ZUZANNA JANIN__ALL THAT MUSIC! ** at INSPIRATION LONGUE

JAN MIODUSZEWSKI **at OBIEG

JOZEF ROBAKOWSKI__lokal_30_warszawa_london **OBIEG

TOMASZ KOZAK__lokal_30_warszawa_london ** culture.pl

BAUMGART, KURANT__Wielokropek ** at FRIEZE

ZUZANNA JANIN ** culture.pl

ZUZANNA JANIN_FIGHT ** w blog Straszna Sztuka

ZUZANNA JANIN__SONSBEEK ** FRIEZE

lokal_30_warszawa_london ** THE ART NEWSPAPER

lokal_30_warszawa_london ** Wyborcza

ANNA BAUMGART_Adrian David Gallery ** flaneriaa.blox.pl

ZUZANNA JANIN__Majka from the Movie (Madness of Majka Skowron1975) ** Glos Wielkopolski

ZUZANNA JANIN__ALL THAT MUSIC! ** sztuka.pl

ZUZANNA JANIN__ALL THAT MUSIC! ** culture.pl

ZUZANNA JANIN__ALL THAT MUSIC! ** O.pl

FILIP BERENDT__Tranzyt ** OBIEG by Karolina Kolenda

ZUZANNA JANIN__lokal_30_warszawa_london_project ** OBIEG rozmowa z Mai Tran

JOZEF I IZA ROBAKOWSCY__Galeria Wymiany ** OBIEG rozmowa z Marta Sklodowska

ZUZANNA JANIN & JAN SIMON__Power Games ** /seconds

ANNA BAUMGART& AGNIESZKA KURANT__Wielokropek **mojemiasto.org.pl

ANNA BAUMGART& AGNIESZKA KURANT__Wielokropek  ** w Zyciu Warszawy

ANNA BAUMGART& AGNIESZKA KURANT__Wielokropek ** w Wyborczej

lokal_30_warszawa_london__Streets & Other Interiors ** rp.pl

ZDUNEK, BAUMGART, KURAK ** kunstbeeld.nl

KAROL RADZISZEWSKI **  Art&Buisness

lokal_30_warszawa_london__Sketches for A Project ** ArtReview by Oliver Basciano

MARIOLA BRILLOWSKA_Poems for Films_lokal_30/Jadlodania Filozoficzna ** You Tube

MARIOLA BRILLOWSKA **  You Tube

ANNA BAUMGART ** rp.pl

ANNA BAUMGART__HARTQUAKE Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem  ** Babel Med

lokal_30 / RSA ** Glasgow News

ANGELIKA FOJTUCH__/_(…) /Supermarket  ** at Artists Talking

TOMASZ KOZAK_/_DEMONS / Museum Bat Yam ** in HAARETZ

LOVE, CITY & CATASTROPHE_ lokal_30 / Nelly Aman Gallery ** in HAARETZ (PL_translation)

LETO, SIMON, JANIN, ZMIJEWSKI / Haifa Museum of Art ** in DZIENNINK (PL)

MARIOLA BRILLOWSKA lokal_30 NADA **  You Tube

JAN MIODUSZEWSKI / lokal_30 / NADA Miami  ** Miami Art Mania

MALGORZATA SZYMANKIEWICZ / lokal_30 WARSZAWA ** Artinfo.pl

JOZEF ROBAKOWSKI / Isntytut Polski w Berlinie  ** TV_net

ANNA BAUMGART / Zak Branicka / lokal_30  ** OBIEG

ZUZANNA JANIN, JAN SIMON / Haifa Museum of Art    ** FORWARD

lokal_30 on the list “100 the most important” in Poland ** OBIEG

ZUZANNA JANIN / Museum  of Art Haifa /Nelly Aman Gallery  ** HAARETZ (translationPL)

ZUZANNA JANIN / Brooklyn Museum of Art_ ** Brooklyn Musuem site

IGOR OMULECKI / lokal_30 Warszawa  ** Artinfo.pl

IGOR OMULECKI / lokal_30_WARSZAWA  ** DZIENNIK

MALGORZATA SZYMANKIEWICZ / Galeria Miejska_POZNAN_ ** Art&Buisness

MAJKA FROM THE MOVIE (Szaleństwo Majki Skowron / Madness of Majka Skowron, 1975), 2009, DVD

Found footage art video serial episodes by Zuzanna Janin:

The WAY, 2009, DVD, loop, 15’54’’
70’s, 2009, DVD, loop, 13’16’’
BEFORE or AFTER, 2009, DVD, loop, 13’16’’
HERE or THERE, 2009, DVD, loop, 22’53’’
FUN FUN FUN, 2009, DVD, loop, 30’38’

trailer by Tomasz Kozak

Skelter&Shelter, 2009, DVD, 18′12”

Episodes can be added each to other in different way so they will composed as a short experimental art video film.

70’s, 2009, DVD, loop, 13’16’’
episode from the video serial: MAJKA FROM THE MOVIE (Szaleństwo Majki Skowron / Madness of Majka Skowron, 1975), 2009, DVD

Short description (fragments)

Majka from the Movie is Poland’s first artistic video series, consisting (so far) of 6 short art videos, made by Zuzanna Janin (5 episodes) in collaboration with Tomasz Kozak (a trailer). The series uses the found footage technique, composing scenes from Polish TV serial for teenegers from 1970’s, entitled Szaleństwo Majki Skowron Madnesss of Majka Skowron), as well as from many American and European movies from the last 40 years. Some scenes were shot by the artist in our days, in various places, including Poland, England, US, Japan and elsewhere. The protagonist is a teenage girl travelling in both space and time, not only in historical and geographic plans but also in the sphere of culture.

During her journey Majka, a cult, rebel character who “escapes” from the frame of original serial and begins to wander across the area of culture, faces a lot of different situations, events, meeting people - real person as well as characters from movies - and finding herself within film scenes. She talks to prominent figures from the areas of science and philosophy (as Slavoj Žižek) or pop-culture (actors and singers, such as Iggy Pop or Tom Waits). Majka observes, listens, asks questions. Where did she come from and where is she bound? What is her journey’s end? It is not any specific place to reach. Instead, I suppose, Majka finds a true goal in searching for the very sense of existence in social and cultural context as she looks and finds or rather builds her own identity.

The way Zuzanna Janin approaches the problem seems very interesting, also because she made a young girl, Majka, who alongside, travels across culture the principal character (she called her “the missing heroine” in one interview). This is in opposition to tradition of European culture where the roles of those who seek their own identities and gradually find or discover them via a journey, either internal or real, were almost always played by men. Zuzanna Janin, speaking up for women’s experience, restores the right proportions.

“(…) She appears in places she neither has ever been nor she could even be before. For example, she couldn’t have met Colonel Kurtz / Marlon Brando in Vietnamese forests. Now she is there and witnesses his death. She was not on the desert in Zabriskie Point, where a girl – the film protagonist – wandered with her boyfriend and where she blew up a villa she regarded a symbol of capitalism and its values. Now Majka is that girl and it’s she who blows the house up. I shot a lot of additional footage, in which an actress’ daughter played. She acts Majka in the additional footage I needed, but Majka in fact wanders all over the world as I did the shooting it in Tokyo, in Miami, in London, anywhere. This gives me a dual character, Majka from 1975 / Majka from 2009 is the one heroine, at the same time meets various people, identifying herself with some of them – as she does with the girl in Zabriskie Point. Other times she remains indifferent, as when she falls asleep and misses all the final scenes of Uma Thurman fighting in Kill Bill. Then, on the contrary, in fragments of Rybczyński’s Tango she becomes one of the key figures. And she goes on again and meets Ripley from Alien. As they both watch what the science fiction culture created over time, Majka unexpectedly finds herself in Tarkowski’s Solaris. Later on she meets Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s feature film The Doors. All these adventures are divided into episodes, six of them so far. In one, entitled The Way she’s on the run all of the time: fleeing across Tokyo, forests, jungle, until she ends up at the Warsaw Central Station, meets Žižek and asks him who she should meet in her journey through the land of culture. “Look not for people” - he answers. “Instead, look for what they do. These are miracles”. Thanking him, she goes on. This is all very symbolic. “ (…)

Zofia Starikiewicz, Poznan 2009

Quotes from the catalogue interwiev by Kamila Wilebska with Zuzanna Janin, Warsaw 2009

OBYWATELSKIE FORUM SZTUKI WIZUALNEJ ***CIVIL FORUM of VISUAL ART

nieformalne dyskusje czesci OFSW przedluzaly sie po zebraniu ***unformal discusions of part of CFoVA continue after meeting
on 01.12 2009

Dominik Kurylek, Barbara Piwowarska, Robert Rumas, Jaroslaw Suchan, Zbigniew Libera, Marta Deskur, Zuzanna Janin, Michal Suchora, Oskar Dawicki i Igor Krenz…byl, ale nie widac na obrazku

Muzeum Historii Zydów Polskich:

Anna Baumgart & Agnieszka Kurant, (…) 2009

Instalacja nad miejscem kladki na Chlodnej laczacej Male i Duze Getto w Warszawie w latach 1942-1943

Konceptualna praca Anny Baumgart i Agnieszki Kurant, którą autorki traktują jako swoistą “rzeźbę językową”, podejmuje temat pamięci i upamiętniania. Dodatkowo bada granice współczesnej tożsamości Warszawy, dla której podstawowymi kategoriami opisu są pustka i nieobecność. II wojna światowa, w której zginęła jedna trzecia mieszkańców i prawie cała społeczność żydowska, położyła kres wielokulturowości miasta. Z pejzażu Warszawy zniknęła na zawsze architektura synagog, a z ulic dźwięk języka jidysz.

(…) - efemeryczna i zrywająca z prawem grawitacji rzeźba przybierająca formę gigantycznego znaku interpunkcyjnego zostanie zainstalowana w miejscu symbolicznym - nad ulicą Chłodną. Tamtędy w czasie II wojny światowej przebiegała “kładka”, drewniany most nad aryjską częścią miasta, łączący Duże i Małe Getto. W ten sposób autorki chcą przełamać tabu, jakim do dziś jest, rzucająca cień na polsko-żydowskie relacje, świadomość Polaków, że to na ich oczach dokonała się zagłada Żydów.

(…) to znak interpunkcyjny oznaczający: opuszczenie, pominięcie w tekście, przerwanie myśli, brakujący element. W zamyśle autorek projekt przekracza ramy historii i interpunkcji. (…) jest instalacją podróżującą, znakiem do wynajęcia, pustym miejscem skupiającym uwagę na istniejących w pamięci i kulturze tabu. W lustrzanej powierzchni balonów odbija się każdy zbliżający się element lub dyskurs. (…) może się pojawić wszędzie tam, gdzie istnieją nierozwiązane problemy i trudne do wypowiedzenia tematy.

Traktujemy projekt jak katalizator różnych, często wykluczających się znaczeń – komentują swój projekt autorki. Dla nas sztuka, w odróżnieniu od dydaktyki i polityki nie jest tubą czy prezentacją z góry zastanych poglądów. Chciałybyśmy, aby (…) uruchomił nowe, nieprzewidywalne sytuacje społeczne, a w nasyconej traumatyczną przeszłością i stabuizowanej przestrzeni Warszawy poruszył to, co zepchnięte do kolektywnej podświadomości.

Projektowi towarzyszy cykl debat publicznych na temat strategii pamięci i upamiętniania, estetyki glamour jako wehikułu artykulacji tematów tabu, sztuki konceptualnej, historii i ironii. Mamy nadzieję, że dzięki uruchomionej w ten sposób dyskusji nieodstępny dotąd, zagrzebany w niepamięci i niewypowiedziany fragment wspólnego doświadczenia Żydów i Polaków odzyska dostęp do języka, a wraz z nim kontakt ze współczesnością.

Project (…) by Anna Baumgart & Agnieszka Kurant installed over the place where a wooden overpass above the Aryan part of the city linked the Large Ghetto with the Small Ghetto in 1942-43 in Warsaw.

Museum of the History of Polish Jews:

Urban Space Project
Place: Chłodna Street, November/ December 2009

Project (…) is a spatial installation project that fits well with the educational mission of the Museum, best described by the idea “open past” and based on a dialogue of multiple narratives on the subject of the joint Polish-Jewish history, cultivating the memory of coexistence of cultures, but also inviting to critical reflection, without evasion of taboo topics. Conceptual work by Anna Baumgart and Agnieszka Kurant, perceived by them as a kind of “linguistic sculpture” which picks up on the theme of “memory work” in Polish modern art, and explores the boundaries of Warsaw”s contemporary identity, a city for which void and absence are the basic categories of description. The Second World War, during which one third of Warsaw”s inhabitants perished, including near entire Jewish population, put an end to the city”s centuries-long multicultural reality. There disappeared for ever from her urban landscape the architecture of synagogues and from her streets the sounds of Yiddish.

(…), an ephemeral sculpture that defies the laws of gravity will be installed in a symbolic place, over Chłodna street, where during the Second World War there stood the “footbridge”, a wooden overpass above the Aryan part of the city linking the Large Ghetto with the Small Ghetto. The taboo subject the authors of (…) wish to bring up is that of awareness of Poles that mass murder of Jews happened before their very eyes; the inexpressible traumatic experience that casts a shadow on relations between Jews and Poles to this day.

(…) can appear wherever there are unsolvable problems and near inexpressible subjects. (…) is a punctuation mark that represents: “skipping over or omission in a text, a broken thought, a missing element”. As conceived by the authors, (…) crosses the boundaries of history; is travelling installation, a sign for hire; empty space that focuses attention on a taboo that actually exists in memory and culture. The shining surfaces of the balloons will reflect back every element or discourse that nears them.

Commenting on their work, the authors said: The project for us is a catalyst of different, often mutually exclusive meanings. For us art, as opposed to didacticism and politics, is not a mouthpiece or a speaking tube, a presentation of hand-me-down views. We would like to see this art instigate new and unpredictable social situations and touch the things long relegated to collective subconscious in Warsaw”s urban space, so saturated with the traumatic past and so taboo-ridden.
The project is complemented by a cycle of open public debates taking which will be devoted to such topics as: the strategy of absence of memory in Warsaw, the glamour aesthetics as a vehicle for taboo content, the conceptual art, history and irony.

The urban project (…) is also addressed to the local community, the present inhabitants of Chłodna street for whom this may be the first collective experience and an encounter with their street”s Jewish past, hopefully an impulse to building neighbourly relations based on recognition of their street”s history and identity.

Projekt coordinator: Karolina Sakowicz (tel. +48 22 471 03 04)
Project curator: Ewa Toniak
Project authors: Anna Baumgart, Agnieszka Kurant