press release, PDF

Missing Documents.
Photographs of the Polish Transformation after 1989
exhibition organized as part of the three-year POSTDOCUMENT project
Artists: Anna Beata Bohdziewicz, Rineke Dijkstra, Mariusz Forecki, Piotr Janowski, Carl De
Keyzer, Andrzej Kramarz / Weronika Łodzińska, Witold Krassowski, Zoe Leonard, Chris
Niedenthal, Maciej Pisuk, Mark Power, Wojciech Prażmowski, Konrad Pustoła, Allan Sekula,
Juliusz Sokołowski, Michał Szlaga, Tomasz Tomaszewski, Łukasz Trzciński, Tomasz Wiech,
Jerzy Wierzbicki, Wojciech Wieteska, Wojciech Wilczyk, Monika Zawadzki, Maria Zbąska
Gallery 2
4.02 – 15.04.2012
Curator: Adam Mazur
Cooperation: Beata Łyżwa-Sokół
Opening: Friday 3 February, 6 p.m.
Documentalism certainly remains one of the most inspiring and current attitudes among artists with
respect to reality. Even if the age of virtual reality has been repeatedly announced over the last 20
years, interest in the political, social, and economic dimensions of life has been developing most
dynamically in contemporary art, not only among its socially engaged stream. Meanwhile,
investigations of contemporary art and visual culture clearly want for deeper analysis of the
documentary, which, on the other hand, is well reconnoitered by Polish historians. The CCA
Ujazdowski Castle's three-year POSTDOCUMENT program – one that acclaimed photographer and
theoretician Martha Rosler would have wanted – seeks to bring together exposure of the most
interesting documentary phenomena in photography, film, nonfiction literature while also expanding
its theoretical context. Missing Documents. Photographs of the Polish Transformation after 1989 is
the first exhibition organized as part of the POSTDOCUMENT program.
Missing Documents is an exhibition of photography from the period of systemic transformation,
one seen through the eyes of domestic and foreign photographers as incomplete and full of tension.
CCA Ujazdowski Castle presents images by the most renowned photographers (Anna Beata
Bohdziewicz, Chris Niedentahl, Tomasz Tomaszewski, Wojciech Wieteska) that show a country
subsumed in an economic, social, and cultural crisis, seeking its identity between real-socialism and
turbo-capitalism. Socially engaged photojournalism (Maria Zbąska, Łukasz Trzciński, Maciej Pisuk)
mixes with documentary typologies shot at arm's length (Wojciech Wilczyk, Konrad Pustoła) creating
a unique panorama of society at the turn of the millennium. Acclaimed foreign photographers (Carl de
Keyzer, Allan Sekula, Mark Power, Rineke Dijkstra, Zoe Leonard) expand the horizon of thought
about the Polish transformation after 1989 by showing its dynamics and specifics against the
background of global changes. The exhibition's title references a Polish "new wave" book by Julian
Kornhauser and Adam Zagajewski and signalizes a move away from self-involved Parnassianism and
focus on individual issues of contemporary art in favor of reality, the conditions and manner of its
representation. Missing Documents also refers to discourse ongoing in media about the role of
photography in contemporary culture (discussion concerning an article by Dorota Jarecka, published
in 2004 by the "Gazeta Wyborcza" daily), as well as the level of awareness of Polish intelligentsia
after 20 years of transformation (the debate in "Gazeta Wyborcza" and "Odra" in 2009).
The exhibition attempts to bring together selected themes from a period of unusual intensity for the
photographic medium in order to create a new image of reality after 1989. If the aforementioned
debates confirmed that literature, fiction film and art have not produced works of stature to match the
past two decades, then documentaries present the world that surrounds us and help to better understand
it. The CCA Ujazdowski Castle exhibition is the first to show the achievements of documentalists
hailing from various generations – including world-renowned masters – that focuses on a theme so
fundamental as systemic transformation. Missing Documents also includes a film program attuned to
showing the masters of the documentary school organized in cooperation with Kino.LAB as well as
numerous meetings with documentary artists and theoreticians.
The Missing Documents exhibition opens the three-year POSTDOCUMENT program, which is
part of three long-term projects organized by CCA Ujazdowski Castle: the Laboratory of the Future
analyzes possible scenarios we may face in the future, the Office of Possibilities reflects upon the
current condition of the institution and field of art, while Postdocument primarily responds to content
per entity in its political, economic, social and cultural dimensions and attempts to capture the moment
of the historicizing of the age in which we live.
Exhibition is accompanied by film programme, which includes meetings with the Artists, filmmakers
and photographers.
Film programme in Kino.Lab cinema:
8.02 Nasza ulica, dir. Marcin Latałło – PREMIERE
15.02 Papparazzi, dir. Piotr Bernaś + Nakręceni czyli szołbiznes po polsku, dir. Sylwester
Latkowski
22.02 Pokolenie 89, dir. Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz + Wolność jest darem Boga, dir. Cezary
Ciszewski
7.03 Arizona, dir. Ewa Borzęcka + Ballada o Kozie, dir. Bartosz Konopka
14.03 1. Nocna zmiana, dir. Jacek Kurski, Michał Balcerzak
2. Bar na Victorii, dir. Leszek Dawid + Pani z Ukrainy, dir. Paweł Łoziński
21.03 1. Balcerowicz, gra o wszystko, dir. Andrzej Fidyk
28.03 1. PRL De Luxe, dir. Edyta Wróblewska+ Czekając na sobotę, dir. Irena Morawska, Jerzy
Morawski
2. Jak to się robi, dir. Marcel Łoziński
4.04 Pojechałem z mamą na pielgrzymkę, dir. Kobas Laksa + Pielgrzymka, dir. Paweł Althamer,
Artur Żmijewski + Pamiętaj, abyś dzień święty święcił, dir. Maciej Cuske
11.4 Blokersi, dir. Sylwester Latkowski
Media patronage: Gazeta Wyborcza, Aktivist, Exklusiv, Elle Decoration, Stolica
Press releases also available under the address:
www.csw.art.pl tab: Press office | press release
Photographies available under the address: ftp://cswd.home.net.pl
user: media log in: press catalogue: media file: Postdokument
Information: Zofia Chojnacka, CCA Press Office, +48 510 160 637
tel./fax +48 22 625 05 22, [email protected]