Views 2013: Deutsche Bank Foundation Award
Until 17 November 2013
Zachęta National Gallery of Art
pl. Małachowskiego 3
00-916 Warsaw
T +(48 22) 556 96 01
Łukasz Jastrubczak, winner of the Views 2013 art prize awarded by the Deutsche Bank Foundation
On 24 October, an international jury recognized Łukasz Jastrubczak as the most interesting young artist on the Polish art scene in the last two years. The award winner received a prize equal to the value of 15,000 euro. Second prize, a three-month work stay at the Villa Romana in Florence, was awarded to Karolina Breguła.
The verdict of the jury of the 6th Views Award
The jury of the sixth edition of Views has decided, on account of a daring experimentation, a non-instrumental, independent approach to current technologies, a freedom in engaging with dominant discourses, an ephemerality, sensitivity, and ability to work with transpositions of perception and marginal phenomena, to award the first prize to Łukasz Jastrubczak.
In view of her ability to speak of the context and specifics of place, the jury awards the prize of a residence in the Villa Romana to Karolina Bregula.
–Anda Rottenberg, Chairman of the Jury
Warsaw, 24 October
Views 2013: Deutsche Bank Foundation Award
For the sixth time the Deutsche Bank Foundation, Deutsche Bank Polska, and Zachęta – National Gallery of Art organized Views 2013: Deutsche Bank Foundation Award, an exhibition presenting the most interesting young, but already established, Polish artists. Unlike in the previous years, there are five finalists and all featured works are premiere presentations.
The nominating committee, comprised of renowned art critics and curators, has selected the following artists: Tymek Borowski, Piotr Bosacki, Karolina Breguła, Łukasz Jastrubczak, and Agnieszka Polska. Born between 1977 and 1985, they represent Warsaw, Poznań, and Krakow. While being an effect of the work of recent months, the artists’ latest projects reflect their experiences and preoccupations of the past two years. Although the five finalists are not supposed to constitute a representation of the Polish art scene, in their works can be found practices and themes characteristic for recent Polish art.
The five artists use various media, including, most often, film. Works utilising this medium will be shown by Karolina Breguła, Łukasz Jastrubczak, and Agnieszka Polska. Breguła’s Offence deals with a figure of modernity combined with the everyday, showing the life of a public official who, obsessed with a vision of modernity, tries to encourage the residents of his town to display progressive behaviour. After Fire-Followers, Offence is another production from Breguła in which, using realistic modes of depiction, she presents the fictional life of a selected community. Of a completely different nature is Agnieszka Polska’s filmic montage telling the story of a heaven for artists. Known for projects drawing on photographic archives, often combined with animation, this time Polska conflates in a tongue-in-cheek convention iconic art figures from various historical periods, in a place where they can take a rest after the hardships of life. The background of Łukasz Jastrubczak’s latest filmic project is the historical centre of Florence; in the architectonic perspective of the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Vecchio there appears a ‘conceptualist’—a protagonist with geometrical attributes familiar from the artist’s earlier projects realised in the United States. Here, the classics of European art meet echoes of the work of the masters of American land art. Connections between the real object and filmic image are explored in Piotr Bosacki’s Obvious Things, a project consisting of an animated film and a collection of objects. An artist with a background in the Poznań-based Penerstwo collective, Bosacki presents a kind of poetic-philosophical literary treatise; his characteristic proneness for playing the role of a constructor and his attempts to describe the world result in magnetic productions in which, using the simplest materials and techniques, he breaks reality down into its constituent parts. Another artist who looks at the world with a sense of detachment is Tymek Borowski; his diagrams, drawings, posters, blogs, or virtual artists form an intriguing analysis of the art world. His latest project, a large-format newssheet combined with a poster, finds its continuation in the virtual reality.
The catalogue has been designed and laid out by Kaja Gliwa, winner of the Association of Polish Graphic Designers’ Debut of the Year 2012 title; she has also co-designed the exhibition itself.
Curators: Ewa Łączyńska-Widz and Jadwiga Sawicka
Collaboration Katarzyna Kołodziej
Nominees:
Tymek Borowski: born in 1984 in Warsaw, where he lives and works. In 2005–2009, Borowski studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the studio of Leon Tarasewicz (graduated in 2009). He uses both digital and traditional media, and works in the fields of art and graphic design. He frequently collaborates with Paweł Śliwiński and Paweł Sysiak.
Piotr Bosacki: born in 1977 in Poznań, where he lives and works. Graduate of the Fryderyk Chopin Middle School of Music in Poznań and the Poznań Academy of Fine Arts (diploma 2004). Currently he lectures in the Intermedia Department at the University of Arts in Poznań. Member of the collectives Penerstwo and KOT. Author of animated films, objects, installations, drawings. He is also an author of musical compositions and literary texts. He is affiliated with Stereo Gallery.
Karolina Breguła: born in 1979 in Katowice, she lives and works in Warsaw. She studied at the GFU School of Photography of the Folkuniversitetet in Stockholm, the European Academy of Photography in Warsaw, and holds a degree in photography from the Leon Schiller State Graduate School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź, where she is currently writing a PhD thesis. Author of photographs, video and artistic projects in a public space.
Łukasz Jastrubczak: born in 1984 in Zielona Góra, he lives and works in Kraków. In 2009 he graduated with honours at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. Member, with Krzysztof Kaczmarek, of the artistic duo Krzysztofjastrubczakłukaszkaczmarek. Author, with Sebastian Cichocki, of the publication Mirage. He plays synthesiser in the band Boring Drug. Since 2012, coordinator of the Times New Arial Museum. Affiliated with Dawid Radziszewski Gallery.
Agnieszka Polska: born in 1985 in Lublin, she lives and works in Warsaw. In 2005–2010, Polska studied graphic arts at the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts; 2008–2009, at the Universität der Künste (class of Hito Steyerl) in Berlin. Visual artist, author of animated films, videos, and photographs. She is affiliated with Galerie Żak Branicka in Berlin.
More information about the artists and Views competition is on spojrzenia.zacheta.art.pl or www.zacheta.art.pl.
The public can also select their winner, by participating in voting in the gallery, through Facebook or on Twitter (@Zacheta).
The exhibition will be open for viewing at Zachęta until 17 November.
The exhibition is under the honorary patronage of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, and is organized by the Deutsche Bank Foundation, Zachęta — National Gallery of Art and Deutsche Bank Polska S.A.
