Wilhelm Sasnal, Andrzej Tobis and Wojciech Kucharczyk are among the 50 artists at Erinnerung an Arbeit, taking their cues from the relics of the high-intensity industrial age - from the machines to the very character of the mine and metal works, along with all the fruits of applied labour, such as coal and steel. The show links the industrial heritage and the culture built up around it in both Germany's Ruhr and Poland's Upper Silesian regions. The former Zollverein mine sets the stage for an exhibition of photographs, video works, sculptures and installations.
Featured projects include Jadwiga Kocur's Two-headed Dragon - a documentary film on German-Polish history of Upper Silesia and Wilhelm Sasnal's film In the Mine, the Women at Work Sorting Coal series by Thomasa Vossbeck and Anke Illing and Richard Ortmann's interviews with women workers. Piotr Wójcik's Bytom Karb - Memories of the Demolishing of Miners' Houses and Sławomir Rumiak's video works depict the ungainly fall of the industrial age. Andrzej Tobis' Polish-Germany dictionary dips into theshared folklore of the cross-border dialects of Germany and Poland.
Another part of the show features drawings by amateur artists from Silesia made using coal smudges. The exhibition itself draws its name from Stephan Stroux's film Erinnerung an Arbeit.
The project is part of the Klopsztanga 2012 cultural programme promoting Polish culture across Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia and German-Polish relations through the arts. It was made possible thanks to the support of Stephana Strouxa, Stiftung Zollverein and Ars Cameralis Silesiae Superioris, as well as the Kunststiftung NRW, Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Silesian Voivodship.
The exhibition runs between the 16th of May - 30th of June 2012
Stiftung Zollverein - Weltkulturerbe Zollverein
Areal B (Schacht 1/2/8) i Fördermaschinenhaus (B44)
Essen
www.zollverein.de
Editor: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: press release, www.zollverein.de, www.klopsztanga.de
Thumbnail credit: Arkadiusz Gola, photograph from the Riviera on a Pile of Coal series