What's On

First UK production of A Warsaw Melody by Leonid Zorin

28 March - 28 April 2012

Arcola Theatre

24 Ashwin St

London E8 3DL

The UK premiere of a major Russian literary classic (translated by Franklin D. Reeve) directed by Oleg Mirochnikov. Set during the heyday of the Soviet bloc, the story of A Warsaw Melody follows the blossoming relationship between a Russian boy and a Polish girl and their struggle against the public and social institutions that explicitly forbid the existence of their love.

This is the first show from Belka Productions. The company is based in London and was founded by actors Oliver King and Rosy Benjamin, with the aim of creating bold, physically expressive and imaginative productions of Russian texts that have rarely been presented to English audiences.

“Imaginative, liberating and bold, full of conceptually refreshing directorial choices and wonderfully playful acting” Simon Callow CBE on Oleg Mirochnikov and Liana Nyquist’s production of The Cherry Orchard.

Performance times: Tues - Sat at 8pm, Sat at 3pm

For more information please visit: Belka Productions or Arcola Theatre

Joanna Nowek, Modern Cave Man at Galeria ENTROPIA

9 - 30 March 2012

Galeria ENTROPIA 

50-129 Wrocław

 ul.Rzeźnicza 4

Modern Cave Man, an exhibition of large scale photography works, which last year represented Nowek at her first UK solo show at Hatch Space in London, has now traveled to Poland and will open at Galeria ENTROPIA on March 9.

In 2009 Nowek transformed a squat in Bethnal Green to capture the impressions of a primitive life within the modern city. With flat interior elements of wall decorations, the artist shows the effortless simplicity of being able to survive in the exemplified London metropolis. Photographic assemblages set in dilapidated interiors that capture various aspects of the notion of the primitive within the modern. Nowek lucidly reveals that a framework of routines dating back to our primal origins continues to guide the way we live today. The execution of the photographs draws on the visual language of classic 17th century artists including Vermeer and Snyders. Using the latest digital technology Nowek captures how we interact with our environment using patterns carved in our minds before the dawn of history: the daily life of a caveman in a twenty first century city. A human trapped in a modern cave...

Modern Cave Man was funded by Deconstruction Project.

nowek_modern_cave_man_hatch_space_london

Agata Madejska - Der Mensch und seine Objekte, Museum Folkwang, Essen

25 February - 29 April 2012

Museum Folkwang

 Museumsplatz 1 45128

Essen

 Germany

The focus of the exhibition is man, but it is also interested in the world of objects man conceived and constructed. Object and product photography arose at the same time as portrait photography and there are parallels in its formal language. With exceptional examples, Man and His Objects presents a period in the history of photography in which Western society changed radically. With trains, cars and telephones, cinema and airplanes an unimaginable mobility developed, perception accelerated, our experience with images and their distribution changed. The exhibition Man and His Objects concentrates on portraiture, a central motif since the invention of photography and still of particular interest for the viewer today. The development of photography from the 19th century to today appears impressively before your eyes with around 250 examples from the Photographic Collection of the Museum Folkwang.

For more infirmation on the artist click here.

Sława Harasymowicz as part of FABRICATE by curatorial collective Inter Alia

12 – 19 February 2012

The Parlour Gallery
181 Queen’s Crescent,
London NW5 4DS

Inter Alia's first exhibition Fabricate will present three international artists whose work collectively explores the themes of narrative and fact through re-appropriation and manipulation. Works by Sława Harasymowicz, Eva Stenram and Cecilia Bonilla Bonilla are influenced by mediated imagery from sources as diverse as 'fashion' magazines, family albums and the internet. Through the various processes of remoulding and duplication of the subject matter new narratives are created, and in some cases, hidden truths revealed.

The Private view takes place on 11 February at 6.00–10.00pm.

For more information please visit: Inter Alia

Rooms to Let, Digital Prints, 2011 by Cecillia Bonilla. Copyright of Artist.

New Wave Photography

18 – 26 February 2012

The Crypt Gallery

St Pancras Church

Euston Road

London

New Wave Photography is an exhibition bringing together the brightest talents in contemporary photography from across Central and Eastern Europe. The exhibition will demonstrate work from the finest young photographers, showing over forty creative photographs. The images on display will demonstrate Central and Eastern European Photography as it exists today; a young generation of photographers expressing personal visions and insights into their cultures.

The Private view takes place on Friday 17th of February at 6pm.

For more information please visit: United Creativity

“I do not expect to be a mother but I do expect to die alone” - OLEK at Tony’s Gallery

27th January - 23rd March 2012
Opening - Thursday 26th January, 6-9pm

Tony's Gallery

68 Sclater Street, E1 6HR, London

Open: Wednesday - Sunday (11am - 7pm)

“I do not expect to be a mother but I do expect to die alone” is OLEK's (Agata Oleksiak) first UK solo exhibition. The Polish-born, New York-based artist Olek is renowned for her use of crocheted yarn as a medium both indoors and on the street. The artist has created a major installation and sculptural environment: a distinctive Olek-esque living quarters filled with domestic objects of all kinds. These, along with the gallery walls and floor, have been entirely covered in crochet.

Both playful and rich in metaphor, the brightly coloured work on display features multiple designs including Olek’s trademark camouflage motif. The omnipresence of explicit messages crocheted into the objects, are statements revealing her position as a female artist in an art world that is inclined to have sexist opinions. These text-based pieces replicate actual missives sent to the artist by SMS text messaging, immortalising intimate details of her past relationships. The viewer thus becomes witness to Olek’s personal history as she continues her exploration of modern day concerns, touching upon the themes of privacy, technology and communication.

For this exhibition, Olek has drawn inspiration from her experiences of living in the UK over the past few months and assimilating into British culture, as reflected in recent works such as her crocheted London black cab, a piece produced outside of Tony’s in November. The show’s title is a direct quote from I do not expect, an appliquéd blanket produced by Tracey Emin in 2002.

For more information please visit Tony's Gallery.

Polish Deli on Resonance.fm

Every Sunday at 6 - 6.30pm on Resonance.fm

To listen tune your radio to 104.4 fm

Polish Deli is a bilingual program dedicated to Polish independent and alternative arts. The aim of the show is to present Polish culture to both Polish and international audience. Presenter Kacper Ziemianin talks to Poles living in UK, Poland and anywhere else in the world and tries to get a picture of Polish contemporary arts and to challenge stereotypes about Polish people.

Kacper Ziemianin is an audio artists. In his musical practice he is useing many different sound sources, ranging from acoustic, digital and analogue. In this performance he will combine all of them in order to create an interesitng soundscape of ever changing sounds and dynamics with an element of randomness.

For more information please visit Resonance.fm and Ziemianin.net or Polish Deli archive at Resonace. fm.

Critic Police: Monika Waraxa

Monika Waraxa`s blog is about art, life and many other things which could show up on my way.

Sometimes its bitter, sometimes sweet, but always critic.

Monika Waraxa is an artist and art critic, graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She was born in Poland currently lives and works in London.

She believes in a posteriori art. Works with painting, spatial realizations, activation projects and theory of art. Her articles were published in Obieg.pl, noBrain.pl and in Pokaz art magazine. She is also the editor of art section for Independent.pl.

Monika has participated in numerous important group exhibitions including: Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Miejska Galeria Sztuki, Łódź; Im Brick, Vienna, Austria; Klaipeda Cultural Communication Centre, Klaipeda, Lithuania; Laboratory – Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw.

Solo exhibitions include: LKW Gallery, Gdańsk; Galeria Zderzak, Cracow; Polish Institute in Berlin, Germany; WizyTUjąca Gallery, Warsaw; Galeria Promocyjna, Warsaw.

Monika has been twice awarded scholarship by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in Poland.

To visit Monika's blog in English go to: Critic Police or in Polish: Critic Police

The Forgetting of Proper Names

25 January - 18 March 2012

Calvert 22 Foundation

22 Calvert Avenue

E2 7JP London

Curated by Lina Džuverović and Dominik Czechowski, The Forgetting of Proper Names is a multi-strand, two-month season that focuses on the vibrant contemporary art and culture from Poland, exploring the subjectivity of memory, language and translation, the way the past is reshaped over time and reinterpreted as it crosses cultural boundaries.

Centered around a core exhibition of three young, dynamic Polish artists showing for the first time in London: Wojciech Bąkowski, Anna Molska and Agnieszka Polska, this unique season also interweaves performance, screenings, readings and discussion exploring the fresh innovative ways in which the artists engage with the history of the avant-garde and the changing social conditions in contemporary Poland, making explicit the connections to contemporary Polish literature, poetry and music.

For more information please visit : Calvert 22

Wojciech Bakowski. Take a Minute, 2011, Performance

Penderecki & Greenwood. 10th Kinoteka Closing Night Gala

22 March 2012, 8pm

Barbican Hall

London

Aukso Chamber Orchestra of the City of Tychy   

Krzysztof Penderecki - conductor 

Marek Moś - conductor

Grzegorz Barszczewski - lighting design  

Marcin Bania and Maciej Malinowski - video

This special concert - which is accompanied by a video and lighting design - celebrates the strong influence Penderecki's music has had on Greenwood's compositional career, featuring two pieces from the Polish master's avant-garde period - Polymorphia and Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima - which inspired Greenwood to write the other two pieces performed tonight, Popcorn Superhet Receiver and 48 Responses to Polymorphia.   48 Responses to Polymorphia is a new piece that was performed for the very first time by the Aukso Orchestra under Marek Moś during the European Culture Congress in Wrocław on 9 September.   The compositions by Krzysztof Penderecki and Jonny Greenwood to be performed during the concert have been recorded and an album will be released on Nonesuch Records in 2012.  

The event is produced by the Barbican in association with the Polish Cultural Institute in London, The National Audiovisual Institute in Warsaw and Event-factory s.c. and sponsored by DFDS Seaways.  

For more information please visit: Polish Cultural Institute

The Trouble with Being Human These Days. Documentary about professor Zygmunt Bauman

This film is a Zeitgest journey through 21st century Europe on its crash trajectory to the uncertain future. The creators, Bartek Dziadosz and Grzegorz Lepiarz are guided by professor Zygmunt Bauman, one of the most influential thinkers of our age, a modest prophet whose 57 books written over a half of the century reveal hidden pitfalls of consumerism, lax morality, weak governments and powerful corporations.

The idea of making a film about Zygmunt Bauman first came up in August 2009 after Grzegorz`s visit to Professor`s house in Leeds. He met Zygmunt Bauman then for the first time to make his photographic portrait, and immediately became fascinated by his warm, inspiring personality and his profound, but at the same time very straightforward wisdom. Grzegorz joined forces with his friend Bartek, who became the director, and Zygmunt`s friend Mark Davies, the current director of the Bauman Institute, who agreed to interview the Professor.

For more information please visit :

www.beinghumanthesedays.com

www.indiegogo.com/BeingHuman

Rafal Gawin`s collection of poetry published in UK by Off-press

This first print run of Wycieczki Osobiste / Code of Chance contains both the original Polish poems and their English translations and DVD disc which includes a filmed interview with the author (with English subtitles) and a short documentary Feast of Fools, exploring themes of contemporary Polish poetry.

Rafał Gawin Was born in 1984. Poet, literary critic, co-founder of "mŁodź Literacka”, editor of “Arterie”, a literary magazine. His chapook Przymiarki was published in Wrocław, 2009. His work has been published in the most prestigious Polish periodicals, including “Gazeta Wyborcza”, “Odra”, “Tygiel Kultury”, “Opcje”, “Kresy”, “Wyspa” adn in Nagrani an anthology of new poetry.

Wildly sophisticated forms which catch language mid-act, then cooly execute madly distorted idioms. A masterpiece. The fruits of this extraordinary effectiveness produce not only the grotesque, but in the shadow which follows there also come wisdom, bitterness, mistrust... For me, Gawin is unique. Karol Maliszewski

Editors - Przemysław Owczarek, Michał Murowaniecki

Translation – Marek Kazmierski

For more information please visit : Off-press

Artur Zmijewski to curate the 7th Berlin Biennale

27 April - 1 July 2012

Zmijewski is well known for orchestrating social experiments – as in his two pivotal works Them (2005) and Repetition (2007).

(...) Artur Zmijewski, born in 1966 in Warsaw (Poland), works almost exclusively with the media of photography and film. He is particularly interested in the power of art and its relation to politics. From an almost anthropological viewpoint he investigates social norms, morality nd representations of power in today’s society and the effects that art have on it.

Żmijewski studied in the sculpture class of Professor Grzegorz Kowalski at the Warsaw Art Academy from 1990 to 1995 as well as at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 1999. His work has been internationally shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In 2005 he represented Poland at the 51st Art Biennale in Venice. He is member of the Polish political movement “Krytyka Polityczna” and the art director of the magazine of the same name. Żmijewski lives and works in Warsaw. (excerpt from Frieze Magazine)

For more information please visit: Berlin Biennale

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