[spectre] Ewa Partum: The Legality of Space at Wyspa Institute of Art

[Geert Lovink]

> From: "Wyspainfo" <wyspainfo at wyspa.art.pl>
> Subject: Ewa Partum: The Legality of Space at Wyspa Institute of Art
>
> Ewa Partum, pirouette, performance
> Galerie Dialog, Berlin
>  
> Ewa Partum: The Legality of Space
> Exhibition-Publication-Workshop-Panel Discussion
> Project curator: Aneta Szylak
> Workshop curator: Berenika Partum
>  
> Wyspa Institute of Art / Wyspa Progress Foundation
> www.wyspa.art.pl
> 1 Doki Street building 145B
> 80-958 Gdansk, Poland
> Gdansk Shipyard Premises
> June17th-August 15th 2006
> Opening: June 17th, 7pm
>  
> “The Legality of Space” is planned to be a non-typical, synchronic 
> retrospective of Ewa Partum – the eminent Polish early conceptual and 
> feminist artist, whose career started in 1965. The project speaks from 
> the today’s perspective on the creative output of this legendary 
> figure, that left Poland in 1980s and by invitation of Wolf Vostell 
> settled down in Berlin. Her achievements still remain to be not enough 
> examined in critical reflection on conceptual art in the country nor 
> significantly represented in Polish art collections. The aim of the 
> exhibition, publication, workshop and panel discussion is to undermine 
> the historic and fragmented rhythm in the reception of her oeuvre and 
> to reconstruct the most important, original and innovative plots in 
> her art. In parallel, due to the specifics of the subject, the project 
> targets toward the issue of documentation of ephemeral art, asks about 
> the role of the recording and re-enactment and reaches for the 
> archival to broaden the field of reception of Ewa Partum’s art.
>  
> The project title originates from the conceptual installation made by 
> Partum in 1971 at Plac Wolnosci (The Freedom Square) in Lodz. The 
> phrase is also being turned into the conceptual tool aimed to ask the 
> question about role of the female artist and a woman in the public 
> discourse from 1960s up to now and to investigate the perception of 
> feminist and conceptual art as well as the impact of the public image 
> of a female artist on the reception of her art. In course to achieve 
> that, the exhibition will feature several documentary recordings of 
> her performances and direct speeches by the artists as well as the 
> films of 1970 and 1980 that tried to capture the phenomenon of Partum. 
> Although its major content refers to the earlier pieces, the 
> exhibition will feature also newly developed project, showing the 
> significant shift in artist’s area of interest – the  piercing 
> criticism toward  economy and politics as well as institutional 
> critique.
>  
> From the impressive output of the artist and connected with her 
> creativity additional materials have been chosen those that define the 
> presence of a woman in the public space and outline the artist’s 
> personal space. The exhibition at Wyspa Institute of Art puts on 
> display the most important areas of Partum’s art and the specific 
> relations between those spheres. It will generate the contextual 
> relations both with conceptual tradition and is musealization as well 
> as the specific location at Gdansk shipyard. The exhibition leaves 
> also the walls of Wyspa and encroaches the public space to confront 
> her historic works with new cultural and political reality. New senses 
> generated through this endeavor will stimulate new perspectives in 
> observing this still incredibly contemporary and asking essential 
> questions work.
>  
> The exhibition is preceded June 1-7, 2006 by the workshop for young 
> performance artists at Modelarnia, run by the artist’s daughter, an 
> art historian Berenika Partum. The workshop will analyze and re-enact 
> early performances Ewa Partum and extrapolate it into the  new 
> artistic, political and architectural context. In some part of the 
> workshop the artists will be present. The new versions of performances 
> will be presented to the public and video and photography documented.
>  
> The book “Ewa Partum”, edited by Aneta Szylak, including the texts by 
> Prof. Grzegorz Dziamski, Prof. Andrzej Turowski, Łukasz Ronduda Dorota 
> Monkiewicz and Angelika Stepken, will be published during the 
> exhibition. The role of the book is to bring together the variety of 
> positions in looking at and interpreting art of Ewa Partum, to deliver 
> the precise information on her output, especially its chronology and 
> to problematize the specific plots of her art. The publication is 
> being prepared and will be co-published and distributed in 
> collaboration with Revolver Archiv für Aktuelle Kunst in Frankfurt.
>  
> Organization: Wyspa Progress Foundation, Signum Foundation and 
> Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe.
> The poject is happening in the framework of Büro Kopernikus, the 
> initiave of German Federal Cultural Foundation www.buero-kopernikus.de 
> .
>  
> Wyspa Progress Foundations is non-profit non governmental public 
> charity organization entered in the National Court Register under 
> number 000063731.  
>  
>