March 30, 2023 – September 24, 2023
The Second Krakow Group – Founding Myth of Polish Contemporary Art
Venue: Building A, level 0
Exhibition date: 30.03.2023 – 24.09.2023
Opening date: 30.03.2023 at 6 pm
Artists:
Jerzy Bereś, Tadeusz Brzozowski, Józef Chrobak, Maria Jarema, Julian Jończyk, Jerzy Kałucki, Tadeusz Kantor, Janina Kraupe-Świderska, Alfred Lenica, Adam Marczyński, Jadwiga Maziarska, Kazimierz Mikulski, Daniel Mróz, Jerzy Nowosielski, Jan Pamuła, Andrzej Pawłowski, Marek Piasecki, Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Mieczysław Porębski, Karol Pustelnik, Erna Rosenstein, Teresa Rudowicz, Bogusław Schaeffer, Jerzy Skarżyński, Maria Stangret, Jonasz Stern, Janusz Tarabuła, Jan Tarasin, Jerzy Tchórzewski, Danuta Urbanowicz, Witold Urbanowicz, Adam Walaciński, Zbigniew Warpechowski, Marian Warzecha, Jerzy Wroński
Curator: Maria Anna Potocka
Co-ordinators: Betina Fekser, Anna Jeznach
In 1957, the second Krakow Group was formed, an association of independent artists, each with a different way of thinking but all equally committed to art. They were individualists, but what united them was their interest in contemporary art. The basic prerequisite for being invited to join the Group was a creative ‘neurosis’ – a feeling of intoxication with the drug that was making art. In this approach, the second Krakow Group was a few years ahead of Fluxus. It became the Polish avant-garde of postmodernism. Despite its name, artists from cities other than Krakow could also become members.
In 1958, the Group applied to the city hall to be allocated premises for a gallery. Krakow had always been brave in such matters.[1] The Group was granted a cellar in the Krzysztofory Palace. This bold decision by officials was both a political and a cultural gesture, inspired by the tail end of the ‘thaw’. The artists were offered a space to practise their art and – incidentally, and unintentionally – a place to exercise artistic independence. The Krakow Group took advantage of both opportunities. The Krzysztofory Gallery was the first exhibition space offered to artists in the history of Poland.
Every member of the Group was entitled to exhibit at Krzysztofory, on the basis of its democratic founding. However, at some point a dictatorship emerged. The Krzysztofory rules succumbed to the personality of Tadeusz Kantor, whose talent and ego were indomitable and non-negotiable. He was a predator, naturally expansive, who changed his intellectual guises with ease. He painted expressive paintings, devised witty happenings, created theatre imbued with pathos and wrote insightful and prophetic manifestos. He commanded submission, but even more, he fascinated and inspired.
Kantor’s domination ended with the creation of Cricoteka. The Krzysztofory Gallery returned to its former openness and democracy – mitigated by artistic quality, of course. Over the 52 years of its existence, several hundred exhibitions, performances, meetings, lectures and theatre productions were organised at Krzysztofory. As well as the Group members, artists from all over the world have exhibited there.
After Stanisław Balewicz, Józef Chrobak became the director of Krzysztofory. This detective of culture and exposer of its hidden mechanisms collected all the documents and gossip related to the functioning of the Gallery and the Group, and published them in the multi-volume series Grupa Krakowska (dokumenty i materiały) [Grupa Krakowska (Krakow Group Documents and Materials)]. Thanks to his inquisitiveness and dedication, the operation of this most important formation of artists in post-war Poland gained a permanent and professional image in the history of art.
At a certain point, after the mid-1990s, the Krakow Group ceased to expand. It was most likely felt that the point of such initiatives had been exhausted. Józik Chrobak certainly thought so. In any case, the Krakow Group decided to commit suicide through withering on the wine. Today only a few members are still alive: Janusz Tarabuła, Andrzej Kostołowski and Zbigniew Warpechowski.
But the memory of this empire of artists seems safe.
Written by Maria Anna Potocka
[1] Fourteen years later, in 1972, I applied to the Department of Culture of the City Council for permission to run a private gallery in my flat. And permission was granted!
More: https://en.mocak.pl/artists-from-krakow-the-second-krakow-group
JAKUB JULIAN ZIÓŁKOWSKI, You Are Mine
Venue: Building A, level 0
Exhibition date: 30.03.2023 – 24.09.2023
Opening date: 30.03.2023 at 6 pm
Curator: Delfina Jałowik
Co-ordinator: Mirosława Bałazy
Jakub Julian Ziółkowski (1980) is one of the most important contemporary Polish artists. The exhibition at MOCAK is the first comprehensive presentation of his work – with 100 works on display, including large-format paintings, elaborate installations, precise drawings and monotypes, small sculptures and ceramic objects. The monumental painting A Dream about Life and the totemic sculpture The Spirit of Our People, exhibited outside, were created especially for the exhibition.
Jakub Julian Ziółkowski has developed his own painterly language with which he explores human nature. With no holds barred, he juxtaposes contemporary imagery with the archetypes and symbolism of tribal cultures. He confronts the physicality of organs and bodily fluids with spiritual meditation. The goal is to contemplate and deepen our insight into the universe; from the microcosm – the birth of a living cell – to the macrocosm with its starbursts. The inseparable relationship between body and mind, which has been the subject of Ziółkowski’s work from the beginning, gains another dimension in the exhibition at MOCAK – making it possible to experience it directly with one’s senses. The artist works with scale, colour and sound.
You Are Mine is a manifesto of life and the overarching processes that govern all that exists. It is a reflection on persistence, the principles of human functioning in the world and how this world is changing.
The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive Polish-English publication with texts by: Olga Tokarczuk, Cecilia Alemani, Bartłomiej Dobroczyński, Kajetan Młynarski, the artist himself and the curator of the exhibition. It is published jointly by MOCAK and the Hatje Cantz publishing house.
More: https://en.mocak.pl/you-are-mine
Return to Ceramics
Venue: Alfa Gallery
Exhibition date: 30.03.2023 – 17.09.2023
Opening date: 30.03.2023 at 6 pm
Artists:
Feiko Beckers, Burçak Bingöl, Nschotschi Haslinger, Natalia Kopytko, Tomek Kulka, Agata Kus, Aleksandra Liput, Justyna Smoleń, Wojciech Ireneusz Sobczyk, Jakub Julian Ziółkowski
Curator: Mirosława Bałazy
Return to Ceramics is an exhibition of works by contemporary artists who use the medium of ceramics in their practice. At the core of the exhibition are works from the MOCAK Collection, by: Feiko Beckers, Burçak Bingöl, Nschotschi Haslinger, Agata Kus, Justyna Smoleń and Jakub Julian Ziółkowski. In addition, the exhibition will feature pieces by Wojciech Ireneusz Sobczyk, Aleksandra Liput, Natalia Kopytko and Tomek Kulka.
For centuries, ceramics has been used for utilitarian and decorative purposes. In Europe, its heyday was in the 17th and 18th centuries, when Delft was famous for faience and the Meissen manufactory for porcelain.
Ceramics also proved to be an interesting medium for art. It was used by avant-garde artists. Contemporary artists are also looking for new meanings and surprising formal possibilities in ceramics.
The exhibition will feature works that span almost the full range of the medium’s potential – from hyper-realistic representations of nature to objects resembling destruction.
Feiko Beckers draws on Dutch traditions and the custom of placing folk proverbs and biblical quotations on plates, transforming them into his own sentences taking the form of absolute truths. Justyna Smoleń, meanwhile, plays with the traditions of Meissen porcelain, deconstructing it and creating sculptural collages. Burçak Bingöl places great emphasis on the decorative layer of ceramics in her work at the same time, however, deliberately destroying the aesthetic decoration by deforming the object with morbid growths. Tomek Kulka creates figurines and objects related to religious worship. Agata Kus’s figures stride the borderline between the world of fantasy and reality, and make a strong impact with their uniform blackness. The vases by Julian Jakub Ziółkowski are plastered with faces commented on in his text Sick of Love. Aleksandra Liput’s Guardian Fungi form a site-specific installation. Their site refers to a plant-like prototype. Wojciech Ireneusz Sobczyk builds mysterious gardens composed of intricately crafted plants. Quasi-rhizomes, shoots and roots entwine the Crowns by Natalia Kopytko. Nschotschi Haslinger’s phallic-plant feet, despite using a noble technique, look as if made of plasticine.
Return to Ceramics presents a gamut of very different artistic concepts. They feature fragments of nature and objects evoking rituals, as well as things and texts that are banal. In these works you will find emotion, irony, ridicule and indeed spirituality.
More: https://en.mocak.pl/return-to-ceramics
LUKÁŠ HOUDEK
Hijra – Between Genders
Venue: Beta Gallery
Exhibition date: 30.03.2023 – 17.09.2023
Opening date: 30.03.2023 at 6 pm
Curator: Dominika Mucha
The exhibition by Lukáš Houdek, an artist in the MOCAK Collection, explores the subject of the Hijra community in India. ‘Hijra’ is a term used in South Asian countries that refers primarily to people recognised at birth as male, but who reject this identification. Some have undergone sex reassignment surgery to female, while others remain at the stage of hormone therapy or have not made any permanent changes to their bodies.
The artist first encountered this phenomenon when staying in India in 2008. Four years later, after studying the available written sources, he decided to take a closer look at the community and experience its life. His interest has resulted in two art projects, which Houdek has continued since 2012. He has produced two photographic series documenting the daily life of the hijras, which will be shown in the Beta Gallery.
The first, entitled Lilies, is a series of nearly 130 black-and-white photographs taken on the streets of Delhi, which are portraits of people who belong to or identify with the community. The second, Ritika, is a series of colour photographs documenting the past 10 years in the life of a hijra.
The exhibition shows the multidimensionality and complexity of this community, which for centuries had a high standing and recognition in the Indian peninsula. Today, however, it has to cope with adapting to the realities of the modern world.
The exhibition also provides an insight into the story and daily struggles of a person from the Hijra community and their attempts to understand themselves and define who they really are, often faced with not being accepted by their family and society.
More: https://en.mocak.pl/hijra-between-genders
KRZYSZTOF MANIAK
Actions in nature
Venue: Re Gallery
Exhibition date: 30.03.2023 – 18.06.2023
Opening date: 30.03.2023 at 6 pm
Curator: Anna Jeznach
The exhibition Actions in Nature is part of a series of presentations by artists whose works can be found in the MOCAK Collection. We will be showing a selection from the dozens of drawings we hold from 2016–2020, as well as new photographs and videos.
Maniak creates in his hometown of Tuchów. Walking around is a frequent motif in his works. The artist captures observations from his hikes using a variety of media. In the photographic series Walks, he explores the sculptural potential of the forces of nature, showing curiously shaped forms of non-human origin. In other projects, the artist physically interacts with nature, squeezing himself between tree roots or making earth sculptures. Among other things, in Tuchów he has created a mound that has become part of the landscape. The work refers to traditional land art works.
For the artist, the process of creating the work and the time devoted to it is crucial – allowing for contemplation and looking at the world from a different perspective. The intentions of Maniak’s works coincide with the reactions of the viewers and encourage reflection on the relationship between humankind and nature and our immediate environment.
More: https://en.mocak.pl/actions-in-nature
