Newsletter Editor: Marta Raczek

ARTIST OF THE MONTH – WOJCIECH KRZYWOBLOCKI

Sound Diagram A, B, C, screenprint, 140x100 cm

Professor Wojciech Krzywoblocki (born in 1938) – an outstanding Polish graphic artist. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow (1965), between 1974 and 1985 he was associated with the Faculty of Graphic Arts of a branch of the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, where he run Intermedia Studio. In 1984 he immigrated to Austria. Since 1985 he was associated with Künstlerische Volkshochschule and Wiener Kunstschule in Vienna, then since 1996 with the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. In 2003 he started cooperation with Art University in Linz. He lives and works in Vienna and in Krakow. In his art he tries to cross the borders traditionally indicated by the history of graphic arts. He experiments both with the formal aspects of his works and with the ways in which he presented them to the public. He has over twenty solo exhibitions as well as participated in more than fifty group exhibitions in Poland and all over the world. Since 1968 he manifoldly participated in the International Print Biennial (Triennial) in Krakow. He was rewarded at many international exhibitions and contests i.e. in Krakow (1972, 1974, 1994, 2000), Florence (1974), Ibiza (1998), he is also a laureate of the Irene und Peter Ludwig Preis Künstlerhauses Wien (2005). His works are part of many collections worldwide, like the collections of Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Museum in Oldenburg, Modern Art Museums in Tokyo and New York, Albertina Print Collection in Vienna, Tate Gallery in London, National Museum in Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan, Szczecin and Breslau, International Print Triennial in Krakow and International Print Biennial in Norwegian Fredrikstad, as well as in privat collections all over the world. 

Print beyond print – on the Sound Diagrams series by Wojciech Krzywoblocki

        Last issue of the International Print Triennial in Krakow beside traditional graphic arts showed for the first time in such a scale so many works that went beyond two-dimensionality of the image surface and limits of traditional techniques, as well as digital ones while they are used traditionally, in a nut shell for creating an image on a surface. Prints that were free from frames, objects or audiovisual installations proved existance of many different ways of progress in this medium but also revealed possibilities that lasted inscribed into it for many years, yet unnoticed by anyone. It is worth to indicate that this kind of transgression should not be seen as something really new or treat as something marginal – even though it looks so – and Polish print has many precursors in this field. Undoubtely, one of them is Wojciech Krzywoblocki.

His first teacher was his own father Alexander Krzywoblocki – co-founder of art group Artes in Lvov, whose photographs were strongly influenced by surrealism and poetical attitude towards depicting and researching of the world. Influenced by his father Wojciech Krzywoblocki became interested in photography, but he never restricted himself to this medium. Since the very beginning in the mid-sixties he explored the possibilities of video, object-art and audiovisual installations. Since that time he also used methods that were not associated with artistic activity par excellance, and incessantly annexed new spaces for presenting his projects, like building walls, streets and trees in a forest. All that happened in the seventies, while majority of Polish artists were still attached to traditional exhibition spaces i.e. walls in galleries.

The series Sound Diagrams that are reproduced in our Newsletter rose from the series entitled Diagrams (1993). Sound Diagrams are not a pure prints, but audiovisual installations interconnected with Zbigniew Bargielski’s compositions. Through that he crosses another border of graphic art – the one between image and sound. All prints in that series are abstract and characterised by highly constructive precision. Purity of crystal networks, that are created by transformation of the documentary photographs, allowes to migrate from one level of description of the world to another, called by Krzywoblocki himself – the construction of impressions. Perfect characteristic of the series gave Janusz Zagrodzki in his essay entitled Exploration of elementary structures, when he wrote:

In Krzywoblocki‘s Diagrams the law of cause and result is not limited to the pictoral form. Dynamic disposition of particles, which is a result of a pre-photogrpahic matrix, may be seen as a graphical notation of life functions. Movement of matter transformed into a drawing could be identified with musical notation, vibrating sound wave, predilection for being resound, refracted, bent and imposed, as well as it was a great inspiration for composer, who treated it as a point of departure for his structural pieces. „In his trembling, twinkling and metalic networks, Krzywoblocki passes on a fascinating visual texture to a viewer. – As Zbigniew Bargielski mentions – in my Mutations 92 being inspired by his vision I transpose this twinkling, vibrations and transpostitions of an image into audiable language, creating sound transposition of a graphic image.“ Visualy defined structure, recalled by the artist, sank into composer’s imagination and became basis for acoustic phenomena.

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PERSON OF THE MONTH – JOLANTA ANTECKA

MR: Let us begin with the question that seems to be obvious but still very important: How did it all begin? What was before „Dziennik Polski“ entered your life?

JA: At the beginning there was Jagiellonian University in Krakow – studying and very active participation in the students‘ life: literart groups, students‘ radio. Students‘ press entered my life when I was on the second year of my studying. In the sixties there were many students‘ magazines and newspapers, like ITD – the official one, not necessarly for students, all Polish weeklies published by students‘ circles. „Politechnik“ or „Nowy Medyk“ had their offices in Krakow, but I treated cooperation with them mostly as a way of earning money. They paid for every published text, not much, but for a student like me who tried to live up on scholarship, those small amounts of money were very important. „Dziennik Polski“ came my way in the middle of my studies. Maciej Szumowski, who was always the lucky winner when it came to gather people around him and reveal their abilities, especially those hidden very deeply, established the Students‘ Column in „Dziennik Polski“. „Dziennik“ did not pay for students‘ texts, but the best one of every issue of The Students‘ Columnan was rewarded with a coupon for a book. I still have some books bought using those coupons. „Dziennik Polski“ had another advantage – it was a newspaper read at my family home in Zakopane, so my mother was able to boast of me in front of her neighbours, telling them what a smart doughter she had. However I did not predict a reception among my more demanding friends. My Polish teacher of my secondary school brought my mother one of my articles full of his underlines. He indicated all his doubts about the way I had constructed sentences and put them together. I had that piece for ages just in case if I had once again started to think that I was a genius. It is in a nutshell a description of my journalist school at that time. Regarding an important role played in it by Maciej Szumowski it was not that bad...

MR: And afterwards you became permanently associated with „Dziennik Polski“?

JA: I have been finishing my studies, so it was a high time to realise that there were not so many posts waiting for people who had chosen the same subjects as I. My a little bit older friends from „Students‘ Column“ slowly became professional journalists. Zbyszek Swiech was discovered by Teresa Stanislawska and he got a proposal from „Echo Krakowa“ before he even completed his MBA. Ania Wolnicka was chosen by the head office of Polish Press Agency (PAP) in Warsaw, Maciej Szumowski went to Silesia region, many others got posts in different titles, but in „Dziennik Polski“ there was still no post to take. At last Leszek Mazan managed to obtain one, and then on one day in the spring he has called me and said that on the next day I should have come to the office. I think that he did not even suppose that I could have any other professional plans not related to journalism. Actually, he was right – I did not. And then, one morning in May of 1967 instead of working hard on my MBA I started my preliminary work in local section of „Dziennik Polski“. Along with me there were two more candidates and the head of that section Janusz Jakubowski was known as a person that did not believe in journalism made by women. But finally he chose me. So I became on of the regular journalists. I was lucky because I was associated with an absolute outstanding editorial board. There were two marvelous seniors: Wladyslaw Szydlowski and Zygmunt Merta, who before WWII worked as reporters in IKC. They were formally retired but in fact they were still working as active journalists. Wladyslaw Szydlowski gave me the first lesson of journalism, when he told me: „When the tower of Mariacki church collapses you will be able to write an article for ¾ of the sheet, but about all other events write no more than a half of it. When a reader buys a newspaper he does it not because he wants to read your texts but because he wants to get some knowledge“. Working with him was a great lesson of being concise and responsible for every written word. At that time in „Dziennik Polski“ there were many good reporters, like: Janusz Roszko, Jerzy Steinhauf,  Jan Adamczewski – an author of still appreciated „Encyclopedy of Krakow“ – and Adam Hollanek. There was also a great essayst Ryszard Taedling...

MR: And when did you become associated with culture section?

JA: After two years, more or less. Culture section was a one-person office run by Krystyna Zbijewska. Besides journalism she also wrote theatrical reviews, what was rather unfamiliar as for the standards of „Dziennik Polski“. Art criticism was reserved for competent cooperators, which had a great authority and a long experience, like Adam Walacinski, who – thanks God – up to now writes musical reviews. In the sixties we lost very good art critic Maciej Gutowski, because he refused, when the Committee of the Comunist Party tried to force him to write badly about Grupa Krakowska – the most important independent artistic group in Krakow at that time. So he was forbidden from writing in any newspaper in Krakow, and moved to Warsaw in order to continue his journalist career there.

MR: And then you became art critic?

JA: Well… I am strongly convinced that my writing has more in common with giving information about exhibitions than with art criticism. At the end of the sixties encouraged by Maciej Gutowski I started to write short notices about art. Then, after he moved to Warsaw and was replaced by Andrzej Pollo, I became more independent, so I wrote more than half of a page, even though my older collegues were protesting against diversity of my texts. In fact, one day I was writing about very sublime examples of fine arts and the other about something completely different. It was true. I wrote a lot about „other things“, especially after Krystyna Zbijewska was retired and cultural section was closed and I was moved to reporters‘ section. Then I was promoted to better section, and then – as a punishment – I was „deported“ to country-section. When I returned to Krakow it was almost the 13th of December 1981, then, at the beginning of 1982 state restrictions started, but it was a very different story.

MR: Could you tell us what is the difference between the journalism before and after 1989?

JA: The profession itself became more open. We were required to graduate from journalist studies. When one did not graduate from journalism, one was obliged to graduate from evening classes associated with Polish Journalists Society or found any other way to complete one’s eductaion in that field. Predisposition to be a journalist instead of formal requirements is a change for good. But you are rather asking about a style of being a journalist now and then. Generally speaking journalists are more nonchalant now, they misuse words, do not care about their real meaning, do not check information and competence of their speakers. The most dangerous is a phenomena called „phone journalism“ – I admitt that it is fast, but easily leads to the loss of contact with reality.

MR: When you think about artistic events, that you have witnessed, which of them were the most memorable?

JA: International Print Biennial in Krakow. It was our window to the world, that one could not overestimated. Theatr Cricot 2 founded by Tadeusz Kantor – every first night in Krzysztofory Gallery was for us a lesson of new possibilities of defining what theatre really is or could be. First happenings by Tadeusz Kantor, Jerzy Beres actions, Dialogue with the Fish by Zbigniew Warpechowski..., Opening at Szadkowski – common action by Section of Artistic Critic and Information and artistic circles from Krakow. Krzysztofory together with the Grupa Krakowska were not in fact literary events but rather a chain of events or a special place. When we talk of a places, I have to mention the gallery of Danuta Józefikowej, on the Jana Street – it was the first author’s gallery in Poland, an outstanding art-stop, a place of important debuts and disscussions over new issues.

MR: On contrary, which event in your opinion was overestimated?

JA: Well, sometimes terrible things happened, but definitely the worst one was the unveiling of the Lenin memorial in Nowa Huta. It was widely announced, then followed on every stage, so became famous long before it was unveiled. Interviews with its author – Marian Konieczny – were published in every newspaper. And then came that day. The memorial was unveiled and people stared in dumb amazement, but rather not enchanted... 

MR: Thank you very much for this interview. On behalf of our readers as well as in my own name, I would like to congratulate you on your jubilee, hoping that you will inform us about Krakow artistic life for next fourty years.

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EXHIBITION OF THE MONTH
ANDRZEJ PAWLOWSKI GENESIS IN ARCHIDIACONAL MUSEUM IN KRAKOW

Photographic series entitled Genesis by Andrzej Pawlowski is a result of artistic work lasting for ten years. The idea itself was born in 1964, and was inspired by two other series by the same artist entitled Prolegomeny and Gesture Traces, both realised in 1962, made with the use of fragments of Pawlowski’s own body that he imprinted directly on a light-sensitive paper. In 1967 he photographed his own hands against the cloudy sky using wide-angle objective. This time his aim was to show the strength of hands against the sky, to show it directly, to show the work of hands as well as of mind, and in doing so he did not resign from using camera. At first the series was entitled The Hands. The last stage of the project dates to 1977, when Pawlowski chose thirty one photos from The Hands series and put them together with verses took from the Genesis, that was also a new title of the series.

It is the only one photographic series made by Pawlowski that is free from any experiments inspired by Moholy-Nagy tradition. Still, we may indicate in it another leitmotive of Pawlowski’s art – a relation to his theory of a form shaped naturally, which is connected with the conception of „becoming“ – the word that most adequately sums up Pawlowski’s art. That „becoming“ is subordinated to the natural laws, which were of a great importance for the artist himself, who was both designer and gardener. It was his gardening experience that led him to his theory of a form shaped naturally. A form for which artist gives only the dispositions, presumptions and conditions, in which it is shaping itself. In the case of the Genesis series this „self-shaping of a form“ becomes clear in a tension between visual and textual. An image of a hand, free from any predefined meanings, is redefined by verses took from the Bible, that reveal the mistery of creation.

Bible begins with: At the beginning God created heaven and earth. This act of creation, this God‘s power that unifies the will of mind and direct action, resembles Pawlowski’s thoughts on artistic methode of creation.

While looking at hands photographed by Pawlowski it is hard not to think about the most famous image of „creation act“ that is Michaelangelo fresco in Sistine Chapel in Rome. Between those two works passed over four hundred and fifty years, and they are made using different techniques, but both announce this God’s act with the same ardour. Like people who see the impuls between the hand of God and that of Adam, we may see at Pawlowski’s photographs almost heavenly energy and brightness. Diversity of gestures, their extraordinary plasticity, suggestiveness and meaningfulness are the most important features of Pawlowski’s photographies. They are perfect visual metaphor of the beginning of human-kind as well as of the whole world. In the series Genesis Pawlowski reached the highest peak of his abilities to transpose a word into an image. Watching the results resembles religious concentration specific for consideration of the Bible. It is one of a very rare examples, when contemporary art is able to depict religious ideas, even though they seem to be untranslatable into pictures.

Andrzej Pawlowski. Genesis – Archidiaconal Museum in Krakow, 22nd of June – 31st of July 2007

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INTERNATIONAL PRINT TRIENNIAL SOCIETY ANNOUNCEMENTS
 

We would like to announce the third issue of Internet project The Best Diploma 2007 – a student and his promotor. There are fourteen Polish art academies and five academies from all over the world involved in this project. We expect over fourty best diplomas chosen by the academies to be sent. One may feel that this project strike the target, especially on the wave of new Polish graphic art that is developing very dynamically. Now, young Polish graphic artists have a wonderful space to present their art. Simultaneously, in Poland rose a tringle of events that promote such young artists – Students‘ Print Biennial in Poznan. Polish Print Triennial in Katowice and Grand Prix of Young Polish Print in Krakow. We are very happy to hear that for Polish young graphic art now there is a time of good weather.

[tekst: prof. Witold Skulicz]

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COOPERATION OF INTERNATIONAL PRINT TRIENNIAL SOCIETY
WITH INSTITUTIONS ALL OVER THE WORLD
 

INTERNATIONAL PRINT TRIENNIAL – VIENNA 2007

We would like to announce the opening of the International Print Triennial in the third of partner-cities that is coming soon. It will be held on the 4th of September 2007. The main exhibition will be accompanied by the exhibition entitled Horst Janssen. Fixierte Augenblicke, symposium entitled Erkundungsfeld Druckgrafik, as well as by the film screening entitled Animated print.
 

In manifold ways, contemporary printing arts have set themselves free: in their conformations with different media, artists are setting the craft free, amidst the narrowlimits of their own, their individual productive narrowness. Increasingly during the past years, graphic arts became the crossroads of various currents in the media: in a rapid process of transfromation they were thereby developing new technical as well as communicative forms. In their works, many graphic artists are working in the fields of tension between traditional and digital media systems. Contemporary artistic printing is characterized by an open discourse,  which is reflected in the exhibitions of the International Graphic Triennial Krakow – Oldenburg – Wien. The times have long passed during which the printing arts could be clearly defined and thus reduced to two-dimensional works which remained locked up in collector’s closets. Self-confidently conquering three-dimensional space, our presentation of works without protective frames is confronting the onlooker with the printed object; our exhibition therefore seeks to render an artistic process visible in new ways. Departing from the common ground of printed images, the exhibition encompasses a large scope. As in today’s agriculture, neighbouring fields become affected in our experimental attempts to set these new – call them genetically-modified printing arts free, into the open space. Here, borders can be defined only on a virtual basis, and if so, these boundaries usually refer to property rights and marketing strategies. In our context, neither artists nor the concepts of the exhibition are affected by such secondary considerations. Printing arts are rather applied as analytical, experimental, conceptual, narrative and political media voicing social criticism – not as distinct species or as brand but rather by cultivating crossbreeings and new hybrid forms. […] some kind of order had to be imposed onto an exhibition of this size. Therefore, our concept for the presentation is oriented along the artist’s methods and contents, really the decisive criterion for asserting any given work of art. That means to ask in which ways the „how“ and the „what“ become dovetailed into each other, thereby bringing about the unity of the image. […] in our selection, we have tried to filter out a few of these aspects and to use them for sequencing the rhythm of the exhibited works and the surrounding space. Among these constant technical aspects that characterize many printer-artists are collage, assemblage, montage sampling – or however else you prefer to call the breaking-up and re-assembling of heterogenuous (single) parts. This may refer not only to the (often photographic) raw material, but also to the technical realisation of the individual work. Another useful common denominator was the focuse of the work on various materials, organic, and inorganic structures, with their different interpretations and transformations into new entities. The human body as a part of nature or – more often than not – as conceived in opposition to nature, is another large topic and field of investigation. In this context it is interesting to note that a large group of works represents naked bodies, whereas another group of images visualises different forms of clothing. In this case, it was not a far-fetched idea to juxtapose both groups of prints in the exhibition. The work with different scriptures, signs and codes is another, almost primordial, field of investigation for printer-artists: we will show text-images that were developed from typographic, literary, or from individual hand-writing or doodling. It goes without saying that we will also present the group of „stories“ which illustrate and interpret; which give critical re-assessments and which play on quotations.

[text by: Georg Lebzelter, Drukfreigabe (Freedom of the Print) – extract from the Preface to the catalogue of International Print Triennial Vienna]

POLISH INSTITUTE IN PRAGUE – THE EXHIBITION THE BEST OF THE YOUNGEST


Agnieszka Sukiennik, Poszukiwanie własnej formy i sensu tworzenia, wklęsłodruk


Marianna Stuhr, z cyklu Alina, wklęsłodruk, litografia

In the gallery of the Polish Intitute in Prague on the 11th of July 2007 took place an opening of the exhibition The Best of the Youngest, which presented diplomas of the youngest generation of Polish graphic artists. On the exhibition there were works by eight artists that graduated from five Academies of Fine Arts in Poland between 2005 and 2007: Magdalena Bielecka (Lodz), Agnieszka Cholewinska (Poznan), Artur Golinski, Mariusz Gorzelak (Breslau), Michal Minor (Katowice), Julia Lesiak, Marianna Stuhr and Agnieszka Sukiennik (Krakow). Among others at the opening there were artists from Czech Republic: Martin Zet and Petr Štěpán as well as a senator Edvard Outrata with his wife. The exhibition was organised by the Polish Institute in Prague and the International Print Triennial in Krakow. It will end on the 14th of September.

Because of the 40th anniversary of the International Print Triennial Society two Czech artists as well as one art critic awarded with the special medals. They were delivered to the artists: Věra Kotasová and Jan Měřička, as well as to the art historian Simeona Hošková by the exhibition curator Teresa Soliman during the opening.

[text by Anna Godlewska, vice-director of the Polish Institute in Prague]

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GRAPHIC ART EVENTS ALL AROUND THE WORLD

We encourage you to participate in following international competitions:

     XIIIeme Biennale Internationale de la gravure, Sarcelles
     Deadline: 04-09-2007

     IX Engraving International Biennial "Josep de Ribera", Xativa 2007
     Deadline: 21-09-2007

     Beijing International Art Biennale
     Deadline: 30-09-2007

     3rd International Experimental Engraving Biennial, Mogosoaia
     Deadline: 20-11-2007

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