For Each Gesture Another Character
17 January–4 May 2014
Opening: 16 January, 7pm
Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk
Stary Browar
Poznań
Poland
www.artstationsfoundation5050.com
Artists: Magdalena Abakanowicz, William Anastasi, Mirosław Bałka, Geta Brătescu, Pierre Bismuth, Halina Chrostowska, Kate Davis, Tadeusz Kantor, Tim Knowles, Jarosław Kozłowski, Edward Krasiński, Marcin Maciejowski, Dora Maurer, Jerzy Nowosielski, Tony Orrico, Carol Rama, Bruno Schulz, Alina Szapocznikow
Performative program: Aleksandra Borys, Tony Orrico, Magdalena Ptasznik, Rodrigo Sobarzo de Larraechea, Anna Steller, Jeremy Wade
Curator: Kasia Redzisz
Performative program curator: Joanna Leśnierowska
For Each Gesture Another Charactermarks the tenth anniversary of the Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk. At the exhibition’s core are drawings from the Grażyna Kulczyk Collection, selected with reference to the relationship between gesture and drawing. The concept of the show reaches beyond the traditional definition of drawing as a composition of lines on a flat surface with works on paper, objects, photographs and films deriving their meanings from the complex relations between the act of drawing and the body. Lines on surfaces and in space become traces of gestures, records of movements, and means of registering physical states. Selected works reveal the performative nature of the medium, and the role of a script and chance in the creative process.
For Geta Brătescu and Jarosław Kozłowski drawing is a physical, almost theatrical act extended in time, with process as important as the finished work. Consisting of enamel paint poured onto the walls, the historical works by William Anastasi (Untitled, 1966) recreated for this exhibition are an attempt to transgress the limits of the medium and its fundamental properties, while at the same time, acting as traces of expression and the artist’s fleeting gesture. In Anastasi’s work the line is freed from the rigor of the support and academic precision, characteristic shared with Tadeusz Kantor’s gestural painting represented in the show by a recently discovered (and previously little-known) film, Attention!… painting (1957). This will be shown alongside Pierre Bismuth’s Following the Right Hand of Sigmund Freud (2009), which opens up a field for reflection on drawing as a manifestation of the author’s ego, indicating the subconscious as a source for the spontaneous movement of a hand.
Uncontrolled movement and chance determined the final form of drawings by Carol Rama and Tim Knowles. Knowles’s work is the result of ink freely spilling on a piece of paper during transportation to the Grażyna Kulczyk Collection. Bruno Schulz’s Nude (1933), as well as a selection of Jerzy Nowosielski’s nudes, introduce representation of the body as a topic further explored in a critical dialogue with works by artists such as Alina Szapocznikow, Dora Maurer and Kate Davis. In Davis’s film and drawings comprising the work Disgrace (2009), fragments of the artist’s body traced on reproductions of modernist nudes by Amadeo Modigliani challenge the dominance of the male gaze in Art History. At the same time, idealized sketches by the “great masters” provide a striking contrast to the frail bodies depicted in works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Geta Brătescu and Halina Chrostowska, in which drawing becomes a poignant testimony of physical inability and a means of transcending it.
Historical and contemporary works in the exhibition are accompanied by several special commissions. An ephemeral sculpture by Mirosław Bałka, Pisząc ciało/Writing the body/Koerper schreiben, will accumulate during the show as a record of traces left in the space by the visitors. Tony Orrico will recreate drawings from his “Penwald” series, which record a cycle of symmetrical movements repeated for several hours during a three-day action. The exhibition space will also become a stage for three young choreographers: Aleksandra Borys, Magdalena Ptasznik and Anna Steller. Their temporary interventions in the gallery will refer to the works on display and to motifs that link them. As an extension of the exhibition, the Art Stations Foundation is organizing performances by Rodrigo Sobarzo de Larraechea and Jeremy Wade, choreographers whose fascination with drawing has been translated into the language of dance.
