[spectre] 1,2, 3Š Avant-Gardes, CCA Warsaw/PL

[Andreas Broeckmann]

    1,2,3Š Avant-Gardes

    *1,2,3Š Avant-Gardes*
    Experiment / Film / Art / Archive

    Dec. 9, 2006-Jan. 28, 2007
    Opening: Dec. 8, 2006, 7pm

    Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle
    Warsaw, Poland


    Artists:
    Akademia Ruchu, Antosz & Andzia, Pawe? Althamer / Artur Z.mijewski,
    Piotr Andrejew, Bernadette Corporation, Kazimierz Bendkowski,
    Matthew Buckingham, Bogdan Dziworski, Marcin Giz.ycki, Janusz Haka,
    Oskar Hansen, Judith Hopf / Katrin Pesch, Tadeusz Junak, Jacques de
    Koning, Igor Krenz, Grzegorz Królikiewicz, Zofia Kulik, Pawe? Kwiek,
    Przemys?aw Kwiek, Natalia LL, Jolanta Marcolla, Jonathan Monk, Ewa
    Partum, Andrzej Paw?owski, Zygmunt Piotrowski, Józef Robakowski,
    Jeroen de Rijke / Willem de Rooij, Zbigniew Rybczyn'ski, Zygmunt
    Rytka, Wilhelm Sasnal, Jadwiga Singer, Zdzis?aw Sosnowski,
    Mieczys?aw Szczuka, Micha? Tarkowski, Stefan & Franciszka Themerson,
    Teresa Tyszkiewicz, Ryszard Was'ko, Jan S. Wojciechowski, Krzysztof
    Zare;bski, Florian Zeyfang


    The exhibition 1,2,3Š Avant-Gardes celebrates the (ongoing) history
    of the experiment in film and art, and the interactions between
    these two fields. The exhibition brings together artists and
    filmmakers from different countries and generations, juxtaposing
    their work with the outstanding history of Polish avant-garde film,
    represented by the works of Pawe? Kwiek, Józef Robakowski, Natalia
    LL, Stefan and Franciszka Themerson, Bogdan Dziworski and many others.

    The exhibition works with the tension created by a "horizontal" and
    a "vertical" interpretation of the multiplicity of the avant-garde
    and evoked by the exhibition's title 1,2,3Š Avant-Gardes: Horizontal
    - in the sense of different ideas of modernism, the pluralism of
    film and conceptual image-work existing in the different worlds of
    the Cold War and today; Vertical - suggesting the search for a
    possible historicisation of Polish avant-garde art and film, a
    linearity, to be discovered and reconstructed in light of the many
    distortions in Polish history over the last 80 years.

    Vertically, it contains a reference to the three movements important
    to experimentation with art and film: the very first modernist
    avant-garde, the neo-avant-garde of the 1970s, and the artists who
    started working in the 1990s to address, often with irony or
    idealism, the heritage of the two previous movements. In contrast,
    the title's horizontal reading includes different understandings of
    the notion of avant-garde - like Peter Wollen's text Two
    Avant-Gardes that elaborates on the difference between narrative
    politics and politics of the formal experiment - suggesting
    something like a third, fourth and even fifth avant-gardeŠ

    1,2,3Š Avant-Gardes experiments itself with a setting that confronts
    the videos and films of artists working since the 1990s and
    influenced by different legacies and notions of moving image with
    the extensive work of earlier generations of artists, performers and
    filmmakers in Poland. The exhibition consists of six rooms,
    organised according to different themes, such as Analytical
    strategies, Political and Ideological Engagement, Sound / Image,
    Imagination, Games / Participation, Consumption, and features work
    especially developed for the show.

    Another important issue off the exhibition is work with the archive.
    The show is a specific summary of the previous events of the program
    of the Film Archive of the CCA Ujazdowski Castle, which is a
    research project focused on gathering and analysing Polish film and
    art. The aim of the program is to reveal new layers of communication
    between film and art, and to develop contemporary contexts of
    presentation for this historic material.


    1,2,3Š Avant-Gardes is curated by ?ukasz Ronduda and Florian Zeyfang and
    conceived within the framework of Buero Kopernikus, an initiative of
    the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).
    The exhibition is supported by IFA Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen,
    Stichting Mondriaan, and Piktogram Magazine. Collaboration: Kaja
    Pawe?ek. Exhibiton design: Centrala http://www.centrala.net.pl



    For further information:
    Kaja Pawe?ek: + 48 22 6281271 # 104, kaja.pawelek at csw.art.pl
    http://www.buero-kopernikus.org/en/project/2/36/0



    1,2,3Š Avant-Gardes will be shown in 2007 at Künstlerhaus Stuttgart
    (with a special focus) and at Sala Rekalde, Bilbao. A catalogue will
    be published with essays by Leire Vergara, David Crowley, Steven
    Ball/David Curtis, Stefanie Peter, Anselm Franke, Jan Verwoert,
    Michal Wolinski, ?ukasz Ronduda, and including an archive section
    and artist pages.




    Centre for Contemporary Art
    Ujazdowski Castle
    Al. Ujazdowskie 6,
    00-461 Warsaw, Poland
    tel: (+48 22) 628 12 71-3
    fax: (+48 22) 628 95 50
    e-mail: csw at csw.art.pl