STATES OF FOCUS / 15.03–20.05.2019 15.03 artists: —20.05.2019 NATALIA LL and Marina Abramović Curator: Anna Baumgart Małgorzata Miśniakiewicz Agata Bogacka Geta Brătescu Loans of works courtesy of: Anetta Mona Chişa & Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, Lokal_30 Gallery, Piekary Gallery / Lucia Tkáčová Cezary Pieczyński, Raster Gallery, Signum Foundation, ING Polish Cipedrapskuad Art Foundation, The Collection of Joanna and Krzysztof Madelski, Alexandra Croitoru Kontakt, The Art Collection of Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation, Anča Daučíková MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Cracow, The Museum Alla Georgieva of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Museum of Art in Łódź, Slovak Teresa Gierzyńska National Gallery in Bratislava, Zygmunt Hübner Powszechny Katarzyna Górna Theatre in Warsaw, Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and Aneta Grzeszykowska Artists participating in the exhibition Izabella Gustowska Sanja Iveković Production and installation: Elżbieta Jabłońska Łukasz Bałaciński, Mateusz Bałaciński, Paweł Bąkowski, Zuzanna Janin Aleksandra Kozioł, Karolina Lizak, Marcin Pecyna, Dominika Anna Jermolaewa Sośnicka Jagoda Kaloper Šejla Kamerić Educational programme accompanying the exhibition: Adu Karczmarczyk Natalia Gołubowska, Jan Kozub, Anna Krukowska Barbara Konopka Katarzyna Kozyra Promotion, PR: Zofia Kulik Magdalena Skrabek Ewa Kuryluk Anna Kutera Cooperation: Cecylia Malik Agnieszka Gromek, Karolina Jaworska, Piotr Lisowski, Jolanta Marcolla Marcin Pinkos, Sylwia Świętek-Ozdoba, Justyna Tamioła, Dóra Maurer Agnieszka Tetelewska Teresa Murak Anna Niesterowicz Exhibition visual identification. Layout, DTP: Dorota Nieznalska Grupa Projektor Tanja Ostojić Ewa Partum Text: Liliana Piskorska Małgorzata Miśniakiewicz Anna Płotnicka Jadwiga Sawicka Editing and polish proof-reading: Sędzia Główny Monika Wójtowicz Jana Shostak Teresa Tyszkiewicz Editing and polish proof-reading: Julita Wójcik Monika Wójtowicz Ewa Zarzycka Agata Zbylut Translation: Alicja Żebrowska Karol Waniek Publisher: Wrocław Contemporary Museum pl. Strzegomski 2a, 53-681 Wrocław [email protected] ph. +48 71 356 42 50 www.muzeumwspolczesne.pl Director: dr Andrzej Jarosz ISBN 978-83-63350-39-0 Attention! Admission to the opening and exhibition is only for people over 15 years old Wrocław Contemporary Museum is the municipal institution of culture of the city of Wrocław 4TH FLOOR 3RD FLOOR aking its title from one of the works by Natalia LL, the exhibition States of Focus concentrates on the Tartist’s own image, which she has been exploring almost since the beginning of her practice. Although the strategies of using her own appearance have changed over the years, the Wrocław-based artist consistently situated her face and body at the centre of her art. The exhibition confronts her oeuvre, produced over the span of more than five decades, with works by over 40 artists from Poland and countries of the former Eastern Bloc. This juxtaposition makes it possible to not only attentively analyse the transformations which women’s self-portra- iture has undergone in art history, but also to polemically approach the practice of the main heroine. Based primarily on photography, video and actions for the camera, the exhibition concentrates on the moment when female artists point the camera lens at themselves. Con- sequently, it raises questions about performance of the self, strategies of representation, and constructing and de-constructing the image of a woman. Highlighting the historical continuity of these experiments offers a new per- spective on the currently ubiquitous phenomenon of sel- fies, which permeates not only social media, but also the artistic discourse. By presenting the historical and inter- national context of self-portraiture, the exhibition proble- matises the ambiguous gesture of self-analysis and poses questions about female artists’ self-definition and the per- ception of women in society. The invited artists investigate issues such as objectifica- tion of the female body, scopophilia, emancipating and oppressive aspects of sexuality, narcissism, acceptable and reprehensible social roles, the right to self-determi- nation and individual freedom. An important facet of the exhibition is the influence of iconography and mythology on the forms of representation, the role of tradition and the potential change of status of the contemporary woman artist. The variety of perspectives on the female expe- rience forms a multi-thread story that weaves together the social and political role of women and private narratives. By concentrating on the phenomenon of self-presentation in art, the exhibition States of Focus invites the viewer to not only reinterpret the practice of the outstanding artist from Wrocław, but also to revisit her oeuvre in dialogue with canonical works that have defined the perception of women’s art in Central and Eastern Europe. 3RD FLOOR 3RD FLOOR Art realises itself in every moment of reality. 7 directly at the photographic subject, not least because of Every event, every second, is singular for the the peculiar filter in the form of the camera, Anna Kutera individual and can never be repeated. This is perversely insists on looking into her eyes. When Mar- colla resorts to verbal expressions to unveil the limits of why I record common and trivial events such photography, Kutera seems to disregard them simply as eating, sleeping, copulation, resting, spe- by providing a clear instruction and allowing the photo- aking, and so on. graph to become her objectified substitute, capable of 9 giving instructions to the viewer. In Feminist Painting, Kute- This is what Natalia LL wrote in 1972. The tension between ra’s work created at Alfons Mazurkiewicz’s studio when the idea of permanent registration, which tends towards she was attending the State Higher School of Fine Arts, 1 maximal objectivity and transparency – as expressed in the artist directly addresses the subject of feminism by 2 Intimate Registration and Topology of the Body – and perversely combining painting – in particular, abstrac- 3 the staged theatricality of The Velvet Terror, is the best tionism in the spirit of Jackson Pollock, which is conven- manifestation of the ambivalent character of self-repre- tionally deemed to be an essentially “masculine” form of sentation. It results from the simultaneous desire to per- expression – with household chores, typically attributed to form while seeking to express the truth about oneself. The women. This very early work raises the issue of women’s impossibility of making an unequivocal statement comes invisible work while ironically approaching the nascent 4 to the foreground in Natalia LL’s work Word, which records phenomenon of what would come to be known as femi- the articulation of a phrase that is known solely to the artist nist art. The subject of women’s expressiveness in relation while remaining unintelligible to the viewer, leading to spe- to the body is also raised by Natalia LL in her work Body culations and numerous possible interpretations. The 10 Alphabet. By arranging her body to form letters, and thus relativity of perception in the context of the photographic by transforming corporeality into semantics, she highlights 5 medium is also emphasised by Zofia Kulik in her 1970 work the impossibility of expression due to body objectification. that has not been presented before. Here, the artist reve- als the very moment of taking a photograph, using light 11 In the 1975 work titled Natalia! and performed in Beo- and screens that confuse the voyeuristic gaze and highli- grad, a choir comprised of students and artists conduc- ght the barriers of visibility. The significance of the adop- ted by Hungarian artist Katalin Ladik recites all the possi- ted pose and selected framing in constructing a seemin- ble permutations of the name Natalia. Of key importance gly objective depiction is stressed in Jolanta Marcolla’s here is the involvement of invited participants, who thus 8 Dependence. In the series of self-portraits, the artist’s ceased to be observers and became co-creators of the eyes are fixed on an area beyond the frame, inaccessible event. Works from the mid-1970s featured in this exhi- to the viewer and outside the photograph. Seriality and bition clearly indicate a shift in the artists’ attitude towards performing for the camera are important aspects also in the role of the audience as well as towards the medium of 6 the case of Dóra Maurer’s work. The artist combines in 12 film. Jolanta Marcolla’s video installation titled Dimension it threads related to modernism, class politics and femi- 2 (which has survived only in the form of photographic nism. By caressing cobblestones that were used as pro- documentation) stresses the technological aspect of pro- jectiles during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Maurer ducing video, emphasises the medium’s relativism and connects intimate, private gestures with political history the ensuing threat of destabilisation of the image. Marina and social norms determining the currently acceptable 13 Abramović’s 1974 video Rhythm 2 is also based on trans- roles of women and their involvement in processes affec- forming the audience into participants in the creative pro- ting the course of history. Jolanta Marcolla’s cycle Trial cess in their own right. During her performance, the artist 8 explores the strategies employed by the Recent Art Gal- explored the limits of her body until reaching the point lery (1971–1975) – a creative collective co-founded by her of unconsciousness. In the first