ARRIVALS>CURATOR'S DIARY (POLAND)
The studio of Leon Tarasevitc
Warsaw Taxi
Dear everyone,
Difficult to know where to start after the past three days. I've never been anywhere like this - it reminds me of Berlin a little, but feels much more Eastern Europe - the one of books, pictures and films. Cold - but bearably so and very grey. Warsaw is much grander than I imagined it would be - large buildings, some eighteenth century looking palaces and baroque churches - all rebuilt of course after the city was flattened by the Nazis. But it's the sixties modernist/socialist architecture which is the real winner.
On Monday we visited the Foksal Gallery Foundation, an offshoot of the original Foksal Gallery set up in 1966. They are both a Foundation and a commercial gallery - the Directors had just left for the Miami Art Fair. The gallery is in what looks like a 30's modernist building - on the top floor. Saw Robert Kusmirowski's installation - the replica of an imagined, abandoned cemetery, complete with fallen tombstones, dirt and a rusting grill fence. Pretty amazing. He's in our top three at the moment. Have material on him but couldn't meet him as he is doing a walk from Paris to Warsaw at the moment. Also saw one of Artur Szmijewski's films - Singing Lesson. Great piece of work - documentary genre meets a certain anthropology - deaf students being taught and then interpreting one of Bach's most beautiful pieces in a church famous for presenting Bach's music. I think the artist is a real humanist - there was no irony in the piece - it was just amazingly moving, and brilliantly edited. Artur is representing Poland next year at the Biennale. He is not, however, on our list. Joana at the gallery gave us material on other artists including Cezar Budnowski - who Victoria is quite interested in. We since found out quite a bit more on him - working with performance that crosses with a kind of contemporary happening involving the general public in public spaces.
The Foksal Gallery is a beautiful 'white cube' of a space, around 40sq. metres. They had a show of an older Polish artist, Marek Chlanda. We met the co-founder and Director, Wieslaw Borowski, which was great. He had organised for us to meet Marzena Nowak - a recent graduate from the Warsaw Academy working with film - to meet us. He closed the gallery so Marzena could show us her films - she is an artist to watch. Wieslaw took us through a catalogue showing the history of exhibitions at the gallery from 1966 to 1994 - impressive. It was great to talk to him about the gallery's history - a non profit collective, funded by the State. They had to ask permission to do every show - only one was refused - Joseph Beuys, who they then showed but a year after he died. Looking at their beautiful wooden archive boxes, it looks as if they have worked with, and continue to do so, almost every significant artist you can think of, including most of the artists that the Foksal Gallery Foundation work with - Althamer, Sosnowska, Olowska, Sasnal etc.
The whole relationship between the collective or not for profit activity of art spaces or galleries and the commercial and hence international activity is fascinating and seems to form a basis for the art scene as it is developing here. The Raster was also interesting in this way. We spent several hours there with the Director Lukasc. Really great. Wonderful dilapidated space - artists popping in with objects they have made for the Cheap Art Market - a kind of Christmas Market for the people of Warsaw. Hoping to meet Oskar Dawicki today. He has just moved to Warsaw. Very briefly though, we did meet and see the work of Michal Budner. Looked at lots of other material. We were both impressed with the work of Rafal Budnowski but he has shown a few times in the UK. We met two young artists from Gdansk yesterday, through the Le Guern Gallery - Alicja Karska and Aleksandra Went. They make films together - also performance based but working with real architecture and buildings that are subsequently torn down. They work with a young composer, one of the artist's boyfriends, who makes brilliant soundtracks for the films. Facades, what it real, what is fake, together with monuments, spirit of collectivity versus domesticity, history and memory all seem to be part of the work. We also visited the studio of Piotr Janas which was great. A tiny studio at the top of a long walk up, very old building on the other side of the Wisla. Most of the artists we have met don't have studios - they work from their apartments - which explains a lot too about art practice here among the younger artists.
I could write loads about this, about our thoughts about possibilities for this first Arrivals but have to check out of the hotel now. We are going to the Art Academy to meet with the painter, Leon Tarasewicz and some of this students. He did this amazing installation for the presentation of suprematist and neo-plasticist works, including Malevich - black square - brilliant! - for this huge Russian-Polish show at the Zacheta. Met Magda Marsuch there - she was wonderful and we got a lot of information from her. Meeting Milada too today at the CCA. Met the Deputy Director at the opening on Monday - seems very clued up and he curated a rather important show with the young Polish artists emerging now.
But really gotta go. See you tomorrow.
Best
Suzanne and Victoria.