Early Years
28 Feb - 02 May 2010
Mur i wieża (Wall and Tower), 2009
HD film, 15 min
Stand, posters, flag
Courtesy the artist and Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
Działania z Dobromierzem (Operations with Dobromierz), 2009
Digital slide-show, on the basis of photographs taken in 1972 – 1974
Collection of Museum of Modern Art Warsaw
Placzki (The Mourners), 2010
HDV, 16:9, 27.38 min
Filmstill
Courtesy of the artist and Museum of Modern Art Warsaw
The contemporary art is having its moment in Poland these days. Museums get built, and new public as well as private institutions emerge. Artists’ names become common knowledge, their practice—previously ignored or misinterpreted—is widely understood and accepted today. It speaks for itself that the most central tract of land in the Polish capital will soon see the construction of the Museum of Modern Art.
The exhibition EARLY YEARS at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin wanders through the field of institutional self-reflection. It searches for terms fit to describe the emergence of a museum of art in the present, actual artistic, political, and social discourses. The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw requested for this exhibition the collaboration from artists, with whom it had worked so far, in its pioneering days. The Museum shared its anxieties with the group, and they reciprocated with their share of expectations towards the new institution.
Curated by Sebastian Cichocki, Ana Janevski, Katarzyna Karwańska and Joanna Mytkowska
Presented by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw