03 Sep 2010

Mediations Biennale - Poznan 2010

The second edition of Mediations Biennale will be held in Poznań from 11.09. to 30.10.2010.

The grand opening of Mediations Biennale 2010 will be one of the associated events to the ASEM Conference – a meeting of 48 Ministers of Culture and delegations from Asia and Europe, held in Poznań on 8th- 10th September 2010'.

Mediations Biennale 2010 will consist of two main exhibitions: Beyond Mediations, curated by Tsutomu Mizusawa and Prof. Ryszard Kluszczynski and Erased Walls, curated by Georgi Begun, Noam Braslavsky, Juraj Čarný, Nika Kukhtina, Matthias Reichelt, Sławomir Sobczak, Raman Tratsiuk & Volha Maslouskaya, Marianne Wagner oraz Tomasz Wendland.


'Just as every large undertaking , Mediations Biennale moves now from the conceptual stage into execution phase. As it appears, an exceedingly interesting dialogue seems to develop among the individual events of the Biennale. The logo of this year's edition of the event is composed of two coalescing colours.

Orange is the colour of Central Europe, of peaceful revolution, initiated by the Pomarańczowa Alternatywa movement in 1980s. The colour of the 'Erased Walls' exhibition, complementing violet, is a colour which represents 'Beyond Mediations', carrying a reference to spirituality, and new technologies as well, a colour which is transparent in meaning , and yet one which obscures, immaterial and brimming with emotion. The black square in the middle of the cross is the shared field of mediation. The strategy of Biennale's visual communication will be shaped by that particular colour range. Colour will be the call symbol of individual events, since colour, not the word, is the plane of art.

'Beyond Mediations' exhibition is the fruit of a dialogue between tow curators. Tsutomu Mizusawa from Japan places that which is shared, which is outside mediation, in the spiritual domain. Ryszard Kluszczyński focuses on selecting artists working with new, frequently very sophisticated media, perceiving in it the spirit of the times of the globalizing world. Still, the curators jointly decide on the line-up of artists, which is a difficult, though also interesting form of mediation between culturally distant attitudes. The 'Erased Walls' exhibition seems different from the very outset. 11 curators, of whom several are artists themselves, build the image of Central Europe, which nevertheless departs from the experiences of the Round Table agreement in Poland, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is already a different Europe, not divided by an iron curtain anymore, but a fragment of a total system of global determinants. 11 curators: Georgi Biegun, Noam Braslavsky, Juraj Čarný, Nika Kukhtina, Matthias Reichelt, Janosz Sturcz, Sławomir Sobczak, Raman Tratsiuk & Volha Maslouskaya, Marianne Wagner and Tomasz Wendland: several sketches, and several viewpoints on the present.

The 'Erased Walls' project may be appreciated in its entirety only after the consecutive modules of the exhibition have been seen in Freies Museum and Concentart in Berlin and during the Crazycuratos Biennale in Bratislava. While discussing the works of both main exhibitions of the Biennale it is worthwhile to mention accompanying exhibitions: the South American 'Skin XPXP, Skin – extreme pleasure, extreme pain'. Contrary to expectations, body will not feature as its subject, but as the curator and Uruguayan artist, Enrique Bardo puts it: 'skin is a sensitive surface of our bodies, a plane of contact between the internal and the external, between myself and the society'. This exhibition provides an opportunity for unusual comparisons and reflections, accessible only from a perspective which is distant from us. It is the fourth time we have cooperated with Fokus Å?ódź Biennale. The exhibition from Å?ódź, curated by Mariusz SoÅ‚tysik i Aurelia Mandziuk, is entitled SCHaB. We, on the other hand, seeking concurrence with the concept of the neighbouring exhibition, will present an event entitled Inner Focus. Inner is a reference to the concept behind Inner Spaces festival, an event which brought forth Mediations Biennale, where actual inner spaces are the demesnes of dialogue.

This year many actions will take place in the public space, thus constituting yet another form of dialogue with the reality. Some 150 artists will contribute in the project, while the budget of the biennale will increase by half, compared with the previous one. We attach great importance to educational and promoting activity, in Poland and abroad. Mediations Biennale will be the main artistic event of the ASEM (Asia Europe Meeting )conference held simultaneously, with the announced participation of 43 ministers of culture from Europe and Asia, the continents with regard to which we are particularly active. Talks are taking place concerning the cooperation of the Biennale with the Singapore Biennale. A singular feature of this year's event is the cooperation with Berlin. Around 25 international artists and 4 curators of the Poznań event, live there, in a close vicinity indeed.

Poznań is ideally suited to host artistic events, due to the size and the location. Mediations Biennale does not disappear dwarfed by the space of a city so large as Warsaw or Berlin. Quite the contrary, the surroundings do not subdue it and allow to focus on the exhibited art'.

Tomasz Wendland