August 8 – October 6
This Friday, images will be falling from the sky in Sopot! The 10th anniversary edition of the Frames of Sopot Photography Festival is opening its first exhibition.
Although the 10th anniversary edition of the FFWRS starts on 6th September, the festival hosts would like to invite the public to the opening at the State Art Gallery (PGS) on 8th August for an exhibition by the Helsinki School of Photography titled ‘Images that Fall from the Sky’. The Helsinki School of Photography is a phenomenon in the European and international art of the 21st century. Alongside the Dusseldorf and Kharkiv Schools of Photography, it is one of the fundamental movements in the development of contemporary photography, combining reflections on the nature of the medium together with the tradition of conceptual art. At PGS, we will see iconic works by nine prominent artists who co-created the school’s phenomenon, including large-format, colourful, but also smaller, attentive photo formats combined with video and photobooks.
-The title of the exhibition refers to Selja Ahava’s novel ‘Things that Fall from the Sky’. The weight of random events exceeds the capabilities of the heroes and heroines of the acclaimed and award-winning book. Extremely rare coincidences, difficult to comprehend by imagination, violate ordinary lives that flow quite blissfully and unhurriedly. It is not just about traumatic, painful experiences, but also about extreme beauty and off-the-scale happiness. – explains Adam Mazur, curator of the exhibition.
At PGS, you will see Janne Lehtinen’s photographs depicting a person with something literally falling on their head, wrapping and spreading, fogging and colouring to erase identity and emphasise an unusual moment, such as happiness. On the other hand, in the photographs of Elina Brotherus, or Sanna Kannisto, you will find a similar tonal range and a combination of a preference for form with intimacy and personal engagement. Anni Leppala explores the possibilities of the camera, capturing the moment without chasing the decisive moment, unless it, like in an Ahava novel or a Kaurismäki film, emerges from the trivial, from the slow observation of everyday life. More immersed in art history than photography are the paintings of Niko Luoma, who attempts to refresh and interpret the classics of modern and contemporary paintings. Meanwhile, the aesthetics of post-impressionism are alluded to in the photographs of Eeva Karhu, who also works with layers, overlaying each frame, combining and synthesising photographs into picturesque afterimages. The most monumental works in the exhibition are presented by Santeri Tuori. Similar in form to the works of the Dusseldorf School, the works do not have the coolness of Andreas Gursky’s montages or Thomas Struth’s jungle photographs. Tuori grapples with the theme of landscape and nature, attempting to convey the scale of the elements around us. These are perhaps the most romantic, even pompous works in the series exhibited in Sopot. As a counterpoint to the scale-playing objects are Niina Vatanen’s soft, fabric-fixed photographs hanging from the ceiling.
Currently, the Helsinki School of Photography thrives under the guidance of Timothy Persons from Berlin. The Persons Projects Gallery promotes the 25-year history of the Helsinki School and curates it through exhibitions, publications and lectures around the world, as well as functioning as a main gallery for many of the artists among its six generations. Their work is included in prestigious museum collections, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, New York’s Metropolitan Museum, LACMA and the Getty in Los Angeles, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, Stockholm’s Moderna Museet and all of Finland’s major museums.
On 6th September, the Frames of Sopot Photography Festival will begin. Fans of the photographic festival are in for a treat at the State Art Gallery (PGS). The festival opens with the main exhibition featuring residents Sara Ahde, Jacek Poremba and Antonina Gugała. We will also see a new project by Szymon Rogiński, ‘Alkohole 24′, a continuation of his earlier series (“Internets”, “Tombstones”, “Kebab”), in which the artist studied the architecture of the city’s service spots. Both exhibitions are curated by Maciej Stępiński.
A colourful highlight on the exhibition map of this year’s festival will be an exposition of photographs by Finnish artist Emma Sarpaniemi, presented in the art gallery at Goyki 3 Art Inkubator. In her projects, Sarpaniemi explores the concept of femininity through humorous, unconventional self-portraits. The exhibition ‘Two Ways to Carry a Cauliflower’ will feature works from the artist’s latest series.
The ‘Fire seasons’ series, photographs depicting fire, taken from various sources by French artist Nicolas Giraud, will be available for the public to find around Sopot. Each photograph will appear as a sticker, available in 1,000 copies.
Meanwhile, in the industrial space adjacent to the train station, we will see an exhibition by Artur Pławski titled ‘Rodzaj Męski’ and a presentation of the most interesting Polish photo books from the FFWRS archive, which is constantly being expanded. These exhibitions are curated by Paweł Klein.
FFWRS discovers young talent. At PGS, we will see a post-plein-air exhibition by students of the Film School in Łódź, and at Sopot Centrum − an exhibition of the most interesting photographic works prepared by students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. In turn, at the Dwie Zmiany café, we will get to know the works of graduates of the WFH Sopot School of Photography.
The festival will be accompanied by an exhibition of works by Jan Bułhak and his son Janusz, exhibited in the Sierakowskis’ Manor (Dworek Siekarowskich), the seat of the Society of Friends of Sopot (TPS). Jan Bułhak does not need to be introduced especially to photography lovers, he is one of the most prominent representatives of pictorialism in Poland. The main subject of Bułhak’s works was the Polish landscape in symbolic perspective, architectural monuments and poignant portraits.
The photographs presented in the exhibition entitled ‘Jan Bułhak and son: Sopot regained 1945-1949’ were taken in the second half of the 1940s, during the post-war wanderings with a camera that Jan Bułhak went on in the recovered lands with his son Janusz. They show the rebirth of life in post-war Sopot. The idyllic atmosphere of the works and their poetic character provide a strong contrast to the images of the recently ended war. The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Museum of Photography in Cracow and is curated by Klaudyna Karczewska-Szymkowiak.
As is tradition, a souvenir from the previous editions of the festival is a photo monument, intended as a spontaneous encounter between the viewer and art. So far, photographs by such legends of Polish photography as Tadeusz Rolke, Chris Niedenthal, Zbigniew and Maciej Kosycarz, Rafał Milach and Wojtek Wieteska were displayed in the public space of Sopot. The author of the photographs presented during this year’s edition of the FFWRS is Jan Bułhak.
For loyal viewers, as well as for those who may decide to attend the festival in Sopot for the first time, the organisers are preparing a birthday present. – We will be showing off the archive, which for the last 10 years has contained works by outstanding Polish and foreign artists, including Rafał Milach, Elis Hoffman, Ilona Szwarc, Tadeusz Rolke, Diana Lelonek, Kacper Kowalski, Weronika Gęsicka, Magda Wunsche and Aga Samsel, Konstancja Nowina-Konopka, Soren Lilholt. Once presented during art exhibitions, we will now show them in the city space. – invites Patrycja Tuchanowska-Ruszkiewicz, the festival’s producer.
The theme of the 10th edition of the FFWRS is ‘North’. „When developing the Festival’s main theme, I pondered upon the ambiguity of the word ‘północ’ in Polish and its symbolic meaning. Does it have a geographical dimension or is it related to a specific moment in time? What is the meaning of ‘zero hour’, a point on a map, a ‘northern light’ or the lack thereof? How does the daily rhythm of life, the 24-hour cycle that depends on the seasons, high and low tides, sunrises and sunsets, travel from south to north and back, affect us? Naturally, the North as a reference point also follows from Sopot’s location on the map of Poland, while the participation of artists from Finland opens our view to areas lying even further north of the Baltic Sea.” says Maciej Stępiński, head curator of the jubilee edition of the Frames of Sopot Photography Festival.
This year’s edition of the Sopot festival will be accompanied by a series of meetings with artists and curators (hosted by Agata Passent and Bogna Światkowska, among others), as well as designers and authors of books and graphic works, and guided tours through the exhibitions. A detailed programme of the anniversary edition of the FFWRS will be available soon at www.wramachsopotu.pl
