RAW STATE, OPEN
Gdańska Galeria Miejska, Gdańsk, PL
28.04.2017-9.07.2017
In the fall of 1985, the exhibition Dialog took place at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Eight Polish artists associated with the Foksal gallery community participated in it. Since the formula of the show was based on the title Dialogue, each of them was given the opportunity to invite one foreign artist of their choice. The participants were: Henryk Stażewski - Daniel Buren, Edward Krasinski - Lars Englund, Maria Stangret - Christian Boltanski, Zbigniew Gostomski - Barry Flanagan, Lesław and Wacław Janicki - Gilbert & George, Tomasz Tatarczyk - Susan Rothenberg, Leon Tarasewicz - Ian McKeeyer. The fact is that the artists invited to participate in the exhibition have never met. Thus, the form of dialogue became only its foreshadowing and impression, and the exhibition became a collage of thoughts and contents and a kind of simulation of cognition. On the other hand, it assumed the role of a creator of dialectical thought, resonating, through multidirectional exploration, putting experience on a pedestal. The dialogue raised the question of the form and meaning of the creation of such activities.
At the end of September 2013, the first episode of Our New Home is aired on Polsat TV. This is a program based on reliable productions of this kind from the US. The families selected to participate live in dire conditions, and their economic status is very low. Under the watchful eye of the cameras, the specialists flip ideas, running a race against time and adversity. The program's crew, headed by Katarzyna Dowbor, accomplishes the seemingly impossible, renovating the home of a selected family in five days, thus giving them a substitute of luxury and stability. The household members become actors, who 'after the final clap' announcing the end of the recording, remain alone in their 'new reality'. Warmed by the light of the cameras and the glare of celebrity, they are expected to begin a better life with a sense of their own uniqueness.
These two stories are a kind of parallel for the actions taken by the artists and curators formulating the exhibition Open Condition. This is the second exhibition within the North-South project, which aims to confront artists from the two ends of Poland. Thus, the question of dialogue becomes most legitimate at this point.
The recalled figure of the TV show with Katarzyna Dowbor reminds us of the activities that the project's creators took on. In just five days, the technical team, led by Gabriela Warzycka-Tutak and Aleksander Celusta, began assembling the exhibition. The interior of the gallery, deprived of its traditional exhibition function, is here reduced primarily to the role and rank of painting, a substrate on which the wall becomes a carrier of content. The narrative of the exhibition is built in a continuous relationship with the artists invited to the exhibition. The installation stage becomes an experience, an attempt to unify architecture, sculpture and painting blurring the boundary between art and life. This stage seeks to create a common 'world' for the creator and the viewer.
Artists;
Daniel Cybulski, Radosław Deruba, Emilia Kina, Filip Rybkowski, Robert Seikon, Michał Sroka
Curator:
Gabriela Warzycka-Tutak, Aleksander Celusta