, members the Gruppa group (a Warsaw-based artistic formation which operated between 1983 and 1989), we have on view works by such artists as Marek Kijewski, Joanna Rajkowska, Dominik Lejman, Izabela Gustowska, and Robert Maciejuk.
Rounding out the collection is a series of pieces whose essential characteristic is their focus on issues of identity, memory, time, and infinity. This section includes works by Andrzej Szewczyk, Miroslaw Balka, and Michelangello Pistoletto.
Opening simultaneously with the CCA's collection was an exhibition of works on deposit with the Foksal Gallery. Foksal has for years been, and remains to this day, one of Poland's most important contemporary art galleries. This juxtaposition of two collections highlights the different approaches to collecting art apparent in each. Foksal Gallery director Wieslaw Borowski underlines that "Creating a Foksal collection was not one of the gallery's objectives. We were interested more in the ephemeral and transitory nature of the artwork, oftentimes reduced to a single showing or installation." The staff of the gallery made every effort to break with the traditional understanding of the artwork as something that builds the prestige of a venue. This type of art, exhibited in a museum space, becomes "institutionalized."
The Foksal Deposit as presented at the CCA includes works by more than a dozen artists who have worked with the gallery, including Henryk Stazewski (viewed as the senior member of the Polish avant-garde), Edward Krasinski, Koji Kamoji, Maria Stangret, Christian Boltanski and Anette Messager, and Miroslaw Balka. The more ephemeral projects realized at or under the patronage of the Foksal Gallery, including Tadeusz Kantor's happening "Wszystko wisi na wlosku / Everything is Hanging by a Hair", Daniel Buren's "Miejsce, gdy ma to miejsce / Place, When It Takes Place", and Pawel Althamer's "Bródno 2000" project, are represented in photographs.
The Foksal Gallery Deposit will remain on view through February 28, 2002.
Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle
(Centrum Sztuki Wspólczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski)
Al. Ujazdowskie 6, Warsaw
tel. (+48 22) 628 12 71-73
csw.art.pl