U–jazdowski in 2017
-
In 2017, more than 60 premiere events took place at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle. A dozen or so exhibitions, including such high-profile ones as Late Polishness or Dizziness. Navigating the Unknown, as well as those presenting the work of young artists under the {Bank Pekao Project Room} project. A new original performative program has been created. Throughout the year, discussions and conferences, concerts, film screenings, art residencies as well as over four hundred educational workshops took place. There were also significant changes regarding the Centre’s image, such as a new visual identity and website. In 2017, U-jazdowski was in dialogue with its audience on many different levels.
- The exhibition of Małgorzata Michałowska, which commenced the new year at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, was the first of ten exhibitions within the frames of {Bank Pekao Project Room}. This project supports artists of the younger generation, nominated by art curators, directors of artistic institutions, and lecturers from the Academy of Fine Arts from all over Poland. In January 2018, an international jury will award two of the most impressive exhibitions with prizes.
- In 2017, the program of the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle focused on four themes.
- The first of them, Artists Diagnosing Contemporaneity, included one of the most awaited exhibitions of the passing year, Late Polishness. Forms of national identity after 1989, which began at the end of March. In about a dozen rooms, one could see over a hundred works of contemporary visual artists, cinema, and theatre. Participating in them, among others, were Oskar Dawicki, Maurycy Gomulicki, Nicolas Grospierre, Tomasz Kozak, Honorata Martin, Dorota Nieznalska, Karol Radziszewski, Piotr Uklański, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Julita Wójcik, and Artur Żmijewski.
- One of the more noteworthy events carried out under the second theme, New Territories of Performativity, was a project initiated by The Book Lovers—the curatorial team of Joanna Zielińska and David Maroto. The public was able to participate in the creation of subsequent chapters of Alex Cecchetti's crime novel Tamam Shud. Performances, garden walks or poetry seminars comprised the fictional structure, in which there was further room for objects and works of art. All this to solve the mystery of the author-artist's mysterious death. The culmination of the Tamam Shud project was the September exhibition of the same title; its finale as well as the publication of Alex Ceccheti's novel will take place in 2018.
- Taking place at the turn of June and July was the performative weekend The Way We Perform Now, an event promoting the fourth issue of "Obieg" magazine, devoted to contemporary performative practices. Curators Joanna Zielińska and Agnieszka Sosnowska invited the public to a meeting with the Brazilian artist Laura Lima, to a presentation of a joint project between Marysia Stokłosa and visual artist Alicja Bielawska, to walking backwards around the garden with Alex Cecchetti, and to a visit to an unusual shoe store with artist Jean-Pascal Flavien.
- An exhibition of a distinct performative character was Laura Lima's A Room and a Half. It managed to surprise immediately after entering with arms, ears, and even feet protruding from the walls. In each of the four rooms, viewers were discovering ever new secrets of this strange situation. The performative experiment PTV. Performans TV, an interdisciplinary project in the form of a television studio, explored the impact of this medium as well as its language on current artistic practices. This project will be continued through 2018.
- As part of the U-jazdowski music program in 2017, the {Record Labels} series took place, i.e. meetings and concerts of Polish independent record labels of an experimental profile.
- The exhibition that fell into the category of the third theme—Commonizing Experiences—was that of Maja Bekan 23 Assemblies, which opened in March of 2017. This exhibition was the artist's first in Poland and was a living installation as well as shed light on the relationship between art and everyday life and politics. The slogan Commonizing Experiences was also incorporated in this year's {City Garden Jazdów} Sporty. Through its activities, the park around the Ujazdowski Castle came to life. Throughout the entire summer, one could see that art as well as sport are tools of social animation and integration. In the area around the Castle it was possible to, amongst other things, play badminton, chill-out in a hammock or learn the basics of throwing frisbee. Two events aroused great interest: the unusual Cubo Race and a game of battleships with the participation of real people. At the same time, the Summer Cinema and screenings under the clouds began with City Garden Jazdów. However, the cinema at U-jazdowski is open to the public throughout the whole year. In an intimate space, equipped with the latest digital projector, you can watch a selection of the most intriguing current films and thematic reviews. One of the most interesting proposals of this year was the retrospective of Chris Marker November Smells of Red.
- Autumn at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle began with the exhibition Dizziness. Navigating the Unknown, an exhibition which examines contemporaneity as a state of a temporary lack of control. This is the second of the key exhibitions of 2017. Unconventional, addictive, and full of turmoil, from which it takes a long time to regain balance. Those who want to see if this is really the case, can do so until the beginning of January 2018.
- In October of 2017, the exhibition Gotong Royong. Things we do together—being the culmination of an artistic residence project—opened within the frames of the theme The Different Perspectives of Global Art. In an original architecture created by Maciej Siuda, shown were team activities conducted for the "common cause" in various places around the globe.
- The fixed happenings of U-jazdowski included meetings of the discursive program, conducted in the series: Transformations and Alternative Geographies. Taking place regularly throughout the entire year were educational workshops, including the known and well-liked {Smykowizje}, {What Does Art Taste Like?}, {Art from the perspective of...} or {Art knows no age}. The public also had the opportunity to participate in one or several of the 125 guided tours.
- A novelty that appeared at the end of 2017 is the {Curating Institution} project—a series of discussions, lectures, and seminars. Both curators as well as directors of important institutions of contemporary art from around the world who share a vision of a critical institution have been invited to participate in them. The project will continue in 2018.
- The Polish-English online quarterly "Obieg," which was redesigned in 2016, has gained the attention of readers from around the world. In 2017, four issues of the magazine were released, more or less related to the program of U–jazdowski: Polishness—the Meanings and Practices of National Identity, The Way We Perform Now, The Aesthetics of Contingency, and Terra-deformation. In addition, the "old" "Obieg," from 2004 – 2015, lived to see a book anthology by Marcin Krasny, entitled Spó.
- In 2017, a new visual identification was introduced at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, which—for the first time—began to communicate with its viewers in a standardized manner. Thanks to this, various undertakings gained a common identity. U-jazdowski also launched a new website, which has been active since the first half of 2017.
