Aleksandar Battista Ilić (in collaboration with Ivana Keser and Tomislav Gotovac), from the series Weekend Art: Hallelujah the Hill, 1995-2005, © Aleksandar Battista Illic
The exhibition explores the impact of today's global information society and its service-based economy on labour
The point of departure for the exhibition is a treatment of contemporary change in labour practices and industry, referred to by researchers as "post-Fordism". This economic model has extended the traditional borders of productivity through a complex set of social, intellectual, emotional and communicative processes,leading to the engagement of subjectivity on the part of both workers and consumers with regard to cycles of production and reproduction of capital beyond fixed hierarchies and categories.
Labour as viewed from this perspective is transformed into biopolitics: the management of life and the creation of new forms. Productivity enters areas it was once separated from: leisure, recreation, entertainment, aesthetic experiences, social involvement, political action and housework. The requirements of constant efficiency, self-education and flexibility in adjusting to the constantly changing conditions, also known as "self-improvement", have led to an state of constant production, even after the worker has left the workplace.
The exhibition will consider three main interconnected themes: industrial labour, a broadened and hybridised character of contemporary productivity, along with the artist's work and the economy. The works focused on industry will examine labour processes within the factory and their immaterial flows of meaning. The artists who position labour within the wide field of social and generic activities will focus on the ambivalent, flexible and elusive dimensions of work today, which often lead the worker to function on the verge between self-realization and (self) exploitation. To what extent are the artistic practices - operating with and reprocessing images and meanings - reliant on the current transformations of capitalism? What kind of economies might be conceived by the artists and what is their potential to break away from the dominant modes of production?
Two new works are being prepared for the exhibition, starting with Janek Simon's voyage to Nigeria, precisely to the Alaba International Market, which is notorious for its accumulation of old computers and trash from all over the world. At Alaba they are subjected to further treatment after which they enter new, informal circuits. The artist's trip and the resulting installation are concurrent with the exhibition
The title and the density of the other project, namely The History of the Bomb by
Roman Dziadkiewicz, makes a reference to a modernist novel The History of one Bullet by Andrzej Strug. The installation presents how the areas of work, fun and combat overlap to produce a mixture of deadly potential.
The introduction to the exhibition is a series of lectures organized in cooperation with the Klub Krytyki Politycznej in Łódź.
Artists: Joseph Beuys,
Rafał Bujnowski,
Roman Dziadkiewicz, Miklós Erhardt, Harun Farocki, Aleksandar Batista Ilić (in collaboration with Ivana Keser and Tomislav Gotovac), Kristina Inčiūraitė, Piotr Jaros, Ali Kazma, Jean-Luc Moulène, Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Peter Piller, Martha Rosler, Mika Rottenberg,
Janek Simon, Škart, Mladen Stilinović, Mona Vătămanu & Florin, Tudor, Ingo Vetter, Haegue Yang,
Artur Żmijewski.
Curator: Joanna Sokołowska
The Workers Leaving the Workplace project builds on some questions raised during the 2009 exhibition Arbeiter verlassen die Arbeitsstätte at the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst in Leipzig.
The exhibition opens July 6, 2010, at 6:00PM and runs through November 5, 2010.
Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź
ul. Więckowskiego 36, 90-734 Łódź
director: Jarosław Suchan
tel. (+48 42) 633 97 90, 633 82 73
fax (+48 42) 632 99 41
link*www.msl.org.pl*http://www.msl.org.pl** **Source:
www.msl.org.pl