Watch Me Move: The Story of Animation is a major showing of animated imagery produced in the last 150 years - from Snow White and Mickey Mouse to Avatar. The exhibition aims to tell the story of animation as an essential and unique element in the dynamic of contemporary visual culture. The show features over 170 works, iconic clips to lesser-known masterpieces, divided into seven themes: Apparitions, Characters, Superhumans, Fables, Fragments, Structures and Visions.
The exhibition brings together a number immensely important and groundbreaking Polish animators and filmmakers, and key Polish film artists. Zbigniew Rybczyński’s famous 1983 Academy Award-winning animated short film Tango (1980), which was produced in collaboration with the renowned Studio Se-ma-for, is featured in the Structures section of the exhibition. The section’s aim is to explore the underlying formal and conceptual structures of animation as well as show important examples of experimental animation. Rybczyński’s film is shown as a key example of the ways in which filmmakers have used the language of animation to subvert time and space in film. A collage of overlapping time and space, the film shows individuals entering a claustrophobic room, repeatedly, until it fills with a crowd of people, each seemingly oblivious to their neighbours.
Another contemporary Polish filmmaker whose works are shown is Jerzy Kucia, a renowned graphic artist and animator, and currently a professor in the Animation Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. His critically acclaimed 1992 film Przez Pole is showcased in the Fragments section, a section devoted to exploring the use of animation as a medium for conveying complex and poetic dream visions.
The exhibition also includes videoworks from Polish industry pioneers. Władysław Starewicz’s 1930s film Le Roman de Renard is featured in the section devoted to animated fables. The exhibition presents the work of film director Walerian Borowczyk, particularly his surreal animated film Les Jeux des Anges, which he produced in France in 1964. The filmic work of Polish émigré couple Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, their experimental abstract film Oko i Ucho, made in London between 1944-1945 is featured as part of Structures.
On July 14, 2011 the exhibition opens the Polish School of Animation: Its Satellites and Continuators - special screenings of topical Polish animated films together with a panel discussion led by important specialists on the subject such as David Crowley, Andrzej Klimowski and Marcin Giżycki. Polish filmmakers are in the spotlight in a world premiere retrospective of a four-part film programmes charts the history of Polish animation from the 1950s to the present day.
The exhibition is curated by Greg Hilty, Curatorial Director at Lisson Gallery and designed by Chezweitz & Roseapple. From the Barbican Centre London, the exhibition will tour to Glenbow Art Museum in Calgary, Canada. From there it commences a two years tour in Asia.
A 224 page book accompanies the exhibition, edited by Greg Hilty and Alona Pardo, with texts by Suzanne Buchan, Greg Hilty and Paul Wells.
For more information, see: www.barbican.org.uk
The exhibition runs from the 15th of June - 11th ofSeptember 2011.
The exhibition is organised as part of I, CULTURE – the International Cultural Programme of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council co-ordinated by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Barbican Art Gallery
Barbican Centre
Silk StreetLondon
EC2Y 8DS
Source: press release