Anna Baumgart / Kamil Kuskowski
dal 5/11/2012 al 12/1/2013
Segnalato da
5/11/2012
Anna Baumgart / Kamil Kuskowski
Laznia Centre For Contemporary Art, Gdansk
Baumgart's video work from the last few years, as well as the artist's early work. She offers a critical reflection on the human condition and society, referring to the issues of historical memory and cultural identity. In his multimedia project, Kamil Kuskowski attempts to define the phenomenon of superstition. He will be debuting his latest paintings, videos, objects and installations.
ANNA BAUMGART
SYNECDOCHE
Curators: Agnieszka Rayzacher, Anna Szynwelska
The exhibition will feature both Anna Baumgart’s video work from the last few years, including The Sun Conquerors [Zdobywcy słońca], Ecstatic and Hysterics, and Other Saints [Ekstatyczki, histeryczki i inne święte] and Fresh Cherries [Świeże wiśnie], as well as the artist’s early work, with a particular emphasis on her Gdańsk period. This is not by any means a retrospective, but rather an attempt to present important stages in the artist’s work and present them within a conceptual framework.
Anna Baumgart is an artist with a special social sensitivity, and who is open to what is left unsaid, repressed and unresolved. She offers a critical reflection on the human condition and society, referring to the issues of historical memory and cultural identity. In this spirit, she created a series of figurative sculptures inspired by photographs in the press, an ephemeral installation in the form of an ellipsis floating in the place of the bridge that once connected the two parts of the Warsaw Ghetto, as well as the video Fresh Cherries, which tackles the topic of forced prostitution in Nazi concentration camps, and sexual violence against women. Despite the diversity of her artistic activities, Anna Baumgart’s work invariably revolves around life in society, how it is experienced and its impact on the individual. The artist is characterized by her remarkable sensitivity to current social and cultural contexts, and her keen sense of Hegel’s Zeitgeist.
The opening of the exhibition will be accompanied by a panel discussion with Joerg Heiser (Frieze Magazine), Iwona Kurz (Instytut Kultury Polskiej UW), Kamila Wielebska (Laznia CCA) and Jakub Majmurek (Krytyka Polityczna).
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KAMIL KUSKOWSKI
IN SPITE OF YOUR LUCK
In this multimedia project, the artist attempts to define the phenomenon of superstition. ‘The exhibition is about our prejudices and the superstitions we believe in and how they affect our lives, how they relate to the luck in the title’, explains Kamil Kuskowski. The artist will be debuting his latest paintings, videos, objects and installations.
Kamil Kuskowski was born in 1973 in Zakopane. He graduated with distinction under prof. Aleksandra Mańczak (in Art Textiles) and prof. Andrzej Gieraga (Painting and Drawing) in the Department of Textiles and Clothing at the Władysław Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, where he worked from 1999-2011. Since 2010, he has held the position of associate professor at the Art Academy in Szczecin, where he runs the Studio of Audio-visual Arts in the Department of New Media, which he heads. He runs the Actual Art Zone Galleries in Łódź and Szczecin. He works in the fields of painting, installation, and video art, often collaborating with the Galeria Piekary in Poznań and the Galeria m2 in Warsaw.
The exhibition is being organized in collaboration with the Galeria Bielska BWA in Bielsko-Biała.
Image: Anna Baumgart, Fresh Cherries (original title: Świeże wiśnie), 2010. Film still from HD video, 19 minutes. Courtesy of lokal_30.
Press Office:
Katarzyna Stenczyk T +48 58 3054050 / k.stenczyk@laznia.pl.
Opening: 6 November 2012, 6:00 p.m.
Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art
Ul. Jaskolcza 1
80-767 Gdansk, Poland
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 12–6pm, Thursday 12–8pm
Wednesdays free admission