Aneta Szylak appointed the Artistic Director of Alternativa 2010-2012
Alternativa 2010-2012
www.alternativa.org.pl
Ul. Doki 1/145B
80-839 Gdansk, Poland
www.wyspa.art.pl
Alternativa aims to investigate the ways in which contemporary art intersects with the political. It seeks diverse modes of knowing, and is searching for a performative, affectual apparatus through which we may explore possible ways of existing in contemporaneity. For the exhibitions and events, the newly renovated spectacular space, Hall 90B, will be made available along with Wyspa’s and Modelarnia’s own spaces.
Located in the legendary Gdansk Shipyard, where the workers’ strikes of 1980 began the process of the disintegration of the Communist bloc, Alternativa looks at the atmosphere of political momentum and its possibilities.
Aneta Szylak – a curator and writer, co-founder and currently Director of Wyspa Institute of Art – has just been appointed Artistic Director of Alternativa 2010-2012. After co-founding and running the Laznia (Bathhouse) Centre for Contemporary Art (1998-2001) she pursued her career as an independent curator and researcher. Since 2004 she has been responsible for programming Wyspa – the intellectual environment for contemporary visual culture – in the Gdansk Shipyard. In 2005, she received the Jerzy Stajuda Award “for independent and uncompromising curatorial practice”. Szylak’s exhibitions are characterised by a strong response to cultural, political, social, architectural and institutional particularities and include: Estrangement (with Hiwa K) at the Showroom, London (2010); Over and Over Again at the Centennial Hall, Wroclaw (2009); Chosen in the Digital Art Lab in Holon (with Galit Eilat); Translate: The Impossible Collection at Wyspa (2008); Ewa Partum: The Legality of Space at Wyspa, You won’t feel a thing: On Panic, Obsession, Rituality and Anaesthesia in Kunsthaus Dresden, and Artur Zmijewski: Selected Works at Wyspa (all in 2006); Dockwatchers (2005, Wyspa); Palimpsest Museum (2004, Lodz Biennale); Health & Safety (2004, Wyspa); Architectures of Gender (2003, SculptureCenter, New York) and others. She has taught and lectured at many art institutions and universities including New School University, Queens College and New York University, Florida Atlantic University, Goldsmith College in London, Copenhagen University, and worked as a guest professor at the Akademie für Bildende Künste in Mainz, Germany. Currently she is finalizing her PhD thesis at Goldsmiths College in London and Copenhagen Doctoral School, Copenhagen University.
The list of curators and projects will be announced this Fall. Events and exhibitions will accumulate in the summers of 2011 and 2012. Pilot events are planned for September 4, October 14 and December 3-5, 2010.
