13 May 2014

Krakow Photomonth Festival 2014

Krakow Photomonth Festival 2014 is coming. The 12th edition of this exciting photography event will take over Krakow, Poland from 15 May to 15 June. Don't miss it!

The curator of this year's Krakow Photomonth, which bears the title Re:Search, is the artist, writer, editor and curator, Aaron Schuman. The festival's Main Programme, focusing on the relationship between photography and the search for knowledge, features exhibitions of both renowned Polish and international photographers and artists, many of whom are showcased in this part of Europe for the very first time. The Photomonth month-long programme is also crammed full of numerous workshops, meetings and film projections. The festival is organised by the Foundation for Visual Arts.

Re:Search

Krakow Photomonth 2014's Main Programme probes the important and close relationship between photography and the search for knowledge. It explores various ways in which photography is entangled in the service of knowledge (or lack of it), and the process of searching for facts, truths, answers and meanings through photography. The 12th edition is also an attempt to uncover the roles played by photography as well as a celebration of its various values as a high-potential independent form of research and investigation in its own right.

Nine exhibitions make up the festival's Main Programme, including:
– the Experimental Section Echoes exhibition (curator: Jakub Woynarowski, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery), which aims to explore the potential of photography as a medium that goes beyond the sense of sight and engages other fields of human perception (touch, sound, smell, heat, spatial experience);
– Trevor Paglen's project The Last Pictures (Starmach Gallery), created and developed in collaboration with MIT and Creative Time. Together with invited experts, the artist selected 100 photographs, putting together a set of images originally intended to describe the world in photographs long after the Earth is gone, and sent them into space.
– Taryn Simon's The Picture Collection (MOCAK), which uses the complex cataloguing system of an image archive in the New York Public Library's collection to explore the apparently neutral but nevertheless hierarchical topic of putting knowledge about the world in order.
– David Campany's visual essay Walker Evans: The Magazine Work (also at MOCAK), compiled from carefully selected works of one of the 20th century's most important photographers.
– Poland's first presentation of the works of Clare Strand (Further Reading, Szołayski House, National Museum in Krakow), which analyses the need for pictures referring to scientific convention to be acknowledged as real.
– the exhibition Forensic Aesthetics (Pauza Gallery), presenting the research of Thomas Keenan and Eyal Weizman, members of the Forensic Architecture research group, which takes as its starting point the belief that photography leads to the truth.
– the exhibition Radiation, focusing on Polish artists and curated by Wojciech Nowicki, which presents the mutual influences of photographs taken for scientific and research reasons and artistic photography (Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology).
– Aaron Schuman's exhibition, FOLK: A Personal Ethnography (Ethnographic Museum) explores the Ethnographic Museum in Krakow – and the customs and culture of ethnography itself, as represented by the museum, its collection and archive - via the artist's own Polish cultural heritage and personal history.
– Jason Fulford's Hotel Oracle, a hotel without a fixed address that is more myth than reality, which has surfaced over the last year in New York, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Tokyo and elsewhere. The final appearance of Hotel Oracle will be presented in Krakow – it offers a puzzle and a journey for the festival audience, and an invitation to search for hidden meaning.

ShowOFF Section – the young and the talented

The ShowOFF Section, aimed at young artists from Poland and Eastern Europe at the outset of their careers, is always popular among audiences. This is often the artists' first chance of professional work on an individual exhibition and to present their output to an international festival audience numbering in the thousands. This part of the Krakow Photomonth programme will comprise eight exhibitions of young visual artists selected by the Jury from entries to an open competition, including a record number from abroad.

Accompanying Events: 9th Portfolio Review, Masters Series, workshops, discussions and more

The events accompanying the exhibitions at Photomonth 2014 are an integral part of the festival's Main Programme. Throughout the month, workshops, film projections, and meetings with artists will take place. These will include the Masters Series encounters begun in 2013 – an excellent opportunity to get to know the work of interesting artists, take part in discussions, exchange experiences, and perhaps even learn the secrets of the best sessions. Traditionally this year the Portfolio Review will be the flagship element of the Accompanying Events programme of the Krakow Photomonth. This unique opportunity to meet and get valuable tips from experts often produces spectacular results, including decisions to work together in exhibitions and publications – it's well worth it! All the more as this year it is accompanied by an attractive prize founded by Griffin Art Space, the Patron of the 2014 Krakow Photomonth, and a presentation of the best portfolios incorporated into the programme of the festival, started off with an open meeting with the participants and reviewers during the special Portfolio Evening. Apply now!

Every year Krakow Photomonth explores new forms and areas of presenting photography, artistic expression and critical insight. Come visit and become a part of the experience.

Find out more about Krakow Photomonth at:
photomonth.com and sztukawizualna.org
Join us at fb/photomonth and take a look at what Re:Search brings at: bit.do/photomonth2014

2014 Krakow Photomonth Festival
Re:
Search
15 May–15 June
Curator of the Main Programme: Aaron Schuman
Official opening of the Festival: 16 May, 6 p.m., Starmach Gallery