The
exhibition, "Sztuka II RP," in Oronsko, Poland presents a somewhat
atypical view of Polish art from the 1990`s, and goes across ranking lists and
"official" interpretations. One saw there the work of already
well-known artists, like Z. Libera, G. Sztwiertnia, D. Lejman, but also some
who are still waiting for our attention, like K. Pasterczak and D. Fodczuk. The
curators, T. Ksiazek and J. S. Wojciechowski, selected about thirty artists
from over a hundred who participated in seminars, workshops and shows of young
artists in Oronsko from 1991-2000. These artists were given the opportunity to
create by themselves (in cooperation with young critics) the public image of
their generation. The workshops were particularly valuable in Poland in that
time, when the art scene was predominated by meta/artists
lang=EN-GB style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’> – curators who, adapted
to the requirements of the market and the mass media, too often identified a
fluency in the art world with artistic competence.
The
exhibition does not try to present a given state of art, but rather a moment of
its becoming. So, one can observe how given artists have tried to get rid of
both Great Narration (like J. Niegoda), and the fortuitousness and
fragmentation of "anything goes" (S. Sobczak); and how they have
balanced between self – reflection and social engagement, between a
contemplative sensibility and the actual "duty" of irony and sarcasm.
It
would not be possible to define the generation as a whole, but we might dare to
sketch some features. Their consciousness is being shaped in a time of radical
civilizational transformation in Poland; a transformation, becoming… permanent.
First of all, one sees the abandoning of conventional symbols. A new rank is
being given to our common reality, which is not yet perceived as a staged
moment or a final state. For many artists the commonplace has became a basic
subject; they are testing it in many ways in hopes of revealing something
"real". Their artworks derive from individual or intimate
experiences. In the same moment, it is a search (or initiation) of a new (even
temporal) community of thoughts and sensibilities. Looking at this exhibition
(and others) I get the impression that we are slowly approaching the moment
when the crush of changes in art will cause a loss of their validity.
The
perspective of several years is not final, but it makes clear already how time
will be merciless to many artistic strategies. Works of art which have arisen
in response to only one concrete problem, one given idea, medium or notion will
likely be the worst affected. This is a real problem: by and large, progress
today results from the secretion of smaller and smaller contexts; it privileges
fragmented or isolated aspects of art. The "time test" will be more
generous to purposely naive artworks which continue to challenge the obvious.
Of course, purposeful naivete is not be confused with goofiness; for simplistic
silliness alone will never be much consolation for lovers (like me) of
polymorphic complexity. |
