Ewa Partum’s monograph book released
Wyspa Institute of Art / Alternativa Editions
ul. Doki 1/145B
80-958 Gdańsk
Poland
sekretariat [at] wyspa.art.pl
www.wyspa.art.pl
www.alternativa.org.pl
The Wyspa Institute of Art and Alternativa Editions are proud to announce the publication of Ewa Partum’s monograph book edited by Aneta Szyłak, Ewa Małgorzata Tatar and Berenika Partum.
The comprehensive, 340-page volume consists of the broad and partly first-time published documentation of Partum’s nearly half-century-long oeuvre and contains an updated monographic chronicle of the works and activities insightfully researched by Angelika Stepken. The essay part consists of texts by Grzegorz Dziamski, Dorota Monkiewicz, Luiza Nader, Łukasz Ronduda, Aneta Szyłak, Ewa Małgorzata Tatar and Andrzej Turowski. The book is designed by Anna Hegman and Grzegorz Laszuk whilst Tomasz Bersz and Marian Misiak are responsible for the Alternativa Editions Monographs series covers.
The art of Ewa Partum marks a milestone in 20th-century art and she herself appears as one of the most outstanding figures in European art, rediscovered today as political changes cause a redrawing of existing maps of artistic geography. Her early works are fundamental for the beginnings of Polish Conceptualism and today are being written into the international art-historical discourse. Born in 1945 in Grodzisk Mazowiecki in central Poland, Partum made an early debut, showing conceptual works in 1965. Her oeuvre is pioneering for Conceptual art—in the field of visual poetry, performance art, and the analysis of media such as film, photography or TV, and in the field of Polish feminist art, particularly as an analysis of the female voice in the public space. She is also a highly influential figure of the international mail art movement as the founder of the Adres Gallery in Łódź (1971–1977). Since 1983, Ewa Partum has lived and worked in Berlin.
Monographic exhibitions at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe (2001) as well as at the Wyspa Art Institute in Gdańsk and the Muzeum Narodowe in Warsaw (2006–2007) marked the first attempts to re-examine Partum’s work from a perspective of time. In 2006, at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in London, Partum created an installation with alphabet letters, based on fragments of James Joyce’s Ulysses and hearkening back to her 1971 project Active Poetry, a presentation that proved a major breakthrough in her international career. In recent years, Partum has participated in a number of important contemporary art shows around the world, e.g. Primera generación. Arte e imagen en movimiento 1963–1986, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2006/07; Manifesta7 in Rovereto, 2008; Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution, MoCA, Los Angeles, 2007, and MoMA PS1, New York, 2008; re.act.feminism – Performancekunst der 1960er und 70er Jahre heute, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 2009; Gender Check – Rollenbilder in der Kunst Osteuropas, MuMoK – Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, and Gender Check. Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, both 2010; The Promises of the Past, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2010; Intense Proximity, Paris Triennale, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2012; A Bigger Splash: Painting after Performance, Tate Modern, London, 2012; or the 18th Biennale of Sydney, 2012. Partum’s canonical works are in a number of major contemporary art collections, e.g. Tate Modern/London; Kontakt. The Art Collection of Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation/Vienna; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía/Madrid; Generali Foundation/Vienna; or FRAC Lorraine/Metz, among others. Some of the Polish institutional collections that hold her works include the Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź; Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw; Wyspa Progress Foundation, Gdańsk; Muzeum Współczesne, Wrocław or Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.
The monograph is published by the Wyspa Institute of Art/Wyspa Progress Foundation with the generous support of Kontakt. The Art Collection of Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation, Buero Kopernikus/Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw, The Book and Journal Project, The Network of East-West Women in New York City of Gdansk, Pomeranian Voivodeship and Galerie Samuel Lallouz.
Alternativa Editions is the publishing label of Alternativa International Visual Arts Festival run by the Wyspa Institute of Art, with Krzysztof Gutfranski as editor-in-chief. Other hitherto published titles of Alternativa Editions are
Readers: Vol. 1 Labour and Leisure (2011), Vol. 2 Estrangement (2011), Vol. 3 Materiality (2012) as well as the Grzegorz Klaman Monograph (2010).
All books can be ordered through the website of the Wyspa Institute of Art.
