25 October 2014, beginning at noon
The National Museum in Warsaw
Aleje Jerozolimskie 3
Warsaw
Poland
Museum of Interiors
Otwock Wielki
ul. Zamkowa 49
Warsaw
Poland
Artists: Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Katharina Marszewski, Błażej Pindor
Presentations: Roger Cook, Anna Frąckiewicz, Krystyna Łuczak-Surówka
Film programme: Paul Bush, Bruce Checefsky, Richard Hamilton, Mark Leckey, Grace Ndiritu, Elizabeth Price, Alain Resnais and Polish newsreels
Special contribution: Mirosław Bałka, INIMALISM
“Otwock” is a project revolving around the relationship between art and site. Its participants, working in the eponymous city, refer to the local setting and its context. The starting point for this year’s iteration was the group of 25,000 unique objects kept in Otwock Wielki. Rarely presented to the public, these items form the collection of the Centre of Modern Design of the National Museum in Warsaw, and are now stored in a warehouse arranged in the former stables of the baroque palace of the Beliński family. The extraordinary collection includes objects manufactured by the “Ład” Artists’ Cooperative, items from the showroom of the Institute of Industrial Design, works of Antoni Kenar and his students from the School of Timber Industry in Zakopane, or artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Władysław Hasior, Tadeusz Kantor, Henryk Albin Tomaszewski and Władysław Strzemiński; the furniture collection includes pieces designed by, among others, Maria Chomentowska, Teresa Kruszewska, Jan Kurzątkowski, as well as works of many other Polish designers.
This fourth season of “Otwock” has been dedicated to this place, and to the furniture, textiles, glass and ceramics gathered there, as well as to the people who had created the collection. Thanks to the National Museum in Warsaw and its team, the artists we have invited were be able to spend time in the storage inaccessible to the broad public. It has been made available to them as a place of work and source of inspiration.
Katharina Marszewski is interested in the process of artistic production and its aesthetic aspect. She uses objects and props which generate a grid of loose associations, building both semantic and aesthetic relations. Her project conceived during a residency at the Museum of Interiors in Otwock Wielki was inspired by the figure of Wanda Telakowska, the founder of the Institute for the Supervision of Aesthetics in Production and the creator of the Institute of Industrial Design and the collection of the Centre of Modern Design. Błażej Pindor’s photographs were taken inside the storage of the Centre of Modern Design. They show carefully selected objects in meticulously arranged positions. Staged in no chronological order and against all rules of affinity of style, they are left to function outside of the convention of utility or a museum narrative. The works of Marc Camille Chaimowicz are often composed of the artist’s prototypes of wallpaper, fabric, furniture or ceramics. His installations are a subtle combination of the pragmatism of applied arts with fine art’s elegance and sophistication. In summer 2014 the artist paid a visit to the storage of the design collection and to Mirosław Bałka’s studio in Otwock. His impressions from the trip are recorded in the form of a letter, soon to be transformed in a collage where the text is accompanied by visual materials gathered during the trip. It describes Chaimowicz’s ideas for the future collaboration in Otwock.
The resulting works and concepts will be presented during the public programme held on the occasion of this year’s edition. The commissions will be contextualised through presentations and a film programme focusing on design, applied arts, as well as the role and status of everyday objects that surround us.
”Otwock”
Duties and Pleasures
Public programme
25 October, 10:45am
For more information, please click here.
“Otwock” is organised by Open Art Projects and Mirosław Bałka. It is carried out in reference to the hometown of the artist, aiming at exploring the relations between the specific place and art. Participants are asked to respond to the context found. The artists invited to the previous editions include Lara Almarcegui, Tacita Dean, Teresa Gleadowe, Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys, Maciej Maryl, Anna Molska, Charlotte Moth, Marek Pąkciński, Piotr Paziński, Joseph Rykwert, Renata Senktas, Mike Sperlinger/LUX, Luc Tuymans and Aleksandra Waliszewska.
Coordination: Magda Materna
Curator: Kasia Redzisz
Collaboration: Emma Knaflewska, Zuzanna Rutkowska
The project has been co-organised with the National Museum in Warsaw.
Financial support for the project has been granted by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
In collaboration with the Polish Institute in London.
Partners: The Starak Family Foundation, Spectra Art Space, Polpharma, European Compensation Center
