The exhibition Non-narrative Video art at Vašulka Kitchen Brno is a panorama of video production from Gdansk. The selected artists represent a group of teachers from the Academy of Fine Arts, but also several who had little to do with their local academic scene. The video art movement in Gdansk originates from curriculum reforms with the aim of creating fields of intermedia study. Successfully implemented, these curricula constitute the basis for the development of video art in Gdansk today evidenced by the successive generations of artists working in this medium. The specificity of non-narrative video art in Gdansk results from the foundations on which education in the field of media art was based. The shaping of the media art scene in Gdansk dates back to the early 1990s, when a new Polish and European reality began to take shape after the political breakthrough of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end to the Cold War. This sociopolitical context should be taken into account while interpreting the presented non-narrative works despite the works formal aspects.  

Curator: Lukasz Guzek (Akademia Sztuk Pieknych, Gdańsk) 

Coordination: Tomáš Ruller (FaVU VUT & VKB) 

Artists:  Witosław Czerwonka, Wojciech Zamiara, Grzegorz Klaman, Piotr Wyrzykowski, Jacek Niegoda, Marek Zygmunt, Anka Leśniak, Karska & Went, Filip Ignatowicz 

In cooperation with: Akademiía Sztuk Pieknych, Gdańsk

11. 9.–20. 10. 2024 

Opening: 10. 9. 2024, 6 PM

Vašulka Kitchen Brno (House of the Lords of Kunštát) 

Photo: Piotr Wyrzykowski: Runner 

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PROGRAM:

20. 9. 2024, 18:00 - Anka Lesniak, introduction: Lukasz Guzek 

27. 9. 2024, 18:00 - Piotr Wyrzykowski, introduction: Lukasz Guzek 

11. 10. 2024, 18:00 - Grzegorz Klaman, introduction: Lukasz Guzek 

18. 10. 2024, 18:00 - Filip Ignatowicz, introduction: Lukasz Guzek 

20. 10. 2024, 18:00 - Finissage: Lukasz Guzek & Tomáš Ruller 

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NON-NARRATIVE VIDEOART / Three Generations of Artists from Gdansk  – lecture series 

NON-NARRATIVE VIDEOART / Anka Leśniak / lecture

20. 9. 2024, 6PM - Anka Lesniak, introduction: Lukasz Guzek (curator) 

Feminist Art of Mine. Personal Video Narratives

During the lecture in the form of a case study of various cases of internet video and the artist's own works (with particular focus on the online project artUNBOXING), we will look at the relations between video posted on the web as content and those recordings that are made as an artistic verification of internet film genres. At the same time, selected video productions of students from the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk will also be presented. 

Anka Leśniak 

Born in 1978 in Bielsko-Biała, artist, researcher, graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź (2004) and History of Art at the University of Łódź (2003), an associate professor in the Department of Intermedia at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, lives and works in Łódź and Gdańsk.  

Her interests include artistic research, site-specific art, video and performance, especially in the context of feminist issues and art in public spaces. Her performative works explore themes related to memory, symbolic reconstruction, herstory, ethnic and cultural identity, migration, and language.  

She is the author of the cycles Body Printing (since 2007), Top Models (2009), Fading Traces (2010), Invisible inVisible (2015-2016) Women patRIOTs (2016-2020), Lost Element/Re-construction of the Witch (since 2019). 

More at: http://www.ankalesniak.pl/english.htm 

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NON-NARRATIVE VIDEOART / Piotr Wyrzykowski / lecture

27. 9. 2024, 6 PM - Piotr Wyrzykowski, introduction: Lukasz Guzek (curator) 

From VHS to AI. Video Art in a social context

The lecture will present a new version of the film Runner. It will also present works that embed video in social and political projects, from the 90s and Viktoria Cukt's fake presidential campaign, to new applications in mobile technologies, works on mobile phones and AI. 

Piotr Wyrzykowski (aka Peter Style)  

Born 1968 in Gdańsk. He started his artistic career as a performer. As a VJ he is performing under the name Peter Style. In his artistic activities he uses films, video performances, Internet, installations and video projections set in public spaces.  

He studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Gdańsk. in Witosław Czerwonka's Intermedia Studio. He works at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, at the Faculty of Painting. 

In 1995 he co-founded and became the artistic director of CUKT (Centralny Urząd Kultury Technicznej, Central Bureau of Technical Culture), active until 2001. The video work Beta Nassau, 1993 is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. 

See also Filmoteka at Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw: https://artmuseum.pl/en/filmoteka/praca/wyrzykowski-piotr-cialo Home page: https://wyrzykowski.weebly.com/ 

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NON-NARRATIVE VIDEOART / Grzegorz Klaman / lecture

 11. 10. 2024, 6 PM - Grzegorz Klaman, introduction: Lukasz Guzek (curator) 

Critical Art and the institution beyond the institution

The lecture will present the beginnings and development of Critical Art, which was created in Gdańsk by Grzegorz Klaman, who worked both as an artist and as an organizer of many events and gallery institutions, as well as a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts.  

Documentation of critical works will be presented, including works by the artist made using human organs, which is a phenomenon on a global scale. Klaman, as an organizer, created numerous institutions that always operated independently. The lecture will present the idea and significance of institutional independence in art. 

Grzegorz Klaman 

Born 1959 in Nowy Targ. Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, Faculty of Intermedia. His activity as an artist and organizer created the theory and practice of Critical Art in Poland. In the works series Emblematy / Emblems, 1993 and Katabasis / Cathabasis, 1993,  he used preserved human organs, including intestines, a brain and a liver, as well as an eye, ear and tongue. 

He founded and ran the Wyspa Gallery (1985-2002), and continued its activities as the Wyspa Art Institute together with Aneta Szyłak (2004-2016) on the premises of the former Gdańsk Shipyard. He currently continues this activity as the president of the Wyspa Progress Foundation operating on Sobieszewska Island in Gdańsk. 

For the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of 'Solidarity' in the year 2000, Klaman constructed a monumental form that stood at the entrance to an exhibition titled Droga do wolności / Road to Freedom held within the Gdańsk Shipyard. 

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NON-NARRATIVE VIDEOART /  Filip Ignatowicz / lecture

18. 10. 2024, 6 PM - Filip Ignatowicz, introduction: Lukasz Guzek (curator) 

Film in the Time of the Internet and Social Media 

During the lecture in the form of a case study of various cases of internet video and the artist's own works (with particular focus on the online project artUNBOXING), we will look at the relations between video posted on the web as content and those recordings that are made as an artistic verification of internet film genres. At the same time, selected video productions of students from the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk will also be presented. 

Filip Ignatowicz  

Born in 1990 in Gdańsk (Poland). He is a graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, as well as a graduate of Directing at the Gdynia Film School.  

Since 2017, he has been working at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk in the Faculty of Painting, and since 2019, where he also teaching at the Doctoral School. 

In his works, he often examines the condition of humans functioning in a consumer reality. He is the author of the continuously developed project FIGNACY&co, where the created art is equated with the product. He regularly creates an online video performance artUNBOXING on YouTube, where he unpacks artworks and gadgets related to contemporary art.  

More at: https://www.filipignatowicz.com/ 

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