Transmissions features nearly 300 works and installations from MoMA's collection, part of which will be on view for the first time. The works catalogue the radical experimentation, expansion and dissemination of ideas that marked these decades. The exhibition aims to expand the exchange of knowledge and ideas in a global context. It suggests alternative models of solidarity and new ways of thinking about art produced internationally in relation to the frameworks dictated by the Cold War.
The exhibition includes five artists of Polish origin. A short profile on each can be found below.
Edward Krasiński (1925-2004)
Sculptor, painter, author of spatial forms, artistic installations and happenings, Edward Krasiński was one of the most important protagonists of the Polish neo-avant-garde from the 1960s and '70s. Krasiński was also involved in the early performances of Tadeusz Kantor: in 1965 in Cricotage, and in 1967 in The Letter and Panoramic Sea Happening.
Krasiński's work is a very complex, ephemeral and elusive phenomenon that combines constructivist tradition with Dadaist humour. Its most important aspect is the very life of the artist and his creative attitude towards reality, as expressed through "life in art". He constantly influenced the world with his personality, irony and humour by undermining and challenging traditional art forms and their meaning.
Ewa Partum (b.1945)
Ewa Partum is a conceptual artist seeking a new artistic language through linguistic activities, using diverse media such as concrete poetry, performance, film and mail. She has taken part in linguistic actions and installations exhibited both in galleries and outdoors. In the early 1970s, she produced conceptual installations such as Legality of Space (1971) and Breakfast on the Grass - after Eduard Manet (1971), as well as poetic actions. In 1972, she founded Adres in Łódź, one of the most significant galleries for mail art and art theory.
In 1974, Partum staged a performance called Change 1974 in Łódź, in which a make-up artist worked on her half-naked body. Sharply innovative, her work has had a clear trajectory leading from the deconstruction of logos to an expansion of her own artistic language as a conceptual and feminist artist. She was the first Polish female artist to encroach upon public space in the nude, publicly making a value statement about her art and its vocabulary in regards to her specific experience as a woman. She announced that she would perform naked until female artists had equal rights in the field of art.
Henryk Stażewski (1894-1988)
Stażewski was an artistic polymath. He was a pioneer of classical avant-garde in the 1920s and 1930s, a representative of the Constructivist movement, a co-creator of the Geometric Abstract art movement during the 60s, 70s, and 80s, as well as a creator of reliefs, interiors, stage scenery and posters.
He was also a founding member of the Grupa Kubistow, Konstruktywistow i Suprematystow Blok (“Block Group of Cubists, Constructivists, and Suprematists”) (1924-1926). In the 1980s, he combined colours in a vibrant game between geometric elements. Stażewski would also paint intensive, uniform and glistening planes of colour on slippers and necklaces, an activity he treated jokingly.
Lea Lublin (1929-1999)
Born in Brest, Poland, Lea Lublin emigrated in early childhood to Argentina where she began her career as a painter in Buenos Aires. In the mid-1960s she moved to France and started exploring new media and materials. She was deeply influenced by French feminism which inspired her to move to Paris permanently.
She made large-scale installation artworks that involved the audience. She let them enter inflatable tubes and objects, in which the audience could sit and immerse themselves in heaps of tiny plastic balls. Her most famous performance was the social action Mon Fils in Paris: this involved her taking her baby son to museums during regular exhibition hours and exhibiting him and herself doing everyday activities – changing diapers, breastfeeding, and even putting her son to sleep. She wanted to bring public attention to her works exploring social and gender roles. Lublin changed course in the mid-1960s with art that aimed to overcome the boundaries separating “art and life”.
André Cadere (1934-1978)
André Cadere was born in Poland, but he grew up in Romania. He is best known for his handmade Round Wooden Bars (1970-1978) made of coloured wooden cylindrical units that challenged the boundary between painting and sculpture. As he was concerned about objects and its inseparability from institutional contexts, he focused on distribution in the art world. He carried his bars around the city and into other people's shows, even when not invited. He was nicknamed “The Stick Man”. He played with the idea that his bars could be positioned in all sorts of ways in relation to their surrounding.
The most interesting thing about Cadere's works was his practice of showing work outdoors in the city landscape, on streets, subways and cars, demonstrating the principle that handmade artworks could be carried wherever the artist wanted – and be shown to whoever passed by.