Deutsche Bank Foundation Award. The Second Edition.
25 October - 27 November 2005
Zacheta National Gallery of Art
Pl. Malachowskiego 3
00-916 Warsaw, Poland
phone ( 48 22) 827 58 54
press [at] zacheta.art.pl
Curator: Magda Kardasz.
Cooperation: Julia Leopold.
Views 2005. Deutsche Bank Foundation Award. The Second Edition.
This year the Deutsche Bank Foundation Award for the most interesting young contemporary Polish artist went to Maciej Kurak. In 2003, the first edition of this competition for the most interesting young contemporary Polish artists took place at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art. This summer, a jury composed of art critics and curators nominated the following artists and groups for the awards second edition: Azorro, Michal Budny, Rafal Bujnowski, Aneta Grzeszykowska and Jan Smaga, Maciej Kurak, Robert Kusmirowski, and Anna Orlikowska. The exhibition Views 2005 presents their works. The results of the competition were announced on November 21, 2005, at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art.
The main source of inspiration for Maciej Kurak is architecture. His work is situated between socially committed intervention and jest. A viewer attending Kuraks exhibition usually feels surprised. Exaggerated representation of an accidentally witnessed situation, or the use of paradox are methods often employed by the artist. Their purpose is to draw our attention to some social problem, or a forgotten piece of history imprinted on the fabric of the city. Direct interventions into specific buildings or interiors marked with past contexts are frequent in Kuraks art. At another time, he creates strange buildings, underground or under-floor spaces sometimes shelters, sometimes frightening dark pits. For Views 2005, Kurak has decided to confront the monumentality of one of the Zachetas rooms, with its baggage of the history of Polish art, with the trivial cosiness of a standard flat built into it. Narration within narration, distortion of the decorum rules those are Kuraks favourite strategies. The built-in apartment is strange. It can be entered from the exhibition room through a window, framed with a stylised old wooden frame as if one was entering a painting. Odd pieces of furniture and a carpet, constituting all of the flats furnishings (some of them are cut in half) throw the viewer into a somewhat surreal confusion. Thanks to Maciej Kuraks work, every viewer can for a moment become the chief character of a painting.
Honourable mention was awarded to Anna Orlikowska (Scholarschip Residence in Berlin in 2006).
Exhibition organized by: Deutsche Bank Foundation, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Deutsche Bank Polska S.A.
sponsors of the gallery: Netia, Lidex, Peri sponsors of the opening: A. Blikle, Freixenet media patronage: Gazeta Wyborcza, Polskie radio, Polityka, TVP, The Warsaw Voice, Onet.pl, EMPiK