Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź Więckowskiego 36 msl.org.pl THE NEOPLASTIC ROOM. AN OPEN COMPOSITION THE NEOPLASTIC ROOM. AN OPEN COMPOSITION

Designed by Władysław Strzemiński, and Kobro, but also those of Daniel the NEOPLASTIC ROOM is an Buren, Liam Gillick, Monika Sos- avant-garde exhibition space created for nowska, RH Quaytman, and Céline the purpose of presenting the Interna- Condorelli. Also presented as part of tional Collection of Modern Art of the the project are sculptures and installa- ‘a.r.’ group, established in the 1930s. tions by other artists, which, while not The room was opened to the public in directly inspired by the ROOM, have 1948 at the Poznański Palace, which at taken up the themes of corporeality the time became the Muzeum Sztuki’s and modernist ideologies that pertain new permanent exhibition space. to the organization of living space. Reconstructed in 1960 (following To be found within the ROOM, a its disassembly during the socialist- work by Susan Hiller demonstrates -realist period), for almost fifty years how a shared musical experience can the NEOPLASTIC ROOM was the serve as a basis for the “spatiotempor- highlight of the Museum’s permanent al rhythms” that link the body with exhibition. In 2008, the collections of new social and political rituals. Other modern and contemporary art were aspects of the human body’s presence moved to the ms2, a 19th-century weav- in an ideologized space are brought ing plant converted into the Muzeum to the fore in the works of Magdalena Sztuki’s exhibition space. The ROOM Abakanowicz, Alina Szapocznikow, would remain in the building, however, Kitty Kraus, Oskar Dawicki, Roman and continued to serve the purpose for Stańczak, and Koji Kamoji, all of which Strzemiński had conceived it. which catalogue the relationships oc- In recent times, the NEOPLASTIC curring between topography and the ROOM has become a catalyst and ref- body, coupled with the related exper- erence point for contemporary artistic iences of presence, absence, fullness, practices. Not only does the ROOM and relocation. showcase the works of Strzemiński WŁADYSŁAW STRZEMIŃSKI NEOPLASTIC ROOM, 1948

On 13 June 1948, the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, previously housed in a dozen or so rooms of the former city hall, opened a new space in the 19th-century former palace of the industrialist Maurycy Poz- nański. The Muzeum’s director at the time, Marian Minich, asked Władysław Strze- miński to help design the exhibition rooms. The artist was assigned the task of desi- gning a second-floor space that enclosed a sequence of exhibition rooms, whilst also encompassing a chronological and evolutionary narrative, designed by Mi- Bolesław Utkin, Design for a reconstruction nich, presenting the history of European of the Neoplastic Room by Władysław art. And so, the ‘a.r.’ group’s International Strzemiński, 1960 Collection of Modern Art found its home in the NEOPLASTIC ROOM. It would On 19 January 1950, the Minister of Cul- become a landmark moment in the histo- ture, Włodzimierz Sokorski, personally ry of the development of artistic forms. signed Strzemiński’s dismissal from his In 1949, socialist realism was officially teaching job at the State College of Fine decreed in Poland as the dominant artistic Arts in Łódź – as a matter of urgency, ‘for style. Under the doctrine, only art that was the sake of the teaching profession.’ On 1 ‘socialist in content and realistic in form’ October of the same year, the exhibition was permitted. Consequently, the NEO- was closed down, and the modernist paint- PLASTIC ROOM and the avant-garde, ings and sculptures were locked away in those abstract – and thus ‘reactionary’ and the storerooms. The NEOPLASTIC ‘formalistic’ – works, housed in the room, ROOM itself was painted over. A month became the subject of official scrutiny. and a half later, the same room was host- ing politically correct directions in art. and yet it has been wholly reconstructed. Although the oppression of socialist re- Whilst it is an autonomous art work, it is alism ended in 1955, the NEOPLASTIC also a space for the works of other artists. ROOM was reconstructed only five years It is a consistent aesthetic proposition, a later. The project was carried out by Strze- materialization of the theoretical postula- miński’s disciple, Bolesław Utkin, in col- tes of Neoplasticism and Constructivism; laboration with Marian Minich. but also a functional exhibition ‘device’. While remaining the core of Łódź’s This ‘exhibition lab’ (originally created to Muzeum Sztuki for over fifty years, the showcase De Stijl and related works and NEOPLASTIC ROOM continues to the sculptures of Kobro) has served also as pose inspiring questions. The ROOM an inspiration for successive generations of remains Strzemiński’s unique legacy, contemporary artists.

MAGDALENA ABAKANOWICZ CAGE I BACK, 1978-1981 MAGDALENA ABAKANOWICZ FIGURE BEHIND GLASS, 1989-1991 ALINA SZAPOCZNIKOW, NUDE, 1961 HENRYK MOREL, HOUSES IV, 1966

Two women artists, Szapocznikow and experiments involving non-normative Abakanowicz, spearheaded the new images. Bodies in Abakanowicz and arrangement of the Open Composition, Szapocznikow are subjects or entities, which established milestones in the post- wherein the experiences of violence, war artistic landscape of Poland. Their disease, and also sensual pleasure, leave presence in the context of the NEO- their mark. These same bodies are shown PLASTIC ROOM is important insofar in fragments, without heads, and from that both artists radically foregrounded the back. These are bodies that disinte- the idea of bodily representations in their grate, are tamed, and merge with non- works. This gesture anticipated artistic human elements in the environment. Magdalena Abakanowicz, Cage I back, bodily of absence the turn, in questioning, Kobro, with dialogue into entering as stood under- be can objects Morel’s writings. his in on meditated he which art, Kobro’s in interested keenly was Morel soft, with hard as such textures, and combinations contrasting with working artist An works. his in rubber and iron of use the to course re- make to in Poland artists first the of one was who Morel, Henryk by sculpture a is space same the in exhibited Also nurse. ahospital as working Warsaw, in war the spent Abakanowicz camp. aconcentration in then and ghettos, Pabianice and Łódź the in imprisoned was Jewish, being Szapocznikow, II. World of War experience their namely biographies, artists’ two the with ly close linked are representations These 1978-1981 -

the biological and the mechanical. the and biological the of point meeting the at functioning eality acorpor- of presence the suggest forms rel’s Mo compositions. her in representations -

Alina Szapocznikow, Nude, 1961 Henryk Morel, Houses IV, 1966 Hiroshima, 1990 Hiroshima, Kamoji, Koji

KOJI KAMOJI HIROSHIMA, 1990

Koji Kamoji has been part of the Polish parts. As Kamoji explained in an inter- art scene for over half a century. He view for Biweekly: “Once there was came to Poland to study in the Kraków a body in it, but now there is nothing Academy of Fine Arts under the re- between the two halves but shadow. … nowned Colourist, Artur Nacht-Sam- It’s a work about that which is no lon- borski. In the forging of his art, Kamoji ger, and yet something that remains. … has entered into dialogue with Henryk Having conceived the piece, I decided Stażewski and Włodzimierz Borowski. to go to Hiroshima to see how the place Being generally both minimalist and looks like. I looked out for stones, but site-specific, his works combine formal the city had been so cleaned up that I spareness with the use of materials, couldn’t find any. I was working as a such as stone, aluminium, paper, and translator for a magazine at the time, textile. and my friends, Japanese journalists, HIROSHIMA tackles the theme of collected some stones and the piece of the 1945 nuclear attack. The work has a roof tile from a local river and sent the shape of a kimono divided into two them to me in a wooden box.” the artist, who encourages the visitors to derive meaning from that which they are gazing upon.

ROMAN STAŃCZAK TRACKS, 1996

Oskar Dawicki, 71 Sources of Light, 2005/2010 Roman Stańczak is an artist who OSKAR DAWICKI changes the meaning of ordinary items 71 SOURCES OF through sculptural practices, such LIGHT, 2005/2010 as everting, which involves turning objects inside out. The piece, Tracks, is one of Stańczak’s last sculptures, Oskar Dawicki is the auteur of perfor- executed prior to his temporary with- mances, videos, photographs, instal- drawal from the art world in 1997, and lations, and objects. His works often the last one to survive the period of his emphasize absence and non-presence. absence. The work was inspired by long In one project, Dawicki for many weeks train rides from his native Szczecin ran a swap scheme where the employees to an art college in Zakopane, which of cultural and artistic institutions could for him were moments that attest- submit their old lamps in exchange for ed to the idea of the constant effort of new ones. The newly amassed collec- travelling. For the artist, the railways tion was subsequently used to illumi- had been greatly neglected by the nate an empty corner of the exhibition railway workers; and so he looked in space. The result was a picturesque his work to take them to task for their installation, featuring a tangle of vari- dereliction of duty and their almost ous light sources directed at an incon- ritual act of destruction. The 45-degree spicuous and delitescent place. Marked angle at which the track bends at the with light, the same installation be- final stretch is one that would surely came enhanced through the gesture of derail a train. CÉLINE CONDORELLI, SPATIAL COMPOSITION 11 (TO JOHN TILBURY), 2014 CÉLINE CONDORELLI SPATIAL COMPOSITION 3 TO 10, 2014 DOCUMENTATION OF JOHN TILBURY’S PERFORMANCE IN THE NEOPLASTIC ROOM, 2015, VIDEO

Céline Condorelli is an architect whose artistic practice focuses on an architec- ture construed as a supporting structure. The role of an art-supporting structure can be played by financial mechanisms and institutions, as well as by exhibition Céline Condorelli, Spatial Composition 11 (To architecture or design. John Tilbury), 2014 SPATIAL COMPOSITION 3 to 10 arose from discussions with artist and SITION 1 with a blanket filled with designer, James Langdon, wherein the a hardening substance. The resulting focus was on Strzemiński’s designs, “afterimage” became a utilitarian ob- (whether realized or not), and Strze- ject for one performer only. SPATIAL miński’s documentation, particularly COMPOSITION 11 (TO JOHN SPATIAL COMPOSITION 1. The TILBURY) was used by Tilbury, a Bri- works are studies on Condorelli’s pro- tish pianist and improviser, as a seat for ject for the Galerie fur Zeitgenössische his concert performance in 2016 in the Kunst in Leipzig, where Strzemiński’s NEOPLASTIC ROOM, during which structure inspired a series of benches for he presented his own composition in- the institution’s café. spired by Samuel Beckett’s STIR- The sculpture was created by covering RINGS STILL. a model of the SPATIAL COMPO- MONIKA SOSNOWSKA WEJŚCIE – URSUS, 2012

Monika Sosnowska, Entrance – Ursus, 2012

Ursus is a machinery plant best known for a 1-to-1 scale, the main entrance to the its tractors. It was there that, in June 1976, defunct factory. Then she transformed 14,200 workers went on strike in order to the entrance into a dysfunctional form, a protest against a sharp increase in food cage made of steel and painted with oil price rises announced by the communist paint. Paradoxically, the sculpture’s shape government. That protest, alongside the brings to mind a modernist pavilion and protest which took place in the city of Ra- the constructivist language of Katarzyna dom, was brutally crushed. These events Kobro; or indeed the the spatial designs led the strikers to form the Workers’ De- of Władysław Strzemiński, including fence Committee and gave birth to the those for industry. The artist looked to Polish democratic opposition movement. present the notion of an idea which con- In 2011, the Ursus plant was closed trasts with that of daily reality: here the down. In ENTRANCE – URSUS, dream of the benevolence of economics is Monika Sosnowska reconstructed, in crushed by the economics of profit. SUSAN HILLER DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI, 2012

DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI is an interactive installation in the sha- pe of a jukebox containing one hun- dred songs that can be readily played by members of the public. The title comes from a twelfth-century Old- -German folk song, which praised freedom of thought. The songs were selected not only for personal reasons, but also for their political content, the work stemming as it did from Hiller’s fascination with the kind of popular music that mobilizes and inspires protest. The artist alludes here in an unorthodox manner to the modern- ist ideal of art as a catalyst for social change, but she also foregrounds the emancipatory and revolutionary po- Susan Hiller, Die Gedanken sind frei, 2012 tential of globalized pop culture over that of avant-garde experimentation. everyday life. By way of its installa- Hiller calls the jukebox songs her tion in the NEOPLASTIC ROOM, personal “box of madeleines”, evoking the piece has acquired new meanings. both personal memories and those Spatiotemporal rhythms can also be relating to the political and social shaped by music. histories of the twentieth century. Hiller approaches pop music here as a counterpoint to the constant flux of RH QUAYTMAN ŁÓDŹ POEM, CHAPTER 2 (REPLICA OF KOBRO’S SPATIAL COMPOSITION, 1928), 2004 RH QUAYTMAN, ŁÓDŹ POEM, CHAPTER 2 (JEWISH GRAVEYARD), 2000-2004

The artist describes the project as follows: “For CHAPTER 2, I used a colour photograph from which two chromatically differing silkscreened paintings were made.

I named both paintings SPATIAL RH Quaytman, Łódź Poem, Chapter 2 (Jewish COMPOSITION 23.3 PARSECS Graveyard), 2000-2004 AWAY. Parsec is an astronomical unit for measuring the distance from a star acknowledgement of the shifting to Earth. The light of a star which positions of the viewer (in front of and began its journey in 1928 covered a moving onwards to the next painting) distance of 23.3 parsecs in order to within the immediate framing of reach Earth by 2004. I hand painted the exhibition and its immanently ‘1928’ in oil on top of the image in larger social contents, the privileged reference to the date of the sculpture position of the isolated picture is depicted in the photograph. Unism, destabilized. (...) A painting from THE for Kobro, meant fully integrating her SUN, CHAPTER 1, depicting the objects into both her material and the overgrown Jewish graveyard in Łódź, subjective context; and literally, into was also included in the series. I painted the realm of architecture and time. ’2000’ on top of the image, referencing This added emphasis on the perceptual the date when the photograph was and temporal experience of viewing taken, instead of the date of that undermined the autonomous objectivity which is featured in the photograph, of sculpture. I tried to transplant as I did in my earlier SPATIAL this idea into painting. Through an COMPOSITION painting.” KITTY KRAUS, UNTITLED (LIGHTBOX), 2012

This German-based artist relates in objects are often melted, blown up or her practice to the work of historical unmade in other ways. art movements, such as Minimalism UNTITLED (LIGHTBOX) is a or Constructivism, polemicizing with part of Kraus’s search for “invisible their formal assumptions and techno- light.” One of her earliest works to logical optimism. Kraus has experi- deal this theme was a mirror-covered mented with a limited colour palette, cube, inside of which was a light, a geometry, and the use of glass, ink, “mirror bomb,” as the artist called it, textiles, and electricity. Her works perceptible as a source of heat only. are usually handcrafted, and the ar- In the art work featured here, Kraus tist further stresses the imperfection allows light to escape and form a line of both material and execution. Her on the wall of the room.

LIAM GILLICK PROTOTYPE STRUCTURE, 2011

A matter-of-fact description of Liam ted today by the corporate world. Such Gillick’s PROTOTYPE STRUC- aesthetics no longer serve emancipato- TURE may sound disappointing; but ry efforts. Quite the converse, in fact. here are 20 elements of simple, geome- They have been melded with mass pro- tric shape, and made of powder-coated duction, standardization, and the dis- aluminium. Displayed in two rows, ciplining of our reality. they look like the construction parts of a purely utilitarian purpose. In PROTOTYPE STRUCTURE, Gillick illustrates how modernist avant-garde aesthetics are appropria- Struktura prototypowa, 2011 prototypowa, Liam Gillick, Struktura DANIEL BUREN, HOMMAGE À HENRYK STAŻEWSKI, 1985–2009

In the autumn of 1985, at Stockholm’s merged with the conceptions of Stażew- Moderna Museet, in the exhibition ski. The resulting work was the CABA- Dialogue, Henryk Stażewski, a pion- NE ÉCLATÉE NO. 9, a kind of ‘little eering figure of the Polish avant-garde, house’ on a square plan, of lightweight, invited Daniel Buren to conceive a modular and symmetrical construction, joint project. The French Conceptualist with ‘walls’ made of a red-and-white had long used his trademark stripes to striped fabric. Some segments of the protest the fetishisation of art. Stażew- ‘house’ were detached and mounted on ski was interested not so much in the the walls of the actual Museum room, provocation as in the iron discipline of allowing Stażewski’s paintings and re- Buren’s artistic language. Stażewski liefs (his ‘square’ compositions of 1968- himself had been producing numerous 1984) to ‘penetrate’ inside the structure disciplined forms that had informed through the created openings. The wall- the space of his paintings. frame structure was also based on a Stażewski and Buren occupied a room square plan, repeating the constructional where Buren honed an environment that principles of Stażewski’s reliefs. Photo-souvenir: Hommage à Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: tissue avec Cabane éclatée Henryk Stażewski. Détail, 1985–2009. situé travail blanc et noir, 2009

Nine years after Stażewski’s death, in Modern Art. On this occasion, Bu- 1997, Daniel Buren re-conceived an ren declared that he would refuse to environment for Stażewski’s works repeat the (up until then repeatable) on the occasion of an exhibition form at other museums, especially if which took place at the Polish Cul- an institution wanted the form for its tural Institute in Paris. Here we saw ‘four Mondrians or five Picassos’. the shape of a smaller CABANE ÉC- Buren’s CABANE not only enters LATÉE in black and white stripes. into a dialogue with Stażewski’s That ‘little house’, which eventually work, but it also references the near- found its way to the Muzeum Sztuki by NEOPLASTIC ROOM, which in Łódź, concluded the two artists’ Strzemiński created in order to con- dialogue at a place which Stażew- sider the influence of De Stijl on the ski had been closely connected with first avant-garde, which had also en- as one of the initiators of the ‘a.r.’ compassed Katarzyna Kobro’s sculp- group’s International Collection of tures. RELATED EVENTS

Exhibition workshops for children and adults. Pre-booking is required.

FOR CHILDREN

The Sagacious Mondrian learns wisdom after the event / in the garden

A workshop devoted to the art of geometric abstraction, which reveals meaning through a juxtaposition with supra-artistic reality. Mu-zoo-um

A workshop which explores the processes of synthesising, reducing, and abstracting from reality so as to arrive at the most basic and fundamental qualities.

FOR ADULTS

Brewing art, or making ideas for art

A workshop that considers the rules and ethics which artists adhere to in the forging of their creative outlook. ABS Abstraction: on the composition of an art work

A meeting which considers the basic elements of the visual form, those being the point, the line, and the plane, and their mutual relations, which are of themselves the conveyors of meaning and sense. Lights-Camera-Action: a film workshop

A workshop at the interface between visual performative art and film art.

Information is provided by the Education Department. Tel. 605 060 063. msl.org.pl ms1 Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź Więckowskiego 36

NEOPLASTIC ROOM. OPEN COMPOSITION

Curators Jarosław Suchan with Aleksandra Jach, Maria Morzuch and Daniel Muzyczuk

Editing of the leaflet Leszek Karczewski, Aleksandra Jach and Daniel Muzyczuk

Translation Marcin Wawrzyńczak, Beata Połowińska

Copy-edting Barry Keane © Muzeum Sztuki & Authors, 2019

Cultural Institution of Łódź Voivodeship Government

Run jointly by The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage

Patron of Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz

Partner: