1,2,3... Avant-Gardes - 1

1,2,3... Avant-Gardes

[ The Experiment Art and Film ]
1,2,3... Avant-Gardes celebrates the (ongoing) history of experimentation. With a look at the history of experimental film in Poland and Germany, the exhibition brings together selected conceptual artists as well as film and video artists from different countries. Their works, mostly new and specifically produced for the exhibition, lie at the intersection of film and visual art that developed in the 1960s and 1970s. The works also make reference to parallel developments in politics and society of the time and mediate between experimental ideas – social and artistic – of then and today.
The artists involved in 1,2,3... Avant-Gardes come from various disciplines and different generations; they work with different approaches and a variety of media. An extensive film programme complements the installations, video projections, and sculptures on exhibition.

A predecessor to efforts towards interdisciplinary working methods, experimental film crossed the boundaries between art, film, and other disciplines already one hundred years ago. But in the 1960s and 1970s artists discovered the means of cinema for themselves, and made new use of them in their post-conceptual, “non-narrative” works. In these highly politicised years, filmmakers went out into the streets and factories to shoot and later show their films; artists began to edit film material in experimental ways and at the same time to question film as such.

It is these multi-layered interactions surrounding experimental film that form the background against which artists of today are developing the exhibition 1,2,3... Avant-Gardes, aiming at a discussion of these topics from a contemporary point of view. While film and video may suggest themselves as artistic media, the artists also turn to other forms, among them painting, minimal sculpture, audio production, and performance. Works and films created by artists in the 1960s and 1970s are shown as a supplement to the exhibition.

With: Akademia Ruchu, Antosz & Andzia, Paweł Althamer / Artur Żmijewski, Piotr Andrejew, Bernadette Corporation, Kazimierz Bendkowski, Matthew Buckingham, Bogdan Dziworski, Marcin Giżycki, Janusz Haka, Oskar Hansen, Judith Hopf / Katrin Pesch, Tadeusz Junak, Jacques de Koning, Igor Krenz, Grzegorz Królikiewicz, Zofia Kulik, Paweł Kwiek, Przemysław Kwiek, Natalia LL, Jolanta Marcolla, Jonathan Monk, Ewa Partum, Andrzej Pawłowski, Zygmunt Piotrowski, Józef Robakowski, Jeroen de Rijke / Willem de Rooij, Zbigniew Rybczyński, Zygmunt Rytka, Wilhelm Sasnal, Jadwiga Singer, Zdzisław Sosnowski, Mieczysław Szczuka, Michał Tarkowski, Stefan i Franciszka Themerson, Teresa Tyszkiewicz, Ryszard Waśko, Jan S. Wojciechowski, Krzysztof Zarębski, Florian Zeyfang

Exhibition catalogue / Reader „1,2,3… Avant-Gardes – Experiment/Film/Art/Archiv“
Ed. by Łukasz Ronduda, Florian Zeyfang
Publishers: Sternberg Press, Berlin and New York
ISBN-101-933128-24-0
ISBN-13 978-1-933128-24-5
The catalogue – in English, German, and Polish – will appear in January 2007.

Venue
CSW Zamek Ujazdowski – Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw

Date
9 December 2006 – 28 February 2007

Participating Institution
CSW Zamek Ujazdowski – Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
topic:
Berlin - Warszawa: Metropolis
projects on the topic:
Mobile Academy in Warsaw: “Ghosts, Spectres, Phantoms, and the Places Where They Live”
[ Two-part interdisciplinary summer academy in Warsaw ]
Ensemble Modern at the “Warsaw Autumn” Festival
[ Guest performance of Ensemble Modern at the International Festival of Contemporary Music “Warsaw Autumn” ]
Invitation
[ Art project ]

Curators
Florian Zeyfang
Łukasz Ronduda