14 Sep 2017

Cultural Topographies of Polish Berlin

While in Poland – as in many other places – politicians (re)discover the 'nation' as a populist fetish, contemporary art moves naturally on a transnational scale. The art world has decades of experience and is highly competent with regards to migration, encountering the alien, questioning identities, and autonomy versus imposed contexts. In particular Berlin, as cosmopolitan art metropolis, invites the investigation of the complexity, diversity and mobility of spaces where art is being produced and received. Our project intends to map these spaces – which can be specified physically as studios, socially as circles of colleagues and experts, economically as the art market, and discursively as the public sphere – within the interplay of transnational relations.

The title 'Polenbegeisterungswelle' refers to the demonstrations of sympathy that Polish insurgents received in German-speaking countries after their defeat in the so-called November Uprising of 1830. As they made their way out and away from their country, these Polish emigrants were recognised as paradigmatic freedom fighters. It is ironic that it was these factions that then became the breeding ground for the religiously exacerbated national mythology which nowadays is being revived by national conservative discourses of exclusion.

Poland as homeland – be it as geographic, biographic, imaginative or emotional sphere – has, as one of many possible topological references, a varying effect on an artist's life and work. 'Polenbegeisterungswelle' is to be understood as a modulation of the perception process 'Polish culture'. It embeds the country-of-origin-principle, still dominant in institutional contexts, in a reference frame consisting of other descriptors of urbanity such as occurrences, rhythms, cycles, auras, neighbourhoods, passions, flows and encodings.

Different generations of artists will be presented to the Berlin audience in a combination of formats such as exhibitions, studio visits with artist talks, meetings in galleries, expert panels, live performances and activities in the public space. We are not looking for commonalities between the work of political migrants and younger artists of the united Europe. We are rather drawing attention to individual artistic statements so as to open up spaces for personal narratives and overlapping references. A versatile and reciprocal relationship to Berlin as a cultural location may thus function as an interpretative bracket; the city itself turns out to be a sui generis document, a living archive in which everything conglomerates: space, time and actors.


Artists:
Wawrzyniec Tokarski | Ewa Partum | Agnieszka Brzeżańska | Renata Kamińska | Dominik Lejman | Aleks Slota | Jagna Anderson | Krzysztof Leon Dziemaszkiewicz | Zorka Wollny | Ania Nowak | Anna Nowicka | Gosia Gajdemska | Michał Talma-Sutt | Michał Martychowiec | Marlena Kudlicka | Wojtek Hoeft | Anna Krenz | Pola Dwurnik | Jerzy Goliszewski | Kasia Justka


Curators: Jagna Anderson PhD, Iwona Bigos, Berenika Partum

A project organized by agitPolska – Polish-German Initiative for Cultural Cooperation e.V. and the Foundation ARTUM ewa partum museum. Supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation.



Program from the 7th of October to the 21st of October
at Studio 1, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin and other venues.


Wawrzyniec Tokarski
Exhibition
07.-15.10.2017, Opening 07.10. at 7 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Ewa Partum
Performance
07.10.2017 at 7 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Agnieszka Brzeżańska
Studio Visit
08.10.2017, 6 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Discussion
Does art have the power to instigate change?
08.10.2017, 8 p.m.
Studio 1 im Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Renata Kamińska
Studio Visit
09.10.2017, 7 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Dominik Lejman
Videopresentation/Talk
10.10.2017, 7 p.m
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Aleks Slota
Performance
11.10.2017, 7 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin


Jagna Anderson
Performance
12.10.2017, 6 -9 p.m. Entry possible at any time
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Krzysztof Leon Dziemaszkiewicz
Performance
13.10.2017, 7 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Zorka Wollny
Film premiere 'Unmögliche Opera'
Talk with the directors of the Edith Russ Haus in Oldenburg and afterwards presentation of the Magazine Contemporary Lynx with the founder/director Dobromiła Błaszczyk.
14.10.2017, 6 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin


Ania Nowak
Performance
15.10.2017, 6 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin


Anna Nowicka
Performance
15.10.2017, 6 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin


Gosia Gajdemska
Performance
15.10.2017, 6 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin


Michał Talma-Sutt
Performance
15.10.2017, 6 p.m.
Studio 1 at Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

Please check the adresses of the different venues on our website
www.polenbegeisterungswelle.com

Michał Martychowiec
Studio Visit
16.10.2017, 7 p.m.

Marlena Kudlicka
Studio Visit
17.10.2017, 5 p.m.


Wojtek Hoeft
Studio Visit
17.10.2017, 7 p.m.


Ewa Partum
Talk
18.10.2017, 5 p.m.

Anna Krenz
Studio Visit
19.10.2017, 6 p.m.


Pola Dwurnik
Studio Visit
20.10.2017, 7 p.m.


Jerzy Goliszewski
Studio Visit
21.10.2017, 7 p.m.


Kasia Justka
Performance
21.10.2017, 9 p.m.
Club der polnischen Versager e.V.
Ackerstrasse 168, 10115 Berlin