50 years ago Fine Art Symposium Wrocław ’70 was held – an extraordinary meeting of artists, art critics and theoreticians, which became a space for exchanging ideas and forging new directions in Polish art. Although only a few of the artistic proposals were implemented, the meeting was quickly recognized as one of the fundamental moments in the development of conceptual art in Poland. The event has gained legendary fame since and to this day it provokes discussion.
Symposium Wrocław 70/20 is a independent, social initiative formed by the creators of Wrocław’s cultural life: curators and critics, artists and educators, academics and animators, activists and culture managers. The members of the group represent various forms of activity: they are associated with museums, galleries and institutions of long-standing tradition, but also with young NGOs or independent artistic collectives. The 50th anniversary of the symposium in Wrocław is an opportunity to look at it from a new perspective, analyze its legacy, let yourself be inspired by its history but also… to build a new one.
Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the organisers were forced to modify the initial plans for the opening of Symposium Wroclaw 70/20. Originally scheduled for March 17 (the anniversary of the opening of the post-Symposium exhibition) the event has been moved to May 9 – on the same date in 1970 the installation “9 Rays of Light in the Sky” premiered. That evening, in the sky above Wrocław one could see a multi-colored light composition.
PROGRAM (MAY 9):
▪ 16:00 Presentation of the Symposium program Wrocław 70/20
▪ 17:00 Premiere of the „Tu Symposium” podcast
„Tu Sympozjum” is a podcast prepared by the Symposium Wroclaw 70/20 working group – it is a recording of conversations between group’s members, in which the genesis and course of the Wroclaw ’70 Symposium will be discussed; its artistic, political and social context; projects submitted in the course of symposiums and profiles of the applicants themselves; and finally the legacy of the Symposium and why it remains a living source of inspiration to this day.
▪ 18:00 Online lecture by Magdalena Ziółkowska, „Renewing something alive. Symposium Wroclaw ’70 and the concept of the Museum of Current Art.”
Dr Magdalena Ziółkowska will look at how the concept of the Museum of Current Art (Muzeum Sztuki Aktualnej), created by Jerzy Ludwiński four years earlier, and other ideas of institutions dedicated to the latest artistic phenomena appeared at the Symposium.
▪ 19:00 Streaming of Antoni Dzieduszycki’s film „Wrocław ’70. Fine Arts Symposium”
One of the few archival records of the Wrocław Symposium on Art ’70: in unique photos we can observe both the then urban fabric as well as the frames from the opening of the exhibition of submitted projects at the Museum of Architecture. Antoni Dzieduszycki also talks here with invited artists, including Zbigniew Makarewicz, Jerzy Beres, Andrzej Lachowicz and Oskar Hansen.
▪ 12:00-18:00 Edyton # 70/20
ACCOMPANYING EVENT: 5-11.05, 11:00 Visiting of „Living Monument ARENA” by Jerzy Bereś