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Vertep Performance and Panel Talk with Ihor Kalynets (renowned dissident, poet, and participant in the historic Vertep of 1972)
Pilecki Institut Berlin invites for a special evening celebrating the rich cultural heritage of Ukraine with a traditional Vertep, followed by a compelling panel discussion featuring Ihor Kalynets—renowned dissident, poet, and participant in the historic Vertep of 1972. This event offers a unique opportunity to explore how this symbolic performance became a powerful act of resistance against Soviet oppression.
The Vertep of 1972 holds a significant place in history, performed under clandestine and highly unusual conditions. It stood as a bold act of defiance against the Soviet regime’s efforts to suppress Ukrainian cultural identity. Kalynets, alongside other prominent cultural figures, risked their freedom to preserve and revive these cherished traditions.
Following the performance, a trilingual panel discussion (Ukrainian, English, German) will explore the historical and political context of the 1972 Vertep. Ihor Kalynets will share personal insights into the resilience of Ukrainian culture and the critical role of art as a form of resistance under totalitarian regimes.
This event complements the Stus exhibition, dedicated to Vasyl Stus—one of Ukraine’s most influential poets and dissidents. The exhibition delves into his life, unyielding spirit, and pivotal contributions to cultural and human rights advocacy.
17:30 – Curatorial tour 18:00 – Traditional Ukrainian Vertep (Christmas performance) 18:25 – Public talk with Ihor Kalynets
Languages: Ukrainian, English, German.
Further information: https://berlin.instytutpileckiego.pl/en/events/vertep-christmas-performance
At PUCCS Contemporary Art
OPENING: 16/12/2024, 18.00
Éva Juhász tries to direct the attention towards complex layering behind the obvious associative readings of the view. All her visions, characterised by a dense content that can be treated as poetic images, are realised in a close, causal relationship of consistent colour, material, form, technique and compositional choice in the design, with a strong symbolic intention. These visual essences have an extensive field of interpretation and the completeness of their appearance, along with their titles are capable of exerting a highly differentiated effect on the imaginary world of the viewer through personal life experiences and impressions, as well as through our collective conceptual traits. The visual world and symbolism of arthropods has been dominating the artist’s work in various genres since she finished university years.
Éva Juhász lives and works in Budapest and Gyermely. She started her art studies at the Secondary School of Fine and Applied Arts (Kisképző) faculty of painting, and graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2017. She has been teaching pattern making and drawing at Szimultán Art School for several years. She was awarded the Sculpture Society Prize at the VI Sculpture Biennale 2023. Her first solo exhibition, Something_happened_to_us_- _back_to_the_future, was held at Art9 Gallery in the spring of 2024. Her next solo exhibition will be at the Karinthy Szalon in Budapest.
Organized by Parallel Art Foundation
Further information: https://parallelfoundation.com/NEXT-2024-12-16-01-29-Eva-Juhasz-Iron-Lady
Exhibition on the impact of art to emotional health
Curators: Aldona Dapkutė, Brigita Kaleckaitė, Deima Žuklytė-Gasperaitienė
Curator-coordinator: Kamilė Jagėlienė
An attentive and purposeful encounter with art has a positive effect on health. Works of art are multifaceted and integrate various aspects within them – which is why interacting with them has a healing power. Art speaks to us and helps develop resilience, the ability to cope with arising difficulties and act consciously. When we stand still and exist within our internal reaction to a work of art, we allow ourselves to open up to different interpretations and understand our experience in a new way, through different eyes.
From Within is the first exhibition in Lithuania to combine art history and psychology on such a scale. By relying on these two disciplines, we encourage reflection on the multifaceted impact of art. The tools of art history help us understand visual language, while psychology guides us toward self-analysis. The questions that accompany this exhibition connect these two fields – like Ariadne’s thread, they help maintain a direction of looking and thinking, compelling us to open up and experience the therapeutic effect of art.
We have chosen to present a thematic rather than chronological look at Lithuanian modern and contemporary art from the 1940s to the present day. The structure of this exhibition has been shaped by the personality structure model of psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) and the therapeutic vision of art of philosopher and writer Alain de Botton (b. 1969).
For a work of art to help us better understand ourselves, for us to feel its impact, our response as viewers is vital. We invite you to sensitize your perspective and devote time to a dialogue, so that you can explore your emotions, thoughts, and experiences with an open heart, ready to answer the question: What is it that comes from within?
Artists
Aleksas Andriuškevičius (b. 1959), Aušra Andziulytė (b. 1961), Valentinas Antanavičius (1936–2024), Elena Antanavičiūtė (b. 1992), Žygimantas Augustinas (b. 1973), Jovita Aukštikalnytė-Varkulevičienė (b. 1977), Marijonas Baranauskas (1931–1995), Jurga Barilaitė (b. 1972), Ilja Bereznickas (b. 1948), Eglė Ganda Bogdanienė (b. 1962), Eglė Budvytytė (b. 1981), Zenonas Bulgakovas (1939–2023), Ramūnas Čeponis (b. 1958), Henrikas Čerapas (b. 1952), Dovilė Dagienė (b. 1981), Ramūnas Danisevičius (b. 1973), Vytautas Dubauskas (1958), Stasys Eidrigevičius (b. 1949), Eglė Einikytė-Narkevičienė (b. 1972), Andrius Erminas (b. 1971), Monika Furmana (b. 1978), Raimondas Gailiūnas (b. 1956), Barbora Gediminaitė (b. 1978), Ugnius Gelguda (b. 1977), Gabrielė Gervickaitė (b.1982), Irena Giedraitienė (b. 1935), Eglė Gineitytė (b. 1968), Ona Grigaitė (b. 1963), Algis Griškevičius (b. 1954), Bart Groenendaal (b. 1975), Antanas Gudaitis (1904–1989), Leonardas Gutauskas (1938–2021), Evaldas Jansas (b. 1969), Danutė Jonkaitytė (b. 1951), Agnė Juodvalkytė (b. 1987), Patricija Jurkšaitytė (b. 1968), Elena Kairytė (b. 1988), Vytautas Kairiūkštis (1890–1961), Elvyra Kairiūkštytė (1950–2006), Rūta Katiliūtė (b. 1944), Leonas Linas Katinas (1941–2020), Algimantas Kezys (1928–2015), Virginija Kirvelienė (b. 1955), Vincas Kisarauskas (1934–1988), Algimantas Kunčius (b. 1939), Stanislovas Kuzma (1947–2012), Andrius Kviliūnas (b. 1972), Aurelija Maknytė (b. 1969), Jurga Marcinauskaitė (b.1987) / 2XJ, Sigita Maslauskaitė-Mažylienė (b. 1970), Petras Mazūras (b. 1949), Donata Minderytė (b. 1991), Beatričė Mockevičiūtė (b. 1994), Antanas Mončys (1921–1993), Visvaldas Morkevičius (b. 1990), Nancie Naive (b. 1997), Henrikas Natalevičius (b. 1953), Eglė Norkutė (b. 1993), Laima Oržekauskienė (b. 1959), Vygantas Paukštė (b. 1957), Audronė Petrašiūnaitė (b. 1954), Algirdas Petrulis (1915–2010), Edvardas Racevičius (b. 1974), Monika Radžiūnaitė (b. 1992), Adomas Rybakovas (b. 2001), Šarūnas Sauka (b. 1958), Gytis Skudžinskas (b. 1975), Leopoldas Surgailis (1928–2016), Mikalojus Šalkauskas (1935–2002), Arvydas Šaltenis (b. 1944), Vytautas Šerys (1931–2006), Šarūnas Šimulynas (1939–1999), Algimantas Švėgžda (1941–1996), Arūnė Tornau (b. 1956), Dalia Truskaitė (b.****), Povilas Ričardas Vaitiekūnas (b. 1940), Mantas Valentukonis (b. 1998), Eglė Vertelkaitė (b. 1967), Mikalojus Povilas Vilutis (b. 1944), Vytautas Viržbickas (b. 1987), Andrius Zakarauskas (b. 1982), Stanislovas Žvirgždas (b. 1941).
Lenders of the artworks
Antanas Mončys Art Museum, Church Heritage Museum, Gallery “Drifts”, Lithuanian Photographers Association, Lithuanian National Museum of Art, M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, Stasys Museum, The Rooster Gallery, Galerija VARTAI, “Vilnius Auction”, Museum of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Family of Zigmantas Dokšas, Regina and Ignas Gaigalas, Ingrida Mickevičienė, Algirdas Puišys, Violeta and Romanas Raulynaitis, Jolita and Kęstutis Rudgalvis, Darius Rugys, Mindaugas Vanagas and Simona Savickaitė, and other private collectors.
Further information: https://mo.lt/en/ivykiai/from-within/
OPENING: 13/12/2024, 16.00
Exhibition curators: Inga Lāce, Lotte Løvholm, Solvita Krese
In which ways are museums and artists vehicles for nation state building? How does collection-building intertwine with cultural diplomacy and politics of countries?
The Latvian collection of Malmö Konstmuseum was given to the museum as a donation in 1939 and was on permanent display until 1958. There are landscape paintings, portraits, still life, illustrations, scenography and images of war, primarily from the 1930s.
The collection was meant to be representative of contemporary art in Latvia at the time and it encapsulates a general zeitgeist toward thinking and developing ideas about what Latvia is through art. Marked by the authoritarian regime of president Kārlis Ulmanis and its subsequent cultural policy, the collection represents an inward gaze as well as national romanticist ideas praising Latvian soil and culture. The exhibition is addressing larger issues pertaining to nationalism and nation state building in the Baltic region at the same time acknowledging the fragility of smaller nation states and how they could act as antidotes to imperialism.
Originally shown at Malmö Konstmuseum the exhibition ‘The Latvian Collection of Malmö’ presents the collection in its entirety for the first time since the 1950’s alongside eight new commissions by artists who have researched the collection. The exhibition highlights overlooked narratives within the collection and looks at new ways of accessing the historic collection as a moment in time.
The newly commissioned works have become part of Malmö Konstmuseum’s permanent art collection, emerging as extensions and interpretations of the existing Latvian collection, providing windows into how it was perceived in 2022 for future curators, artists, and visitors. This way, the collection-building process stretches in time towards present and going beyond the borders of the Latvian nation state.
Artists in the “Latvian Art Collection” in the Malmö Art Museum:
Jānis Aižēns, Augusts Annuss, Arturs Apinis, Jēkabs Apinis, Kārlis Baltgailis, Jānis Cielavs, Jānis Cīrulis, Elza Druja, Erna Dzelme-Bērziņa, Eduards Dzenis, Otomija Freiberga, Jāzeps Grosvalds, Arvīds Gusārs, Eduards Kalniņš, Kārlis Krauze, Valdemārs Krastiņš, Jānis Kuga, Ludolfs Liberts, Milda Liepiņa, Jānis Liepiņš, Jūlijs Madernieks, Marija Induse-Muceniece, Oskars Norītis, Jānis Plēpis, Janis Rozentāls, Pēteris Rožlapa, Arijs Skride, Oto Skulme, Uga Skulme, Janis Šternbergs, Arvīds Štrauss, Niklāvs Strunke, Erasts Šveics, Leo Svemps, Zelma Tālberga, Jānis Tīdemanis, Valdemārs Tone, Konrāds Ubāns, Johans Valters (Johann Walter), Vilis Vasariņš, Ernests Veilands, Sigismunds Vidbergs, Vilhelms Purvītis, Teodors Zaļkalns, Rihards Zariņš, Kārlis Zāle.
Participates in the exhibition:
Artists from Latvia, Sweden, Ukraine, Estonia, Denmark, Lithuania: Ieva Epnere, Ieva Kraule-Kūna, Santiago Mostyn and Susanna Jablonski, Makda Embaie, Lada Nakonechna, Jaanus Samma, Asbjørn Skou un Anastasia Sosunova.
Organized by Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art in collaboration with Latvian National Museum of Art and Malmö Konstmuseum.
Further information: https://neweast.art/place/latvian-national-museum-of-art/
OPENING: 06/12/2024, 18.00
Curator: Ieva Astahovska
“To pay an arm and a leg” – to pay an extremely high price – is a popular idiom in English; it is used in a wide variety of situations, and its origins are said to date back to the Second World War. It seems to equate apparently incompatible things like buying, selling and corporeal existence – because a high price can apply to many things. In the context of the exhibition title, the idiom asks questions about the value and experience of both art and life, including the cost of life choices. These themes are also important in Elīna Vītola’s other works, as captured, for instance, in the phrase “Common Issues in Painting and Everyday Life”, the title of her series of solo exhibitions, ongoing since 2017. In the current exhibition, she connects reflections not only on art and life but also on the past and the present, the personal and the collective, the known and the unspoken.
As a painter who departs from the usual paths of painting and works with a conceptual yet abstract artistic language, Vītola is searching, this time, for new ways to connect the content-based and the non-representational threads of art, by doing so, engaging its materiality, technologies and space in a dialogue.
***
We can fully understand the present only in the light of the past, the influential British historian Edward H. Carr once wrote. This seems particularly relevant when we think about today’s political and social turbulences, which recall others in our region, experienced by previous generations. But what if this past and its memories are hiding or silenced, contradictory, unknowable, and in the end, difficult and dark? How to think and talk about it when, despite the data and facts discovered, there is no direct evidence or material? How can an art exhibition help to reopen and talk about this past?
These questions run through the exhibition and become its counterpoint, even though its origins were quite innocent, even sentimental: the artist’s interest and desire to know more about her great-uncle whom she never met because he disappeared during the Second World War. For he too was a painter, more precisely, a craftsman who created applied and functional works of art, such as decorative interior paintings. Through archival and other research, and hearing stories from unexpectedly found relatives in different parts of the world, the artist uncovered the twists and turns of her great-uncle’s life but also the contradictions and silences about him in the family memories. These sources disclosed not only the biography of her lost relative but also the unpleasant and difficult memories of the Second World War and post-war era and the silences that still accompany them in society at large. Some chapters in this biography: hiding from Soviet forces in 1940 at the beginning of the Soviet occupation; disappearing from the family; resurfacing in a filtration camp; a military career in the security police during the German occupation in Riga; and unthinkably… his probable involvement in Arajs Kommando, a notorious paramilitary killing unit active in Latvia during the Holocaust. Then disappearance again; emigration to the UK; mental disorder and a life in a psychiatric clinic where he was secretly cared for by his brother, who also fled to the UK.
The unexpected, dark and traumatic Arajs Kommando discovery came to light when the artist was conducting her research and led her to employ not only aesthetic but also ethical strategies on how to explore, understand and imagine what cannot be understood. Even after extensive research, her great-uncle’s biography remains fragmentary, obscure, without material proof or direct evidence. Hence, it is retold in the exhibition as a multi-layered visual reflection on the representable and the non-representable, which seeks to both translate and encrypt possible meanings and narratives, so subjecting the entire gallery space to transformations and manipulations.
***
The main elements involved in this mosaic-like reflection are decorative painting (an allusion to the great-uncle’s craft), using historical fresco techniques on today’s quick-build construction materials: paintings on the gallery wall and drywall sheets that are ready to be built-in in any given environment; and smaller paintings with ornamental structures. As the artist poignantly describes it, “the environment is ready to be lived in, to adapt the facts. Paintings to be hung on paintings, by accepting the temporality, the current fact of existence.”
The depictions on the fresco paintings are in tune with both the visuality of the archival documents the artist worked with during her research and art’s decorative function to cover up the unpleasant “as if nothing happened, to cover it without a trace”. In these paintings, the prevailing form is the line, the simplest shape the painter’s brush can draw, decorating the living space and abstracting the concrete. The lines in the space also include the painted ribbons next to the drywall sheets; they connect unexpectedly with the dark side of the past the artist has been exploring. The dense cotton fabrics of the ribbons are produced in the still-existing textile factory Lenta in Riga, which was transformed during the German occupation of 1943 and 1944 into a labour camp for Jews deported to Riga from other European countries and later murdered in the Holocaust.
However, the decorative layers that smooth and cover are confronted by a hole, made in one of the gallery’s walls and revealing what is hidden behind the white cube of the space. It opens up a view into a deeper, previously invisible part of the space, exposing the drywall structure as if it were an X-ray image, a “skeleton in the closet”, an open secret. This underlines that the exhibition is not about the past but how it echoes and affects the present. The layers of continuity are also called to mind by the apple tree at the gallery’s front door, a hint of the artist’s connection to and within the family tree and also within the context of the art world.
While it remains situated between the representational and the non-representational, concreteness and abstraction, the exhibition is also part of a broader flow of artistic research that brings to light “forgotten” and silenced and violent facets of the past through micro-histories of individual and family stories, while at the same time referring to collective memory. From such an active and emancipatory position, which engages both cognition and imagination, it cannot, of course, overcome the heavy and violent burden of the past, but breaking the silence can also be a path towards reconciliation with the past and a critical yet empathic reflection on the present.
Elīna Vītola (b. 1986) is an artist based in Riga. Her conceptual and visually vibrant work varies from paintings to complex communal installations involving several other artists and creative practitioners. Classically trained as a painter at the Art Academy of Latvia (BA and MA), Vītola has taken up this medium as a companion in her artistic journey to disentangle some issues that are connected with her identity as an artist and the art world in general and to build new platforms for other artists. She has worked both as an artist and as a curator in organisations such as the Monumental Cafe and Low Gallery in Riga. Vītola has participated in exhibitions at the Latvian National Museum of Art, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga, Tallinn Art Hall, Kadriorg Art Museum in Tallinn, the University of Tartu Art Museum, Kogo Gallery in Tartu and P/////AKT in Amsterdam. Kogo Gallery presented her solo installation Common Issues in Painting and Everyday Life at Liste Art Fair Basel 2024. In 2021, she was shortlisted for the Purvītis Prize, in 2018, she received the Nordic & Baltic Young Artist Award. Her works are in the collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art and the European Patent Office Collection.
Ieva Astahovska (b. 1979) is an art scholar and curator. She works at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, where she leads research projects related to art and culture in socialist and post-socialist periods and entanglements between postsocialist and postcolonial perspectives in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, as well as non-formal education projects, focusing on the current processes in contemporary art. Ieva has edited several research-based publications, including the anthology Valdis Āboliņš. The avant-garde, mailart, the New Left and cultural relations during the Cold War (2019), Workshop of Restoration of Unfelt Feelings. Juris Boiko and Hardijs Lediņš (2016), Revisiting Footnotes. Footprints of the Recent Past in the Post-Socialist Region (2015). Her recently curated exhibitions include Decolonial Ecologies. Understanding the Postcolonial after Socialism in Riga (2022) and Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds (2022–2024) co-curated with Margaret Tali, shown in Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn.
OPENING: 05/12/2024, 18.00
Tour with the artist and curator: 06/12/2024, 18.00
Can a monument, as an inherently commemorative form, speak about the future? Can it be deconstructed, its symbolic capital repurposed to foster a community of diverse voices and experiences? In Monuments Will Speak With Our Voices, Marta Romankiv initiates the process of building a prototype tool that amplifies the voices of often unheard, marginalised groups. The artist’s strategy orchestrates a situation where these voices can truly resound.
The project occupies a space between art and activism, taking on a participatory and context-driven character. Its starting point is the monument to Count Aleksander Fredro in Wrocław’s Old Town Square. The resulting prototype – a physical object – is designed to be placed on this sculpture, although it can also serve as a versatile structure for voicing the needs and demands of various social groups.
To bring the object to life, the artist invited a group of migrants from Ukraine, Belarus, and Colombia who had come to Wrocław to study, work, or simply live. During workshop sessions, participants shared their experiences, common challenges, and envisioned a future rooted in a heterogeneous society. This collaboration led to the creation of a unique, multilingual voice shaped in the structure of a literary drama. Its content forms a collective manifesto, calling for the reclamation of rights and an equal, just place within the social fabric.
In the exhibition, Marta Romankiv presents both the documentation of the project’s creation process and its outcome – a prototype embodying a vision of a future where migrant voices echo through every street and square, impossible to ignore. The artist purposefully engages with the statue of Fredro, a figure that underwent its own “migration” from Lviv to the capital of Lower Silesia. This sculpture, relocated in 1956 from Marta’s birthplace, traces the journey of not only the displaced Polish population from Lviv but also many present-day migrants. The prototype’s steel structure, crafted to fit the dimensions of this “migrant monument,” symbolically transforms into a platform for voices that are often absent in public spaces.
A monument, as an art form, is typically erected to honour a specific person or historical event. The narratives surrounding such representations are often influenced by historical relativism and remain vulnerable to shifts in social, political, religious, or cultural perspectives. Issues related to public space and urban planning are also central to the discourse on monuments. While a monument can embody emancipation, it can equally serve as a tool of usurpation, hierarchical storytelling, or political manipulation. Some monuments are dismantled, while others inspire spontaneous reverence. A monument can also become a means of exclusion, where commemorating a particular figure simultaneously neglects the memory of others who contributed significantly to that person’s legacy.
Marta Romankiv’s work reimagines the monument as a forum – a site for gatherings, cultural events, social protests, and a space where diverse groups can voice their perspectives. Can sculptures in central city squares contribute to a more inclusive, shared future? The artist’s prototype explores this question, offering an object intended for public spaces that serves as an open platform to encourage social dialogue. Its primary aim is to highlight the importance of equal opportunities and to combat social exclusion. This initiative seeks to raise awareness and create a democratic tool for “speaking out” and “commemorating.” Romankiv’s project is a form of social experiment – entrusting the platform to the community to test its potential and functionality.
Marta Romankiv (born in Lviv, Ukraine) is an interdisciplinary artist known for her installations, video works, and social interventions. She graduated in artistic ceramics from the Lviv State Institute of Decorative and Applied Arts and continued her studies in Poland, at the Faculty of Art at the Pedagogical University in Krakow, later earning her master’s degree from the Academy of Art in Szczecin. She is currently preparing to defend her doctorate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk. Romankiv’s work primarily addresses themes of social exclusion within the context of migration and related identity issues. Her projects are often participatory, positioned at the intersection of activism, social science, and art. She lives and works in Poland.
Piotr Lisowski is a curator and art historian, known for his exhibitions, writings, and editorial work, as well as his independent research in contemporary art. He serves as the artistic director of 66P Subjective Institution of Culture. From 2017 to 2022, he was affiliated with Wrocław Contemporary Museum, leading the institution from 2020 to 2021. Prior to that, from 2007 to 2016, he worked as a curator and custodian of the collection at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń and co-founded the independent Miłość Gallery (2014–2017). Currently, he teaches Art Mediation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław.
Further information: https://66p.pl/en/pomniki-beda-mowily-naszymi-glosami-marta-romankiv
EP. 58 – a conversation with The Neighbours – an artist collective representing Poland at the 60th La Biennale di Venezia.
Speaking to artists: Krasimira Butseva, Julian Chehirian, Lilia Topouzova and curator: Vasil Vladimirov.
The Neighbours explores the silenced memories of survivors of political violence during Bulgaria’s communist era (1945 to 1989). Employing found objects, video, and sound design, the installation conveys the stories of those who endured Bulgarian Gulag camps and prisons. This multidisciplinary project, rooted in extensive scholarly research and more than 40 interviews conducted by the practitioners, reimagines the survivors‘ homes —the spaces where the interviews occurred—inviting audiences to inhabit them and bear witness.
The title of Ewa Czwartos’s painting exhibition, Vitruvian Women, draws on a procedure characteristic of all of her works, which is the re-reading of culturally entrenched scenes and motifs. The term “Vitruvian” generally brings to mind not so much the work of the ancient architect himself, but the drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, showing the male body inscribed in a circle and a square. And Vitruvian women?
The exhibition’s sly title reveals the subject of Czwartos’s canvases. Her paintings penetrate spheres of diametrically opposed experiences. At the heart of her artistic vision are always women, shown either in a borderline situation or in a completely different one – almost idyllic.
Czwartos takes up the themes that organized the imagination of the great masters of the Renaissance and Baroque. She is also inspired by the works of Polish female artists of the 19th century and by anonymous figures captured in old photographs. Subsequent works bring a break with the iconography established in culture or inspire a creative dialogue in which tradition is the starting point for research about oneself and the protagonists of the past or provokes fun with the viewer (Four Graces for Rafael).
Mythological figures (Aphrodite, Athena, Hera) and legendary female characters (Lucretia) appear in the paintings, but Czwartos focuses on moments from their lives that are less exploited in culture. Lucretia, whose story is known from Livy, is presented in the painting Non Omnis Moriar at the moment of choosing the place of the suicidal stab rather than after she has pierced her heart with a dagger. Her multiplied silhouette reflects the multitude of emotions she experiences, and the tragedy of her fate strengthens the discord between the floral ornamentation of the canvas and the gravity of the depicted scene. The protagonist’s body is nude, but not bare. The heroine tears off intricate cobwebs resembling decorative lace, just as the artist breaks away from narratives covered in dust.
Multiplication, a characteristic feature of Czwartos’s work, includes not only images of women, but also floral and temporal motifs. Striking in their abundance, they do not merely serve as decorative ornaments; instead, they allude to the symbolism preserved, among others, through the so-called language of flowers.
II
In 1896, the painter and activist Maria Dulębianka attempted to create a women’s department at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts. After the failure of this undertaking, she settled in Lviv, where she opened her own portrait studio. After a few years – torn between artistic activity and social work – she gave up painting. A critic commenting on the posthumous exhibition of her works noted that “(…) she was a nature that was compact within itself,” and therefore she was unable to work in two fields at the same time. Despite pushing art aside, Dulębianka still had the situation of women artists in mind. As early as 1909, she campaigned for them to be allowed to sit on the board of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts, pointing out that were prevented from doing so by an “exclusivist custom.”
Ewa Czwartos is aware of what she owes to activists from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In Vitruvian Women, the graduate of the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts follows up on the issues raised in her earlier works. Her art does not provide easy answers. Intricately painted stories about the fate of women and their emancipatory activities create a multi-level narrative in which the viewer must immerse herself.
Ewa Czwartos (born 1998 in Sucha Beskidzka) studied at the Faculty of Painting at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, where she graduated with honours in 2023 with the project I Paint Because My Mouth Is Sealed. In her work, Czwartos analyzes the construct of femininity, using classical references to bring through reflection on generational burdens and the pressure of traditional social roles. Her paintings are a time machine, a reminiscence of the past world, provoking discussion about historical roles in the context of the present, about concepts that we no longer trust, lost in the multiplying historical narratives. Czwartos works with painting, drawing, and animated films. A co-author of exhibition-promoting videos for the National Museum in Krakow, she also collaborates with the Otwarta Pracownia Artistic Association.
Further information: https://u-jazdowski.pl/en/programme/project-room/ewa-czwartos-vitruvian-women?tid=bio-664142274
At Cairo Contemporary, Budapest, 1071 Budapest, Lövölde tér 7
Curator: Gábor Pintér
Tipo Passe by Angolan photographer Edson Chagas, is a series that addresses questions of history, culture and identity. The artist’s birthplace of Angola was subjected to colonial rule by the Portuguese from 1575 until independence in 1975. The culture and traditions of the local population were largely disregarded and ‘unseen’ by the European colonialists.
Edson Chagas stages portraits of models wearing traditional African masks borrowed from a private collection. The artefacts have been extrapolated from their history and context; the sitters are dressed in contemporary clothes from street markets, complementing the colours and forms of the masks. These objects with immense ritual meaning and a compelling presence are suspended between worlds, and prompt the viewer to question the reality of what he or she is perceiving
The images in this series are photographed in the style of passport photographs. Chagas has used this format, perhaps the most common form of photography, and transformed it into large-scale portraits. A globally recognised form of identification and the fundamental document to enable migration and movement across borders, passport photograph has an increased significance in the twenty-first century.
Edson Chagas was born in 1977 in Luanda, Angola, and lives between Angola and Portugal. He studied photography at the University of Wales in Newport, London College of Communication, and Portugal’s Escola Técnica de Imagem e Comunicação and Centro Comunitário de Arcena. In 2013, Chagas’ Found Not Taken series was exhibited at the Angolan Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, winning the Golden Lion for best national pavilion.
Solo exhibitions have taken place at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town; Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon; Kunst Haus Wien, Vienna; Instituto Camões – Centro Cultural Português, Luanda; and Belfast Exposed Photography. Shortlisted for the 11th Novo Banco Photo Award; recipient of the 2018 African Art Award presented by the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
Women Artists Ask about the Future of Video Art and Experimental Film
The conference This Image Wants to Move. Women Artists Ask about the Future of Video Art and Experimental Film will take place on 30 November 2024 at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art. The conversations initiated during its four panels will help understand the current condition of experimental film and video art, propose possible models of support from public institutions and of environmental self-organization, as well as explore the potential of this medium as a space of often non-linear narratives combining documentary and speculation.
The conference organizers are filmmakers, so they will direct the discussion to issues that are close to them personally and environmentally. They invited the widest possible group of experts in the field of video art and experimental film: artists, curators, film critics, and educators. The fourth panel will give the floor to artists selected through an open call – there will be a place for discussion on the creative process and an opportunity to share fragments of works.
Event schedule
12:15—12:30 Welcome
12:30—13:45 Foreign examples of support for video art.
Review of institutions, programmes and collectives supporting video artists in Europe
Guests: Marta Hryniuk, Anna Kołyszko, Lawinia Rate
14:00—15:30 Possible bridges (and chasms) between video art and film
Discussion on the potential of the space between these two fields in the context of concepts and methodology.
Guests: Weronika Adamowska, Joanna Baranowska, Michał Matuszewski, Andrzej Marzec, Jaśmina Wójcik
15:45—17:00 How can Polish institutions support video art and experimental film?
A debate between artists and representatives of cultural institutions.
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