This year’s edition of the Dorothea von Stetten Art Award at the Kunstmuseum, Bonn – held since 1984 – is dedicated to young Polish contemporary art. After the competition’s guidelines had been reorganised some years ago, it has been presenting and promoting art from Germany’s neighbouring countries every two years. Among the past winners are artists from Czech Republic (2014), the Netherlands (2016), Denmark (2018), and Switzerland (2020).
The Polish winning trio
First up: this year’s modifications. The Polish winning trio adopted a partnership-based approach (and a move away from competition) to the prize and presentation, faithful to the „We are all the winners” motto. „Together, we have decided not to announce a winner and award the prize to one of us, and to resign from competing with one another in the name of cooperation and equal division of the prize, as we have all put an enormous amount of work into creating this exhibition”, the winners write in the declaration posted on Facebook. This solidarity also finds its reflection in the exhibition space: each artist occupies exactly one room and the individual presentations are a kind of cabinet exhibitions.
In the introductory text to the exhibition, as well as in the speeches at the opening event, the organisers emphasise the political dimension of the presented works: “This year attention turns to the complex, highly self-reflective art scene in Poland which at the moment, however, is also faced with extreme challenges because of the political situation in the country. Nine nominators proposed up-and-coming positions, from which a jury selected the three finalists. Whereas Zuza Golińska examines our role in social systems and public spaces, Daniel Rycharski reflects upon sexual identity in the context of religiosity, tradition and provinciality. At the interface between art and science, Diana Lelonek investigates our treatment of the environment and its resources.”
In line with the order given by the organisers during the pre-opening, the post-competition exhibition was inaugurated by Diana Lelonek’s presentation. Alongside the large-format photographs, objects from the Wasteplants Atlas (Atlas śmiercioroślin) series are displayed. This presentation is just a fragment of the artist’s years-long research and a unique herbarium, which represents the disastrous effects of human activity on vegetation. Lelonek’s hybrid plant-waste, exhibited as a cabinet of curiosities, has little in common with the charm of Wunderkammer, but rather with the unavoidable upheaval and the fatalistic vision of the future.
Young Art from Poland
In the introduction to her work, Zuza Golińska accentuated above all the socio-demographic factors of her motivation and execution: the combination of a velvet pink duvet-blanket with steel black bars reflects the relationship between bruising and rebound – between mutilation and emancipation. This supposedly corporeal penetration is a continuation of the work of Body Electric from 2021. During the tour, Golińska also elaborated on the physical production methods of her sculptures (often bent with her body’s own weight) and the related move to Gdańsk.
The most diverse presentation by far – combining painting, ready-made and sculpture – are the works of Daniel Rycharski. The artist addresses issues of belonging and identifying, proudly invoking his small-town origin and highlighting his cooperation with the local community. The exhibition showcases works commissioned by Rycharski from a fellow self-taught artist, items saved from disposal or reprocessing, including pig troughs and tombstone figures in truly spectacular new arrangements, as well as a re-adaptation of the relationship between milk and fuel, composed in the pattern of yin and yang.
This year’s Dorothea von Stetten Art Award recapitulates the most up-to-date relationship between humankind and the world it has created and continues to create, in reference to natural resources, political shifts, the power of financial markets and social influences. Each room allows one to delve into a new, fresh perspective that doesn’t require additional and, above all, competing judgements.
On the occasion of the exhibition, a catalogue will be published by Snoeck-Verlag, Cologne, with essays by Stephan Berg, Sebastian Cichocki, Anda Rottenberg, and Monika Szewczyk. This year’s jury included: Adam Budak (Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover), Fatima Hellberg (Bonner Kunstverein), Ania Kołyszko (independent curator and author), Marie Matusz (participant of the Dorothea von Stetten Art Award 2020), and Aneta Rostkowska (Temporary Gallery, Cologne).
Written by Kasia Lorenc
Dorothea von Stetten Art Award 2022. Young Art from Poland
16.06.2022 – 04.09.2022
