ESTABLISHMENT (and its discontents)
27 June – 31 August 2008
ul. Jazdów 2
00-467 Warszawa, Poland
phone: (+48 22) 628 12 71-3
fax: (+48 22) 628 76 83
csw [at] csw.art.pl
Artists:
Wojciech Bąkowski, Olaf Brzeski, Grzegorz Drozd, Dwaesha, Łukasz Jastrubczak, Szymon Kobylarz, Tomasz Kowalski, Norman Leto, Tomasz Mróz, Radosław Szlaga, Iza Tarasewicz, Mariusz Tarkawian, Truth, Anna and Adam Witkowski, Zorka Wollny
Curators:
Marcin Krasny and Stach Szabłowski
“Establishment (and its discontents)” is a group exhibition of artists participating in making of contemporary art. The project refers to a wave of “new” and “young art” exhibitions, which took place on the Polish art scene at the beginning of the 21st century. The subject of our “Establishment” exhibition are artistic proposals and individualities, which emerged out of these past shows – namely art, that appeared after “new art from Poland”. Participants of the “Establishment” did not take part in those past presentations. They are artists, who made their presence on the art scene in the last two or three years. A context for our presentation is a concept of establishment – understood as a challenge for young artists, as a point of reference, a collection of temptations and an object of contest. Finally, it is a potential source of discontent.
Time, that past since shows like “Novart.pl”, “Relax”, “Pop-elita” and “Really, the young artists are the realists” legitimizes a new look at the conditions and transformations that took place on the Polish scene – and even more, asks for a new review. Today’s establishment of the Polish art world, are the very same artists who were conquering the scene around the year 2000 – now, they are the mainstream. In the face of the institutionalization of the generational ‘velvet revolution’ some questions arise: is there already a new quality in today’s young artists when compared to yesterday’s young artists? Do the young ones have ambitions to take over the scene, or do they want to become a part of the existing establishment? What kind of attitudes, sensibilities and strategies are born among the youngest generation of artists, who debut in the shadow of their colleges just a few years older then them?
The above questions preoccupy our minds because of the number of premises that seem to enable a change facilitated by the fast transformation of the art policies in Poland. The debuting artists enter a completely different stage from that of the recent years. Fast institutionalizing of art, wider critical discourse tied to the variety of net magazines and blogs about art, a proliferation of commercial galleries, a close perspective of emerging new public spaces and finally, much closer ties of the local scene with an international one – are the main elements of a new situation. Here, we are referring to the quantity change: more possibilities, more temptations, a bigger number of players moving around the art scene, a denser critical milieu, faster careers, and a level of expectations – set really high by the precedes. The goal of the “Establishment” exhibition is a presentation of attitudes prevailing among the artists of the youngest generation, forming “in and against” those new conditions.
