Views 2009 – Deutsche Bank Foundation Award
19th September – 15th November 2009
Zacheta National Gallery of Art
pl. Malachowskiego 3
00-916 Warsaw
phone (48 22) 556 96 00
press [at] zacheta.art.pl
This is the 4th edition of the biennial competition “Views 2009 — The Deutsche Bank Foundation Award” for the most interesting figures on the young Polish art scene. The exhibition is a presentation of seven artists nominated for the award as a mark of distinction for artistic activity which has, over the course of the past two years, earned the particular attention of critics and curators.
The artists nominated for the fourth edition of the competition were: Wojciech Bakowski, Olaf Brzeski, Bogna Burska, Wojtek Doroszuk, Anna Konik, Anna Molska and Zorka Wollny.
On 22nd October 2009, on the decision of the international jury, Wojciech Bakowski was awarded the title of the most interesting young artist of the Polish art scene. The winner received an award of 15 000 Euros.
Wojciech Bakowski was chosen as winner of the Deutsche Bank Foundation Award because of his outstanding ability to combine visual images of deep psychological insights with poetical elements. In his films precise observations about the sociocultural context and individual feelings and experiences blend in dynamic animated pictures, underlined with poetic comments, to create an audiovisual whole. The inner monologues of his protagonists turn out to be of general importance for our own observations and definitions of identity. We discover some universal truths about ourselves in the seemingly extraordinary and individual appearance of his actors and motives. Bakowski’s position itself is an extraordinary and unique one on the contemporary art scene. Far away from the mainstream and fashions of the art, his obsession in watching himself and the others is based on conceptual and analytical awareness. This is not an art of emotions, but an art about emotions. He is an artist, who is able to hold himself back and by that underline his presence.
The award for the second place – a residency stay in Villa Romana in Florence went to Anna Molska. Her films and performances create a new perspective on the past of the modernism. She places the utopian and socially critical tendencies of the modernism in a contemporary context, in which the icons of the critical modernism are taken out of their pure abstraction and placed as real objects in real social and environmental space.
The public of Zacheta Gallery also had the opportunity to select its favourite artist of the current edition. Their Award went to Wojtek Doroszuk.
Works by all of the artists, prepared specially for the exhibition, can be seen in Zacheta until 15th November 2009.
The exhibition is accompanied by a Polish-English catalogue.
For images, catalogue and further information please contact Olga Gawerska: press@zacheta.art.pl
The exhibition is under the honorary patronage of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland and is organised by the Deutsche Bank Foundation, Deutsche Bank Polska S.A. and Zacheta National Gallery of Art.
media patronage: Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, TOK FM, The Warsaw Voice, Art & Business, artinfo.pl, Onet.pl, AMS, empik
