At the museum's cloakroom one can find a white coat by
Paulina Ołowska next to the Half a Coat with Jewels by Milan Knížák and the dresses by Barbara Hoff. Two Graces Commenting on the Departure of the Third can be found at the Ancient Art Gallery, the monumental Man with a Hammer by
Grzegorz Klaman conquers the Faras Gallery, and the avant-garde armchair by Roman Modzelewski disrupts the harmony of the Mediaeval Art Gallery. On the first floor
Zbigniew Libera's Che unexpectedly finds its place among old masters at the Italian Painting Gallery, and the Buddhist Bishamonten, treading on bad forces, has come to aid the warriors at the Grunvald Battle. An 18th century embroidery depicting the Tree of Life changes the look of the paintings at the Polish Art Gallery of the 20th century; an Egyptian sarcophagus mask competes with Picasso's serving plates, whereas the head of a Roman barbarian, placed in the room devoted to socialist realism, reminds one of the power of the canon.
"Interventions!" mixes museum spaces and objects; it is an action introducing new art into galleries devoted to old art and vice-versa. The museum storeroom resources made it possible to use in this action all ages and media, from ancient ceramics and jewellery, through statutes, textiles and paintings, to installations and photographs. This fairly simple method of work, which at first glance looks like a strategy aimed at easily obtaining an exposition effect, has its more profound significance.
"Interventions!" is an introduction to a long-term action of transforming the museum's exposition. It is the begging of a reflection on what a gallery and museum exposition is, how is history of art created, what is a work of art in a historical perspective, and how to perceive it according to principles other than historical ones. The starting point for this reflection is not only a conviction that we have more than one history of art, that it is a construction made by us - historians of art and viewers - but also that we, the audience, both professionals and art-lovers, as a matter of fact do not perceive the history of art as a 'linear', historic evolution, in sequences of consecutive events, but more as a 'sphere', in various aesthetical, emotional and ideological, etc. associations, in which what is older frequently precedes our experience in relation to the perception of what was created earlier. This mode of perception does not so much revoke the conventional historical way of thinking, as makes it more problematic. Thus, "Interventions!" in its basic meaning is a loosening of a linear look at the history of art, a liberation of imagination, an inviting to making free associations, to launching a sensibility in looking at art.
There is in "Interventions!" also a deeper idea. In disrupting the museum's narration, not only does a work of art achieve greater autonomy, freeing itself from the necessity of being perceived in a historical process, but also the viewer gains much more freedom in its perception, and, at the same time, starts his/her critical work on the museum which is perceived as an authority figure. Apart from liberating the imagination, our aim is to have a critical look at the museum as an instrument of production and distribution of knowledge to undermine the authority that the museum gallery seems to have. Our aim is for the result of such a critique to be an understanding that the history of art, as any other field of knowledge, is an open structure requiring permanent revisions and negotiations with our individual and collective historically, ideologically and aesthetically defined sensibility.
And so another expected effect of our "Interventions!" should be a conviction that each museum exhibition is, as a matter of fact, a sort of 'intervention', that the sphere of our intervention in itself is, and will continue to be, problematical, but that it is hidden behind the authority of the museum as an institution. In an anarchist gesture of intervention we want to make our spectators understand that the museum's historical narration is a choice, and not a historic necessity. In effect the project is to initiate critical thinking on constructing the knowledge on art in such institutions as museums.
Above all, however, "Interventions!" is an invitation to start a dialogue between the curator and the viewer, as well as between curators and between viewers. Furthermore, because we, the curators, create this knowledge and are responsible for museum exhibitions, "Interventions!" becomes an auto-critical experience forcing us to reflect on our professional tools, our own historicity, sensibility and imagination, an experience whose part will be constituted by a dialogue with the viewers.
We invite all our guests to take part in our action.The exhibition website,
www.interwencje.mnw.art.pl, comprises curators' comments on some of the 'meetings' of objects.
Exhibition open from September 11, 2009 untill December 31, 2010.
Source: Press release