October 11 – December 28
Staged by the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art, the Young Art Biennale Fisheye is an arts festival paired with a national competition with a history of more than twenty years. The eleventh Biennale to take place this year will provide, like its previous editions did, a comprehensive and representative review of young art, while carrying out a survey into Polish art scene today at the same time. From the beginning, the competition and the ensuing exhibition have been hosted by the Small Gallery and Witches’ Tower in Słupsk, and the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka.
The objective behind the Biennale is to promote art across its manifold techniques and genres, and to highlight the presence of young artists in the Polish art world. It has become tradition that Fisheye provides a critical platform for the confrontation and mutual permeation of diverse aesthetic and discursive practices. Typical of the Słupsk/Ustka Biennale is that it spans a wide variety of artistic disciplines and focuses on young participants (up to the age of 35). Some of the works selected in the competition have been executed with traditional techniques, others make use of multimedia, there are also instances of ephemeral art.
The artists whose work has been included in the Biennale are young, quite a few of them at the very onset of their artistic careers. The great value of the project lies in the fact that, the finalists coming from large urban areas as well as from the provinces, it presents a diverse array of artistic voices across Poland.
Regardless of its generational or geographical profile, the whole initiative aims to present a broad spectrum of attitudes and trends that have emerged in Polish art. The Biennale endeavours to present a convincing picture of its multiple aspects as well as the multifarious perspectives it contains, and to provide space for cultural tolerance. All the Biennale shows demonstrate that the art made by the young generation does not create panoramic, objective or horizontal narratives. By using citations, travesties and metaphorisation, the young artists construct a poignant and symptomatic commentary on the cultural reality they find themselves in.
It is the intention of the competition organisers to spotlight artworks addressing vital social problems that constitute our social, gender, and national identity. The exhibitions are designed to provide both impulse and material for critical reflection on the condition of young Polish art and to encourage exploration of its connections to everyday life and the challenges of contemporary world. As a result, apart from traditional expositions included in the programme of the Biennale, the artists have been offered the chance to give individual self-presentations for the public that will take place on the eve of the opening event. The possibility of encounter makes this year’s Biennale quite exceptional.
Roman Lewandowski