KWIEKULIK. FORM IS A FACT OF SOCIETY

KWIEKULIK. FORM IS A FACT OF SOCIETY
an exhibition in Awangarda Gallery from 16 Dec. 2009 to 7 Feb. 2010




Action with a tube (detail), PDDiU, Warsaw 1975, photo by Przemysław Kwiek. From left to right: Urszula Kwiek, Zofia Kulik, Maksymilian Dobromierz Kwiek

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KwieKulik. Form is a fact of society
16 December 2009 – 7 February 2010

The exhibition presented at the BWA Awangarda Gallery in Wrocław is the first serious attempt to illuminate one of the most important artistic phenomena of post-war Polish art: the artistic duo Zofia Kulik and Przemysław Kwiek (KwieKulik) and their collective works from 1971 to 1987. KwieKulik’s work, which is radically unique in the history of the neo-avant-garde in Central Europe, is seen through a prism of their socio-political engagement and their uncompromising, bold criticism of their surrounding reality.

KwieKulik, the talented students of architect Oskar Hansen at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, were the first artists to conceive a radical political turn to Hansen’s theory of the Open Form. Since the beginning of the 1970s, KwieKulik pioneered the transformation of artistic practice into one of social experimentation, more laboratory than studio, creating artistic groups that promoted values and models of a non-authoritarian social system. As part of their agenda, KwieKulik sought to reconcile artistic praxis with everyday life. In a particularly merciless fashion, the duo fulminated against conformism, lack of ideals, cynicism, and hypocrisy: the ‘qualities’ that were the fundamental compound of community life in the People’s Republic of Poland.

The title of the exhibition, Form is a fact of society, refers to efforts towards reciprocal engagement with artistic discourse and forms of social organization, which are essential in KwieKulik’s practice. These efforts, when acknowledged today, trigger pertinent questions in a contemporary debate: What constitutes society? What forms determine its functioning? How can we use these forms to build a democratic community? Such an attitude towards KwieKulik’s work, twenty years after the political transformation in Poland, allows us to rethink our attitudes towards the socialist past. It permits us to draw a line between the undemocratic, repressive communist state and the emancipated dimension of the community-based, socialist ideals represented by KwieKulik. Furthermore, it creates means to reclaim these ideals and engage their contemporary critical potential.

This exhibition also highlights the couple’s innovatory and pioneering approach to film, photography, and multi-screen slide projection, which epitomize their unique variation of expanded cinema. It demonstrates the use of photography and video documentation of process-based, ephemeral actions and illustrates KwieKulik’s unconventional, avant-garde artistic strategies that combined scientific rigor with an openness for improvisation. Such as: ‘intuitive interactions’, ‘visual games’, ‘to-camera activities’, ‘parasite art’, ‘earn and create’, ‘art consciously bad’, etc.

Form is a fact of society is the result of a research project spanning a year and a half, initiated by the BWA in Wrocław with the objective of an in-depth multifaceted study of KwieKulik’s archives. The research project will culminate in the first monograph dedicated to KwieKulik, co-produced by BWA Wrocław, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw as well as Kontakt. The Art Collection of Erste Bank Group in Vienna and edited by Georg Schöllhammer and Łukasz Ronduda. The publication, planned for 2010, will be designed by Ludovic Balland and Błażej Pindor.

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Exhibition location
BWA Awangarda Gallery, Wita Stwosza 32, Wrocław, Poland

Opening hours
16 December 2009 – 7 February 2010
Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00 – 18:00

Opening
16 December 2009 at 19:00

Guided tour with the curators
16 December 2009 at 12:00
Registration necessary: info@bwa.wroc.pl

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Organizer
BWA Wrocław – Galleries of Contemporary Art
Director
Marek Puchała

Curators
Georg Schöllhammer, Łukasz Ronduda
Assistant curator
Maud Jacquin
Exhibition coordinator
Patrycja Sikora
Architectural consultation
Robert Rumas
Reading room
Natalia Sielewicz


Contact
BWA Wrocław - Galleries of Contemporary Art
www.bwa.wroc.pl
Wita Stwosza 32
50-149 Wrocław
Poland
T: +48 71 790 25 94,
F: +48 71 790 25 90
info@bwa.wroc.pl



FUNDED BY CITY OF WROCLAW AND THE POLISH MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND NATIONAL HERITAGE

The Social Critique: 1993-2005

The Social Critique: 1993-2005
12 Sep. - 22 Nov. 2009


Kalmar Konstmuseum
Stadsparken
39233 Kalmar
Sweden

http://www.kalmarkonstmuseum.se


Curator: Martin Schibli

The social critique 1993-2005 is a contemporary art historical exhibition aimed at giving an introduction and a structure to an important and eventful period in contemporary art. What is characteristic for social criticism is that it presupposes that in art there is a possibility to deal with, highlight and pose questions around social issues. To a large extent the social criticism grew out of the vacuum that the art of the early 1990's found itself in. A consequence of the fact that Postmodernism during the 1980's had dismantled Art from its pedestal, and won symbolic power in the world of art. Art had no longer any value in itself. At the same time the status of art was increasingly upheld by the hype that surrounded contemporary art during the economic boom of that decade. With the recession of the early 1990's the influx of capital into the art world ceased and this in turn led to the disappearance of hype. The art world imploded. In the early 1990´s this lead to a great sense of insecurity about where the contemporary art scene stood, and what was going to happen now, when so to speak everything was possible. Art was in need of a new identity, maybe even a new reason for its existence. The question asked was "What is the purpose of art, when its value as art no longer exists?"

That something had happened became obvious in 1993, at the Venice Biennale. With his Aperto-exhibition the curator Achille Bonito Oliva formulated a number of concurrent artistic positions that together gave a structure for where the contemporary art-scene was heading and what subjects it could deal with. It was in the social field that art had its function. Within the area of art there were a number of possibilities of focusing on various aspects of the social, within the large as well as the small. A few months earlier the Whitney Biennale also had received attention for dealing with political issues. It was within the social that art regained its purpose. The artist Rirkrit Tiravanija now became internationally recognised. Tiravanija had taken as his point of departure an idea pioneered by Joseph Beuys, the idea of the social sculpture, and for a number of years he was touring the art world with his cooking pieces that are based on the social function of art. In an exhibition at a department store ICA Malmborgs, Malmoe, the artist Elin Wikström spend the whole exhibition period on a bed, sometimes sleeping.

The exhibition at Kalmar Art Museum will consist of more than 25 works. Starting from a more humoristic standpoint, social criticism became increasingly hardcore and theoretically formulated and when moving into its end phase it shifted towards an aesthetisised form. The exhibition deals with subjects such as relational aesthetics, art research and post colonial theory. It is interesting to notice that the art of social criticism in reality grew out of the vacuum created from the last economic crash of the 1980's and that its strength diminished with the influx of capital into the art world during the last decade. Today the situation is partly the same as in the early 1990's and there is an uncertainty/openness about what is really happening on the contemporary art scene, combined with an economic downturn.

The contribution by Elin Wikström, Hur skulled det gå om alla gjorde så?, 1993, is taking place at the department store ICA Maxi Stormarknad, Verkstadsgatan 6, Kalmar, between 8-14 of October.

Participating artists: Franz Ackermann, Maja Bajevic, Richard Billingham, Angela Bulloch, Heath Bunting, Com&Com, Stefan Constantinescu, Plamen Dejanov & Swetlana Heger, Maria Eichhorn, Sylvie Fleury, Felix Gmelin, Johan Grimonprez, Jens Haaning, Swetlana Heger, Christine Hill, Sabine Hornig, Isaac Julien, Peter Land, Zbigniew Libera, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Rivane Neuenschwander and Cao Guimarães, Anneé Olofsson, Tanja Ostojic, Oliver Ressler, Pipilotti Rist, Annika Ström, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Elin Wikström and Zhang Huan


Official Opening: Saturday, 12th September, 2 PM



Zhang Huan »
"To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond", 1997, Performance, Beijing, China