Pole, Jew, Artist. Identity and Avant-garde
17 October 2009–31 January 2010
Academic conference: 16–17 October 2009
and
Sanja Iveković. Practice Makes the Master
17 October–13 December 2009
36 Więckowskiego
90-734 Lodz, Poland
F:(00 48 42) 639 98 78
promocja [at] msl.org.pl
Pole, Jew, Artist. Identity and Avant-garde
Opening: 17th October 2009, 7 p.m.
ms2, 19 Ogrodowa St., Lodz
Almost all avant-garde movements declared their internationalism and lack of interest in national, ethnic and religious differences. Avant-garde artists felt – and were indeed – members of a great, progressive International. Their ideology was directed towards the future and their artistic practices usually manifested the moments of defying cultural past. Therefore, analysing avant-garde as related to the native cultures of its artists might seem unjustified. But is it really?
The exhibition focuses on the identity of an avant-garde artist of Jewish origin as well as the impact of this identity on an artwork. The exhibition is aimed at showing a wide range of attitudes: from modernising attempts at creating ‘new national Jewish art’, to the cultivation of avant-garde ethos, but only within one’s own environment, to assimilation, rejection of the context of one’s own culture, identification with Polish or international avant-garde scene. The exhibition presents works by Jung Yiddish artists (Jankiel Adler, Marek Szwarc, Moses Broderson), works by artists related to the expressionism (Henryk Gottlieb), to the Constructivist movement (Henryk Berlewi, Teresa Zarnower, Samuel Szczekacz) and to surrealist group “artes” (Ludwik Lille, Marek Wlodarski), as well as the radical left-wing Grupa Krakowska (Jonasz Stern, Sasza Blonder).
Curated by Joanna Ritt and Jarosław Suchan
Academic Conference
Experts from Poland, the USA, Germany, France and Canada, representing various academic disciplines such as art history, theatre history and literature studies, have been invited to participate in the conference. The experts will examine the tensions between ethnicity and the universalistic ethos of avant-garde art in the attitudes and works of numerous artists of Jewish origin. They will analyse the process of constructing identities of avant-garde artists from a particular cultural context, they will discuss what kind of community experience defined their approach and the extent to which this experience determined if they felt part of diaspora culture or defied tradition. The publication of a post-conference volume in Polish and English is planned.
Sanja Iveković. Practice Makes the Master
Opening: 17th October 2009, 5 p.m.
ms, 36 Więckowskiego St., Lodz
The point of departure for the first major presentation of the works by Sanja Iveković (b. 1949, Zagreb) in Poland, is an attempt at examining her critical artistic practice in which the relation between textual and visual discourses is of crucial importance. The exhibition “Practice Makes the Master” in the Muzeum Sztuki brings together a selection of works from 1974–2007 (photography, performance, video, installations) as well as the project realised on this occasion “Women’s House (Sunglasses)” (2009), dealing with the issue of abortion (illegal in Poland), which appears in a number of Polish cities in the form of posters.
In her works Iveković followed the dismantling of the social and political reality of socialist regime of Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe in general. Through working with semantic and structural space of the language, the artist struggles to preserve the inalienable right of each subject: the right to possess one’s own opinion and his/her ability to formulate it.
The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue (PL, EN) including texts by Bojana Pejić, Tom Holert and a conversation with the artist.
Curated by Magdalena Ziółkowska
Muzeum Sztuki
36 Więckowskiego
90-734 Lodz, Poland
promocja@msl.org.pl
phone: (00 48 42) 639 98 78