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6/6/2013

Christian Jankowski

Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle - CCA Warsaw, Warsaw

Curated by Ewa Gorządek

The Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw has prepared the first in Poland, comprehensive presentation of works from the outstanding German artist, Christian Jankowski. The artist developed an original artistic practice with which he synthesizes performative and participatory strategies in his film works, installations, photography, and objects. Jankowski undermines clichés and in a refreshing manner, he uses formats that are ubiquitous in mass culture to provoke reflection on the role of the artist as well as art in contemporary society.

The extensive presentation of Christian Jankowski’s work at the CCA consists of a retrospective display of the artist's most important works from 1992-2012, along with a work that was prepared specifically for the exhibition at the Ujazdowski Castle, "The Heavy-weight History", combining sport, art, and history in an original way. The athletes that were invited to Jankowski’s project - Polish weightlifters – undertook a great endeavor by using the strength of their muscles to momentarily lift selected monuments in Warsaw above ground, and thus facing History. Monuments that were successfully lifted: The Monument of Ludwik Waryński, The Mermaid Statue in Old Town, and a figure of a soldier from the Monument of Brotherhood in Arms (The Four Sleeping Ones). The athletes also attempted to lift the monuments of Willy Brandt and Ronald Reagan. The photographic material as well as footage of the struggle is displayed at the CCA along with Jankowski’s other works.

The exhibition proposes an insight, which deviates from the chronology and divisions in media, into the artistic practices of Christian Jankowski. In it, the artist links a subversive spirit of action stemming from the 1960s, such as performances, happenings and art events, with the elements of dry irony as well as the aesthetics of mass media (especially popular TV shows and movies). Jankowski often collaborates on projects with those whom are outside of the art system (e.g. children, magicians, psychotherapists, fortune-tellers, politicians, casting agencies, and professionals from different fields), exploring the boundaries and relations between fiction and reality, art and commercial products, art and its recipients, and finally, art and popular culture.

In the premiere project "The Heavy-weight History”, the artist undertakes the issue of the functioning of the public space, indicatively, symbolic places marked by the monuments and sculptures rested on them – most often referring to history, commemorating important events and outstanding figures. "Lifting" the Warsaw monuments has an essential meaning in a figurative and literal sense, and just the act of lifting the monument by means of human strength can be used as a reminder that the crucial moments in history happen because of people and if we want to have an impact on our collective reality, we should be proactive, make an effort and take matters into "our own hands".

The substantial aim of Christian Jankowski's project "The Heavy-weight History" is to create an artistic situation in which current art, today’s art, will initiate a dialogue with the not so ancient history, commemorated with monuments, in search of a contemporary perspective for it. The work "The Heavy-weight History", after its presentation at the CCA, will be shown at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn and the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv.

Notably, the exhibition features Jankowski’s already canonical works, referring to the art market and the mechanisms governing it; starting with "The Hunt" (1992) - a recording of the artist’s performance whilst hunting with bow and arrow for everyday products in the supermarket, and including "Teleshopping" (2008). This work was implemented with the participation of professionals that sell commercial products through the television (the popular "teleshopping"), and whom this time, in the same convention, advertised and encouraged the purchase of contemporary art by famous artists. Among the other works in the exhibition, which relate to similar issues, there will be an opportunity to see the installation "The China Painters" (2007/8), comprising of paintings by Chinese copyists from the city Dafen, where more than 60 percent of all the cheap oil copies of the masters of painting come from, not to mention the work "Strip the Auctioneer" (2009), which comments ironically on the art trade market.

Apart from that, another portion of Jankowski’s works presented in the exhibition touch upon the problem of faith in the power of transformation, which are attributed to artistic creation. In a fashion typical for himself, meaning not without humor, the artist refers to it in the film "In My Life as a Dove" (1996), where he shows how in the presence of an audience gathered at an exhibition, the artist was transformed into a dove by a magician. Jankowski also resorted to the aid of supernatural powers in the work "Telemistica" (1999) and in the implementation of the video "Flock" (2002). Amongst many works, special attention has to be directed towards the video work "Casting Jesus" (2011), a professional casting for the best actor who could embody the role of Jesus, cunducted with the participation of a representative of the Vatican.

Christian Jankowski (born 1968 in Göttingen, Germany) - lives and works in Berlin. His video works, films, and installations have been shown in many exhibitions throughout the world, including the Biennale di Venezia (Venice, 1999), The Whitney Biennial in the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, 2002), MIT List Visual Art Center (Massachusetts, 2005), Miami Art Museum (Miami, 2007), Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (Stuttgart, 2008), Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden (Wiesbaden, 2009), Taipei Biennial (2010), Sydney Biennale (2010), Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros (Mexico, 2012), MACRO (Rome, 2012).

The Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle would like to greatly thank the athletes that participated in the lifting of the monuments:
Grzegorz Kleszcz, Daniel Dołęga, Robert Dołęga, Jarosław Daniluk, Bogdan Anczarski, Kacper Wiejak, Marcin Laśkiewicz, Kamil Kanas, Rafał Kanas, Andrzej Kowalczyk, and Mirosław Kowalczyk.

The Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle extends a special thanks to: The Waryński S.A. Holding Group company, which was involved in the campaign to lift the monument of Ludwik Waryński, AGP Metro Polska S.C. for making the monument The Four Sleeping Ones available, as well as Monument Service for their professional technical support.

Photos by: Jan Rozmarynowski, Paweł Wiśniewski

Press contacts:
Zofia Chojnacka, CCA Press Office, mobile. +48 510160637 tel. / fax +48 22 6250522, biuroprasowe@csw.art.pl

Opening of the exhibition: June 7, 2013 at 6.00 p.m.

The Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle
ul. Jazdów 2, 00-467 Warsaw, Poland
Tuesday-Sunday from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Friday from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Thursday free entrance
Tickets:
regular 12 zł
discounted 6 zł
family 20 zł
Library and reading room
open Tuesday thru Saturday from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m.

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