The title of the project - Making the walls quake as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge of great powers - is drawn from a quote from Charles Dickens' novel Dombey and Son, essentially a commentary on the impending chaos of modernity and industrial progress. The work fits in with curatorial director David Chipperfield's theme for this year's edition - Common Ground, which aims to "celebrate a vital, interconnected architectural culture, and pose questions about the intellectual and physical territories that it shares". Krakowiak's plans for the Polish Pavilion are interlinked with the projects of other international artists who present their individual views on the "common ground" of architectural spaces.
Together with curator Michał Libera, Krakowiak transforms the pavilion space into a vibrating structure of sound that picks up on the noise generated by neighbouring pavilions (Egypt, Serbia, Venice, Romania) via microphones installed in the floors and ventilation, heating and sewage systems. Visitors can "eavesdrop" on all the different sounds emitted from these other pavilions as evidence of the typical workings of the building and human activity, heightened by the effects of speaker systems, mixers and amplifiers. The intimacy of personal space is broken down by making all types of sounds available to a larger public, no matter how unpleasant, uncomfortable or plain embarrassing.
The role of sound within the context of architecture is highly relevant and conversation on the topic is a lively one - as anyone with the misfortune to experience thin walls and noisy neighbours knows too well. Architecture is meant to absorb and filter sound, but also to transmit it when necessary. The true nature of this process is challenged and examined by amplifying everyday noise to a level that makes it impossible to ignore. "There aren't really any revolutionary solutions in our project, as it turned out, simply calling attention to sound is revolutionary in itself," remarks Libera.
At the same time, the Polish Pavilion itself will be subject to a mapping of its acoustic properties through sound, highlighting the flaws of the building, to measure the vibrations that rattle through the building almost imperceptibly through seismic instruments and to enhance the psychoacoustic sensations experienced by its visitors. In essence, the project aims to explore how architectural practices in the realm of sound impact the experience of space in the physical, social and psychological sense.
Katarzyna Krakowiak (born 1980) has founded her artistic education on graphic arts and design, but her practice is based in great measure on sound art. Yet she sees herself rather as a sculptor. As she says, "I have a need for great gestures, gestures created with mastery. (...) I am interested in space and working on monumental, imperceptible forms". Her approach to form was influenced by her mentor, the artist Mirosław Bałka (her professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań), for whom she worked as an assistant for several years. For Krakowiak, architecture is the ideal context for working with such large-scale sculptural forms - a scale that is virtually limitless, particularly when combined with the monumental, boundless quality of sound. Krakowiak's earlier projects include solo shows Who Owns the Air? at the Foksal Gallery (Warsaw, 2011), Game and Theory at the South London Gallery (London, 2009), as well as part of group exhibitions at the KUMU Museum (Tallinn, 2011) and HMKV (Dortmund, 2011). In 2007 she completed an internship at the Architecture Foundation in London. Since 2011 she has been working at the Studio Urban Interior Design (Department of Interior Design) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk (in collaboration with Jacek Dominiczak).
Michał Libera (born 1979) is a sociologist, producer, curator, and music critic. He is the co-founder of 4.99 Foundation and co-producer of a series of albums devoted to the Polish Radio Experimental Studio and released by Bôłt Records, as well as the conceptual-pop album series Populista. He has collaborated with Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Centre of Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, National Museum (Królikarnia) in Warsaw. His critical texts have appeared in major art publications in Poland and a collection of his writings will be published later this year by Krytyka Polityczna.
The installation at the Polish Pavilion in Venice is accompanied by a multidisciplinary reader on sound, space and architecture with texts selected by Lidia Klein and the curator of the exhibition, Michał Libera and designed by Czosnek Studio. The book features an interview with Katarzyna Krakowiak, contributions by the curator, the editors, as well as a selection of theoretical analyses, essays, poems and music scores by Mark Bain, Karin Bijsterveld, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Francis Bacon, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Steve Goodman, Bohumil Hrabal, Branden Wayne Joseph, Eric La Casa, Bernhard Leitner, Francisco López and Klaus Schuwerk, Alvin Lucier, Florence McLandburgh, John L. Locke, Max Neuhaus, Georges Perec, Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Bruce R. Smith, Jonathan Sterne, Georges Teyssot, Emily Thompson, Thomas Tilly and Jean-Luc Guionnet, Lamberto Tronchin, Shelley Trower, Toshiya Tsunoda, David Toop and Paweł Mościcki.
Making the walls quake as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge of great powers is on at the Polish Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice between the 29th of August - 25th of November 2012 (press preview 27.08&28.08). The project has been made possible thanks to the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland. Exhibition organiser of the Polish Pavilion: Zachęta National Gallery of Art in cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Curatorial director: David Chipperfield
Commissioner of the Polish Pavilion: Hanna Wróblewska
Commissioner assistant: Joanna Waśko
Sound design: Ralf Meinz
Room acoustics: Andrzej Kłosak
For more information, see: www.labiennale.art.pl, www.labiennale.org, www.zacheta.art.pl
Author: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Venice International Architecture Biennale, own sources
Thumbnail credit: "Simulation of wave propagation (horizontal plane)", 2012, part of the acoustic model by Andrzej Kłosak © Katarzyna Krakowiak