The Day Is too Short / Dzień Jest za Krótki focuses on artists’ personal narratives. These are life stories, mostly first-person narratives. The idea behind the exhibition has been to highlight tensions between the figure of the artist and the subject of the artwork, and also between fiction and truth of representation. The works are also question why contemporary artists tend to choose to their own biographies as the basis of their creation, revealing themselves as narrators in their works.
The exhibition organizers express an opinion that since 1989, Polish artists have made frequent reference to the figure of the artist. According to them, despite pompous announcements, the death of the artist did not really take place in Poland, and the subject was never deconstructed – on the contrary, it has been sustained by ever-popular modernist discourses. Curator Magdalena Ujma says,
In recent years, and especially after 2000, art inspired by everyday ordinary lives has been particularly popular. First-person narratives originating in private lives, documentary and quasi-documentary reports hide a series of problems crucial for contemporary art scene. [...] Filtered through everyday life, history seems to decline in importance, while noting down daily events suggests that the content of these works is supplied by life itself, that all an artist has to do is to report them as they happen.
The Day Is too Short is preceded by an online campaign, One Hour for Art / Godzina dla Sztuki, organized by Elżbieta Jabłońska, while the private viewing will feature a performance by Ewa Zarzycka and a happening by Malwina Niespodziewana, Birthday / Urodziny.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, with texts by Inga Iwasiów, Agnieszka Karpowicz, Ewa Małgorzata Tatar and Magdalena Ujma. The show includes works by Azorro, Basia Bańda, Wojciech Bąkowski, Agata Bogacka, Monika Drożyńska, Pola Dwurnik, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Elżbieta Jabłońska, Zuzanna Janin, Łukasz Jastrubczak & Małgorzata Mazur, Katarzyna Józefowicz, Katarzyna Kozyra, Robert Kuśmirowski, Maess, Cecylia Malik, Malwina Niespodziewana, Hanna Nowicka, Joanna Pawlik, Joanna Rajkowska, Wilhelm Sasnal, Maciej Sieńczyk, Magdalena Starska, Mariusz Tarkawian, Zorka Wollny, Ewa Zarzycka, Erwina Ziomkowska, and Artur Żmijewski.
Source: press materials, ed. JN, 13.08.2013 transl. AM 14.08.2013