Art in Art

Art in Art is another exhibition in our series that confronts important areas of life with their perception by artists. This exhibition will, however, differ from the others. The previous themes were “taken from life” and analysed received truths and manipulations thereof. History showed the drama of war, patriotism and national identification. Sport revealed human ambition and potential. Economy warned against the power of money and its ubiquity. Crime probed the evil that is in us. Gender projected the prejudices related to gender. Medicine demonstrated the complexity of body addiction. Each of these topics has proved a direct source of existential symbols, which one can employ in one’s own commentary on the world that we have been condemned to live in. They delineate the limit of our functioning and mark out the extent of our freedom and dignity but also our iniquity. As for art—it has no power to influence our lives directly.

Art is there to provide reflection and both stimulate and provide depth to our critical perception of everything that existence entails. Such is the role of art, and this is the kind of art that MOCAK endeavours to show in all its activities. But art also has another, more “arty” face—as one big conglomeration of familiar images of acclaimed pedigree, works with their own idiosyncratic context, in which they have thrilled and enraptured many. This collection includes masterpieces, representations of famous characters, specific compositional games and expressions and great scandals. Images taken “from art” have considerable semantic capacity; each is a quotation as potent as a short text. Thus, artists frequently avail themselves of the art of others, for a variety of reasons, since this is an operation that can service all themes. The exhibition Art in Art does not wrestle with any particular existential problem but rather illustrates a sophisticated semantic game that is capable of dealing with a variety of issues. For this very reason, previous exhibitions in the series included works that contained “art in art.”

Artists: Elise Ansel, Krzysztof M. Bednarski, Rafał Bujnowski, Léo Caillard, Enrique Chagoya, Vuk Ćosić, Oskar Dawicki, Sven Drühl, Edward Dwurnik, Pola Dwurnik, Marian Eile, Roberto Fassone / Valeria Mancinelli, Simon Fujiwara, Tezi Gabunia, Dorothee Golz, Manfred Grübl, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Debora Hirsch, Wlastimil Hofman, Ewa Juszkiewicz, Alexandra Kehayoglou, Jerzy Kosałka, Katarzyna Kozyra, The Krasnals (Whielki Krasnal), Tomasz Kręcicki, Zofia Kulik, Robert Kuśmirowski, Isabelle Le Minh, Anka Leśniak, Leszek Lewandowski, Łódź Kaliska, Marcin Maciejowski, Marcello Maloberti, Shahar Marcus, Hiroyuki Masuyama, Bartek Materka, Yasumasa Morimura, Bjørn Nørgaard, Shinji Ogawa, ORLAN, Tanja Ostojić, Géza Perneczky, Zbigniew Pronaszko, Quayola, Adam Rzepecki, Nicola Samorì, Christian D. Schmit, Cindy Sherman, Nedko Solakov, Henryk Stażewski, Jana Sterbak, Mateusz Szczypiński, Grzegorz Sztwiertnia, Mariusz Tarkawian, Gavin Turk, Richard Tuschman, Hans Weigand, Wiktor Wolski, Michał Zawada, Aaron Zeghers

MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, was inaugurated on May 19, 2011. MOCAK is the first museum in Poland to have been purpose-built from scratch with the aim of presenting contemporary art. The building was set up on the site of the former Oskar Schindler factory in the post-industrial district of Zabłocie, which, in recent years, has undergone regeneration. The programme of the Museum comprises the presentation of contemporary international art, education and research and publication projects. The two most important goals of MOCAK are the presentation of the art of the two last decades in the context of the post‑war avant‑garde and conceptual art and, secondly, elucidation of the rationale of making art through highlighting its cognitive and ethical values and its grounding in daily life.

Curators: Delfina Jałowik, Monika Kozioł, Maria Anna Potocka
Co-ordinator: Agnieszka Sachar

Press contact: Justyna Kuska
kuska [​at​] mocak.pl / T +48 798 085 270

Press release