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15/9/2008

Revolutions 1968

Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw

The year 1968 is a time of the culmination of a great number of wildly different political and social tensions. Protests, unrest and demonstrations took place all over the world, from Mexico and the U.S.A., through Germany, France, Poland and Czechoslovakia to as far as Japan (without neglecting Latin America). In France, a year earlier had appeared the book The Spectacle Society by Guy Debord, one of the founders of the International Situationist Movement often referred to as the "last of the great revolutionaries". This book, which can be seen as prophesying the coming revolts, was an unflinching diagnosis of a society alienated through the impact of media and systems of selling. It painted a society for whom everything had simply become a selection of images passively desired and over which one has no control. The cure for this state of affairs were to be artistic-political provocations, directed against all systems (not just political), that were to rip peop le from their lethargy.

The exhibition "Revolutions 1968" is not an exhibition of the art of those times, a presentation of the artists then active or a historical exhibition. It is rather an attempt to portray this period through art from a variety of perspectives: historical and documentary, or through interpretations and re-interpretations of social problems and cultural phenomena characteristic of this turbulent time. The birth of counter-culture, along with a rapid development of pop-culture, emancipation movements (fighting for the rights of minorities and women), the fight for civic rights, the forming of ecological awareness, the fascination for leftist movements, utopian architectonic visions, the interest in new media (portable cameras, the computer or television communication) the contestation of institutions (and not just of institutions) and changes in universities are just a few of the themes touched within the framework of this exhibition. What art accompanied these changes and how or in what way was it engaged in them? What motifs, themes or heritage of 1968 can be found in later works? Works of art (paintings, videos and photographs) will be presented along with archive visual materials and installations prepared specifically for this occasion.

The exhibition includes works/videos/films/documentation by the following artists: Vito Acconci (USA), Dennis Adams (USA), Bas Jan Ader (NL/USA), Eleanor Antin (USA), Tamas St. Auby (HU), John Baldessari (USA), Ant Farm (USA), Jerzy Bereś (PL), Thomas Bayrle (GER), Joseph Beuys (GER), Alighiero Boetti (IT), Bill Bollinger (USA), Włodzimierz Borowski (PL), Louise Bourgeois (FR/USA), Mark Boyle&Joan Hills (UK), Marcel Broodthaers (BE), Christo&Jeanne-Claude (USA), Elżbieta&Emil Cieślarowie (PL), Chris Burden (USA), Wojciech Bruszewski (PL), James Lee Byars (USA), Victor Nieuwenhuijs&Maartje Seyferth (NL), Andrzej Dłużniewski (PL), Jan Dobkowski (PL), Guy Debord (FR), Stanisław Dróżdż (PL), Druga Grupa (PL), Valie Export (AT), Öyvind Fahlström (SE), Harum Farocki (GER), Robert Filliou (FR), Jean-Luc Godard (FR), Jerzy Grotowski (PL), Rodney Graham (CA), Johan Grimonprez (BE), Richard Hamilton (UK), Hans Haacke (GER/USA), Eva Hesse (USA), Hans Hollein (AT), Dorothy Ia nnone (USA/GER), Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz (PL), Michel Journiac (FR), Jagoda Kaloper (YU/HR), On Kawara (JAP/USA), William Klein (USA), Jiří Kolář (CZE), Gyula Konkoly (HU), Grzegorz Kowalski (PL), Edward Krasiński (PL), Zofia Kulik (PL), Yayoi Kusama (JP/USA), Przemysław Kwiek (PL), László Lakner (GER/HU), Lee Lozano (USA), Witold Masznicz (PL), Gordon Matta-Clark (USA), Ana Mendieta (CU/USA), Gustaw Metzger, Henryk Morel (PL), Bruce Nauman (USA), Marcel Odenbach (GER), OHO Group (YU/HR), Dennis Oppenheim (USA), Nam June Paik (KR/USA), Vladimir Petek (YU), Niki de Saint Phalle (FR), Maria Pinińska-Bereś (PL), Charlotte Posenenske (GER), Waldemar Raniszewski&Wiktor Gut (PL), Bridget Riley (UK), Martha Rosler (USA), Jerzy Rosołowicz (PL), Joe Tilson (UK), Andrzej Urbanowicz (PL), Helke Sander (GER), Peter Sedgley (UK), Katharina Sieverding (CZE/GER), Carolee Schneeman (USA), Robert Smithson (USA), Leszek Sobocki (PL), Keith Sonnier (USA), Steina&Woody Vasulka (USA), Wolf Vostell (GER), Andy Warhol (USA), Ryszard Winiarski (PL), Anastazy Wiśniewski (PL), The Wooster Group (USA), Jurry Zieliński (PL)

curators: Maria Brewinska, Hanna Wroblewska
assistance: Zofia Machnicka, Julia Leopold, Joanna Sokołowska, Karolina Vysata

Image: Dorothy Iannone, The Next Great Moment in History is Ours, 1970. Photo Jochen Littkemann, courtesy Air de Paris.

The project received financial support from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, and was produced with the support of the Embassy of the United States of America and the Goethe Institute in Warsaw.

We thank the British Council for their assistance in obtaining works from the collections of the British Council in London and the Hungarian Culture Institute in Warsaw.

Exhibition Partner HAMBURGER KUNSTHALLE
Exhibition Technological Partner the firm SAMSUNG, producer of a new line of televisions SAMSUNG Crystal Design.

media patronage: Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, TVP, TOK FM, The Warsaw Voice, Onet.pl, empik

Olga Gawerska
press spokesman (48 22) 827 58 54 ext. 155 rzecznik@zacheta.art.pl

Zacheta National Gallery of Art
Pl. Malachowskiego 3 - 00-916 Warsaw, Poland
gallery opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday 12.00 - 20.00, Thurdsays entrance free

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