All that remains… The Teenagers of Socialism

Anna Baumgart, Florian Wüst, Gerda Leopold, Łukasz Ronduda,
Ştefan Constantinescu, Tereza Buskova, Karen Mirza and Brad Butler

ANNA BAUMGART & AGNIESZKA KURANT

Chinese Whispers

opening 11th March 2010 at 7 p.m.

exhibition: 12 March – 4 April 2010

lokal_30_warszawa_london
London (UK)
29, Wadeson Street, E2 9DR

http://lokal30.pl/london

ZUZANNA JANIN

ALL THAT MUSIC!

&

ZJ invites
video by:

Wojciech Doroszuk (PL), Regina Jose Galindo (GT),
Tomasz Kozak (PL), Elodie Pong (CH), Józef Robakowski (PL),
Kamen Stoyanov (BG), Ming Wong (SC), Marcus Coates, (UK),
Agnieszka Kurant (PL), Jan Simon (PL)

opening:
5th March at 7 p.m.

Breakfast with the Artist:
6th March from11 a.m. - 2 p.m.

exhibition open: 6 March – 15 April
TEMPORARY GALLERY COLOGNE
Mauritiuswall 35
50676 Köln
fon +49 221 - 302 344 67
info@temporary-gallery-cologne.de
http://www.temporary-gallery-cologne.de

Zuzanna Janin

HOME ( Homage dla Roberta Indiany), 2009-2010,

w finale konkursu na rzeźbę w przestrzeni miejskiej Art in the City w Brukseli

lokal_30 WARSAW
serdecznie zaprasza

KAMEN STOYANOV

Plaster Me

otwarcie: piatek 26.02.2010 o godz. 19.00
Sniadanie z Artysta: sobota 27.02.2010 w godz. 12-14

***opening: 26th February 2010 at 7 p.m.
***Breakfast with the Artist: Sat. 27th February 2010 from noo till 2 p.m.

lokal_30
Foksal 17 b lok30
00-372 Warszawa
POLAND

wystawa czynna do 09.04.2010
*** till 4th April 2010

BONJOUR MONSIEUR BOLTANSKY!
douglas gordon, koo jeong-a, claude lévêque,
pierre reimer, absalon, tobias buche,
bojan sarcevic, alice anderson, angelika markul,
roberto martinez, jean-baptiste bruant.
An exhibition as a “clin d’oeil” to an artist that cannot be ignored, and who has been chosen to represent France at the next Venice Biennale, who always gives us meaningful and unique experiences.
An exhibition imagined by agnès b.
Christian Boltanski’s title is in reference to the painting “Bonjour Monsieur Courbet!” by Gustave Courbet, that we also call “La Rencontre” (The Meeting).
Eleven artists that he has formally and intellectually inspired pay homage to him.
The title gives us clues on the nature of the exhibition, each piece of art will be like a postcard sent to him.
“The Meeting” also refers to the one between agnès b. and Christian Boltanski. Accomplices in a common vocabulary. Sharing, circulation, dispersion…
Complicity, along with Hans Ulrich Obrist, gave birth to the Point d’Ironie, of which Boltanski has designed two different issues. This publication will naturally find a place in this exhibition.

Galerie du Jour agnès b. 44 rue Quincampoix 75004 Paris

vernissages :
presse, le 12 février de 19h à 22h
public, le 13 février à partir de 12h
13 février 3 avril
du mardi au samedi de 12h-19h
librairie galerie du jour, 44 rue quincampoix 75004 paris / +33 (0)1 44 54 55 90
jour@agnesb.fr / www.galeriedujour.com / dans le cadre du fonds de dotation

Magdalena Abakanowicz UNRECOGNISED

opening Thursday, 11th February 2010 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m

lokal_30_warszawa_london
29, Wadeson Str,
London E2 9DR

__________________________________________

Exhibition open: 12.02.2010 – 07.03.2010
Curators of the Galeria Niewielka in Poznań are honoured to invite you to the
exhibition of “Magdalena Abakanowicz UNRECOGNISED”. It would probably be just
this way that such an invitation could well begin, save for the fact that
UNRECOGNISED is another joke-project. Maciej Kurak, well-known for his aloof,
tongue-in-cheek attitude sneered once again, this time together with Max Skorwider, at
mechanisms of the world of contemporary art. Before that he had brought to London
2.5 cubic metres of artistic atmosphere packed in a paper bag, had sent his avatar to
an opening of an exhibition in Dundee (by the way, the envoy was arrested in an
airport), he also was an alleged author of the “Poznań Banksy”. The artist
distinguished with such prestigious awards as “Paszport Polityki” awarded by
“Polityka” weekly magazine and “Spojrzenia” (by the Deutsche Bank Foundation)
shows once more how he looks at the system of art from the outside and chooses self-
mockery as motivation for his own actions.
Since 2009 Maciej Kurak and Max Skorwider run Niewielka gallery in Poznań. Its
name (which simply means “Little”) is as modest as the place itself. Exhibitions are
held there not on a regular basis and the gallery is never mentioned on the same
breath as Poznań most prestigious sites, such as Arsenał, National Museum or Art
Stations. Kurak and Skorwider made it their point to break through this curtain of
prestige and so decided to “invite” to their exhibition Magdalena Abakanowicz, the
Polish artist whose name had found place on the famous Tate Modern wall. However,
the curators faced a crucial dilemma – would the prominent sculptor indeed choose to
exhibit in such a small and broke gallery as theirs? About the only way to go was to
kidnap one of Abakanowicz’s 112 sculptures composing the group entitled
Unrecognised, standing in Poznań Citadel. That’s what Magdalena Abakanowicz
says about her Unrecognised: “This is my most important work. For me it is a sign of
a fear that lingers on, of being confronted with a number and with myself”. What a
honour was their, then! The Niewielka Gallery was to host Abakanowicz’s MOST
IMPORTANT WORK! Kurak and Skorwider went do-or-die as they indeed kidnapped
one of walking figures in the hope that nobody notices its temporary absence and that
the exhibition contributes to improved status of their gallery. Was it naivety or top-
notch sense of humour and sober look upon the reality in which artists and curators
operate? Kurak and Skorwider highlight the catch-as-catch-can rules of this world
where anything is used as long as is effective: plagiary, intellectual theft,
disinformation. Moreover, the artists say about that with brassy smiles. Rather than
judges of a court of justice, they play the roles of a child from The Emperor’s New
Clothes who cried out: “But he is naked!”. In a way similar to a couple of Chinese
artists Yuan Cai and Jian Jun Xi who lay down to Tracy Emin’s “My Bed” (Tate Modern
1999) and pissed to Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” (Tate Modern 2000), the Poznań
duo ruthlessly mock at canonical sanctities of the art world. Their action was by no
means targeted against Magdalena Abakanowicz. What they chose to challenge is the
system
UNRECOGNISED may be described as a sort of ready made, a quotation – from
Abakanowicz and from Duchamp at the same time.
Characteristically, the artists only “borrowed” one of a group of sculptures. In doing
this, they took all the sense out of it. The sculpture expressing the feeling of an
individual being lost in the crowd, thrown in anonymity, in alienation, thus became but
a pale shadow of Abakanowicz’s true work. Kurak and Skorwider just exhibit “a bit of
Abakanowicz”, tempt the public with the famous name, apply marketing trick to attract
as much attention as possible. In doing that they used the very same manoeuvre as
used by institutions which artificially push-up their programmes with exhibitions of
mediocre or less important works by famous masters. Their exhibition becomes just a
fragment torn out from the context, a piece of the overwhelming system.
The exhibition in lokal_30_warszawa_london is a follow-up to that action. Here the
curators of Niewielka Gallery were invited with the exhibition they organised and the
work they “procured” to our London-based gallery. The trick goes on, London public
invited to the show by Maciej Kurak & Max Skorwider, see in fact the work of the Great
Magdalena Abakanowicz. What they experience vastly exceeds their expectations;
apart from the sculpture guests may see records documenting the act of its
“borrowing” and other “evidences of crime” prepared by the duo Kurak/Skorwider.
Michal Suchora

Who’s an ignoble critic? It’s somebody who feels relative of iniquitous figures from modern myths. Being relative, however, does not prevent him from involving in reliable, if radical, critique, since, as we remember from a Centuries-old aphorism, “it takes similar to know what similar is” (Sextus Empiricus).
Ignoble critic is one who opens old sores. Who does this in order to provoke a cry of despair or bliss. But not only that – he also does it to set voices of condemned phantasms and metaphors free. Such a critic believes that stitched and scarred mouth of the Damned have to be opened since it is their speech that makes us aware we are in fact mostly what we are ashamed of and what we force out.
Ignoble critic thus unleashes representations cursed and listens closely to their say. In this he occurs someone very decent – after all he liberates rather than colonises. This is his crucial merit: he wants not to colonise fantasy. He’s not driven by mission of carrying civilisation forth in order to harness representations to politically correct work or engaging them to service for the sake of conventions in force at present. Ignoble critic allows disgraceful phantasms to create a new sovereign Mordor, in which the “charm” is hidden, supplanted beyond the borders of modernity (or overcome thereby, if only seemingly).
Tomasz Kozak in his exhibition OLD SORES MUST (NOT) BE RE-OPENED? presents three found footage projects. The first – Yoga Lesson (2007) – analyses similarities between the Aryan Myth and mythology created by late-modern movies. Another – Negroisation. Exhumation of a Certain Metaphor (2006) – reveals overlapped black self-portraits of “executioner” and “victim” – two writers who, just after the end of WW2 used the figure of a Negro in their writings in order to represent the fall of European culture (Ernst Jünger, a Captain of Wehrmacht, one of the prominent representatives of German Conservative Revolution being the “executioner” and Tadeusz Borowski, a prisoner of Dachau, a poet gravitating towards the left and the author of famous stories from concentration camps). The third project – Song of Sublime (2008) – penetrates the space of cinematographic phantasms in search of what is sacred, understood (in line with the etymology of the word sacer) as “sublime” and “holy”, while at the same time “polluted” and “damned”.

Tomasz Kozak
OLD SORES MUST (NOT) BE RE-OPENED?
Videos / Essays

14.01 – 07.02.2010
lokal_30_warszawa_london_project

OLD SORES MUST (NOT) BE RE-OPENED?

Kim jest „niegodziwy” krytyk? To ktoś, kto czuje się „spokrewniony” z „niecnymi” figurami nowoczesnych mitów. „Pokrewieństwo” nie przeszkadza mu jednak w rzetelnej i radykalnej krytyce, jak bowiem głosi pradawna mądrość: „podobne daje się poznać tylko podobnemu” (Sextus Empiricus).

Krytyk „niegodziwy” jest kimś, kto otwiera stare rany. Robi to po to, by wywołać krzyk rozpaczy albo rozkoszy. Ale nie tylko – robi to także, aby wyzwolić głosy potępionych fantazmatów i metafor. Krytyk ten wierzy, że zaszyte i zabliźnione usta Potępionych trzeba otworzyć, ponieważ to właśnie ich mowa uświadamia nam, że w ogromnym stopniu jesteśmy tym, czego się wstydzimy i wypieramy.

Krytyk „niegodziwy” wyzwala zatem wyklęte wyobrażenia i z uwagą słucha ich mowy. Okazuje się wówczas kimś nader prawym – jest wszakże wyzwolicielem, a nie „kolonizatorem”. Na tym polega jego największa „cnota”: on nie chce „kolonizować” fantazji. Nie przyświeca mu „cywilizacyjna” misja, której celem byłoby zaprzęgnięcie wyobrażeń do poprawnej politycznie pracy albo wcielenie ich do służby na rzecz aktualnie obowiązującej konwencji kulturalnej. Krytyk „niegodziwy” pozwala „haniebnym” fantazmatom utworzyć suwerenny Mordor, w którym kryje się „magia” i „czar” tego, co zostało wyparte poza granice „nowoczesności” (lub pozornie przez nią przezwyciężone).

Tomasz Kozak na wystawie OLD SORES MUST (NOT) BE RE-OPENED? zaprezentuje trzy projekty found footage. Pierwszy – Yoga Lesson (2007) – analizuje podobieństwa między mitologią kreowaną przez późno-nowoczesne kino komercyjne a tzw. Mitem Aryjskim (Arian Myth). Drugi – Negroisation. Exhumation of a Certain Metaphor (2006) – ukazuje nakładające się na siebie „czarne” autoportrety „kata” i „ofiary” - dwóch pisarzy, którzy tuż po zakończeniu II wojny światowej posługiwali się w swoich pismach figurą „Murzyna”, by zobrazować katastrofę europejskiej kultury („katem” jest Ernst Jünger, kapitan Wehrmachtu i jeden z czołowych przedstawicieli niemieckiej Rewolucji Konserwatywnej, „ofiarą” zaś – Tadeusz Borowski, więzień Dachau, lewicujący poeta, autor słynnych opowiadań obozowych). Trzeci z projektów – Song of Sublime (2008) – penetruje otchłań kinematograficznych fantazmatów w poszukiwaniu tego, co „sakralne”, czyli (zgodnie z łacińską etymologią słowa sacer) „wzniosłe” i „święte”, a jednocześnie „skażone” i „przeklęte”.

OLD SORES MUST (NOT) BE RE-OPENED?
15.01 – 07.02.2010

lokal_30_warszawa_london