Agata Zbylut, Aleksandra Kubiak, Ania Nowak, Anna Gapińska-Myszkiewicz, Basia Bańda, Boba Group (Yulia Drozdek, Vasilisa Nezabarom), Doireann O’Malley, Domie, Dominika Olszowy, Druga Grupa, Elżbieta Jabłońska, Emeline Depas, Ewa Zarzycka, Erna Rosenstein, Henryk Morel, Inside Job (Ula Lucińska & Michał Knychaus), Ina Valentinova, Izabella Gustowska, Jerzy Rosołowicz, Joanna Imielska, Liliana Piskorska, Maja ∀. Ngom, Magdalena Gryska, Marian Bogusz, Marian Szpakowski, Martyna Miller, Michał Bujnicki, Monika Misztal, Natalia LL, Nicholas Grafia & Mikołaj Sobczak, Paulina Komorowska-Birger, Piotr Łakomy, Post Brothers, Przemek Pyszczek, Radosław Czarkowski, Stanisław Antosz, Stefan Papp, Stefan Słocki, Tadeusz Brzozowski, Tatjana Danneberg, Wanda Gołkowska, Zenon Polus, Zbigniew Szymoniak
Between 1963 and 1996, Zielona Góra was home to two cyclical exhibitions – the Golden Grape Exhibition and Symposium and the New Art Biennale; both, though described, remain a kind of identity myth. Can their specificity serve as a point of departure for a contemporary debate on the field of art, its active and overlooked participants, and the utopias that accompany them? Returning to the Future is as much a story about the past future as a prophetic vision of new social spaces.
The 2020 Zielona Góra Biennale consists of exhibitions, a symposium, and a public programme. Featuring several dozen artists, the event has been dedicated to micro-narratives and to artistic practices bound up with the contemporary and its topical contexts: mass protests in defence of marginalized gendered bodies, the toppling of the memorials of colonial heroes and the commemoration of the Other, or the realization of the irreversible consequences of climate change. In other words, to experiences shared by us all.
Elżbieta Jabłońska, Przewrót, 2011, instalacja. Courtesy of the artist
The main exhibition, presented at the BWA and the Muzeum Ziemi’s Nowy Wiek Gallery, features works by twenty six artists and artist collectives. These are works both by contemporary artists as well as a selection of archival works from museum collections and private archives, woven together by exhibition design by the duo Inside Job. Participating in the show are also members of the Zielona Góra art scene. Among them are, for example, Paulina Komorowska-Birger, whose site-specific work, Baseline, can be viewed at the Rektorat Gallery, or the duo Boba Group, whose performance, Goose House, will inaugurate the exhibition at the Salony Foundation. Complementing the programme are the exhibition Mending the Soul, Mending the Body, curated by Alicja Lewicka-Szczegóła, which focuses on self-reflective observation of daily life as exemplified by women artists who also work as academics, and the multi-site performative exhibition/installation All She Said About the Future, curated by Romuald Demidenko, which absorbs works and the urban tissue. Other parts of the project include a symposium of art critics and historians, curated by Artur Pastuszek and devoted to the suspension between agreed narrative and the intentionality of prognosis, and a full-length public programme called Vespers, Musings, a series of performative evenings that will arrange themselves into a single story about listening, about sharing the experiences of loss, grief, trauma, and violence, but also about the power of transgression.
The opening weekend (starting from Thursday, 15 October) will be accompanied by a series of meetings, discussions, and performances. At the same time, a virtual exhibition guide and accompanying texts will be posted on www.biennalezielonagora.pl. The Biennale will be summed up by a publication edited by Ania Batko, with essays by Dorota Jagoda Michalska and Agata Pyzik, featuring special contributions from the participating artists.
Curatorial team: Alicja Lewicka-Szczegóła, Romuald Demidenko, Wojciech Kozłowski, Tomek Pawłowski-Jarmołajew / Symposium: Artur Pastuszek
Graphic design: DWA graphic department (Karolina Pietrzyk, Tobias Wenig, Gilbert Schneider)
Production: Karolina Spiak
Tatjana Danneberg, Should I show more interest in the world?, 2019. Courtesy of the artist
Thursday 15.10.2020
17:00 Returning to the future, exhibition opening
Lubusz Land Museum - Galeria Nowy Wiek, Al. Niepodległości 15
18:00 2020 Zielona Góra Biennale, official opening
BWA Zielona Góra, Al. Niepodległości 19
19:00 Ania Nowak, To the Aching Parts! (Manifesto), performance
Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej, Al. Niepodległości 15
Friday 16.10.2020
14:00 Returning to ... subjective narratives, discussion with Aleksandra Kubiak, Maja A. Ngom and Ania Nowak, moderation: Romuald
Demidenko, Tomek Pawłowski Jarmołajew, intro: Boba Group
University of Zielona Góra Library, conference room, Al. Wojska Polskiego 71
16:00 Mending the Soul, Mending the Body, opening of the exhibition + performance by Ewa Zarzycka
University of Zielona Góra Library Gallery, Al. Wojska Polskiego 71
18:00 Paulina Komorowska-Birger, Baseline, presentation of the work and the artist talk
Galeria Rektorat, Uniwersytet Zielonogórski, ul. Licealna 9
19:00 Nicholas Grafia & Mikołaj Sobczak, Rooms, performance
Lubuski Theatre al. Niepodległości 3 / 5
Saturday, 17.10.2020
11:00 Boba Group Gęśnik, performance on the Gęśnik river,
start: Stary Kisielin ul. Kolejowa
12:00-17:00 Now! Symposium with contributions by Jakub Banasiak, Łukasz Białkowski, Beata Frydryczak, Łukasz Guzek and Konrad Schiller
University of Zielona Góra Library, conference room, Al. Wojska Polskiego 71
19:00 Post Brothers. Neither a Speaker, nor a Loudspeaker: unpacking the black boxes of Brud, lecture performance
Galeria PWW Instytutu Sztuk Wizualnych, ul. Ogrodowa 52A
Friday, 23.10.2020
19:00 Boba Group Gęśnik, exhibition opening
Fundacja Salony, ul. Fabryczna 13
Wednesday - Friday 28-30.10.2020
16:00-20:00 Green like a lions, performative workshops led by Martyna Miller
Galeria PWW Instytutu Sztuk Wizualnych, ul. Ogrodowa 52A
Saturday, 31.10.2020
19:00 Martyna Miller, Green like a lions, performance
Galeria PWW Instytutu Sztuk Wizualnych, ul. Ogrodowa 52A
Saturday, 7.11.2020
19:00 Liliana Piskorska, Gentle run down, performative evening
Galeria PWW Instytutu Sztuk Wizualnych, ul. Ogrodowa 52A
Friday, 13.11.2020
16:00 Doireann O’Malley, Prototypes, screening
Lubusz Land Museum, Al. Niepodległości 15
18:00 Returning to... utopias, discussion with Doireann O’Malley and Ina Valentinova, moderation: Agata Pyzik
BWA Zielona Góra, Al. Niepodległości 19
Saturday, 14.11.2020
14:00 Returning to... guided tour through Złote Grono Gallery with Romuald Demidenko
Lubusz Land Museum, Al. Niepodległości 15
16:00 Returning to... artists spaces outside of the center , discussion with Marta Gendera Paulina Komorowska Birger and Katarzyna Wojtczak, moderation: Tomek Pawłowski Jarmołajew
Lubusz Land Museum, Al. Niepodległości 15
19:00 Performance by Michał Bujnicki
Galeria PWW Instytutu Sztuk Wizualnych, ul. Ogrodowa 52A
Venues: BWA Zielona Góra, Fundacja Salony / Salony Foundation, Biblioteka Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego / Library of the University of Zielona Góra, Galeria PWW Instytutu Sztuk Wizualnych UZ / PWW Gallery of the Institute of Visual Arts of the University of Zielona Góra, Galeria Rektorat UZ / Rektorat Gallery of the University of Zielona Góra, Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej / Lubusz Land Museum
Image: Elżbieta Jabłońska, Tam już nic nie ma, 2014. Courtesy of the artist
www.biennalezielonagora.pl
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