The Way Things Are…
Works from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
Julian Rosefeldt, Allan Sekula, Los Carpinteros, Anetta Mona Chisa &
Lucia Tkácová and Andreas Siekmann
To celebrate its institutional opening as Poland’s first newly erected venue dedicated to contemporary art since 1939, Torun Centre of Contemporary Art invited Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary to present works from the foundation’s collection as part of the inauguration exhibition.
The selection of artworks drawn from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Foundation (T-B A21) explores the question of artistic representation of today’s ever more precarious work spheres within advanced economies. The dramatic but also multi-voiced “work histories”, as narrated or presented by Julian Rosefeldt, Allan Sekula, Los Carpinteros, Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkácová and Andreas Siekmann result from radical shifts in production and work processes, such as the outsourcing of services to migrant workers, often “sans papiers”, and from larger social re-stratifications reflecting the changing orders of social representation. These histories are the symptoms of transitional states, where larger, planetary readjustments create localized distortions and conditions of morbidity and entire sectors of skilled labor are at risk of displacement or disappearance.
Julian Rosefeldt’s 9-screen-film installation asylum (2001/02), presented in the main hall of the Centre of Contemporary Art “Znaki Czasu,” focuses on the unacknowledged practices of everyday work routines performed by migrant workers. In these tableaux groups of men and women are cast as players in scenes in which they perform in a Sisyphean manner cycles of menial work that are never to be fulfilled.
Allan Sekula’s Fish Story— Middle Passage (1994) has been characterized as a hybrid, “paraiterary” revision of social documentary photography. Working with industrial subjects over a long period of time Sekula has tried to dissolve the boundaries between essay writing, a “poetics” of sequenced descriptive photographs, and the practices of research in cultural, economic, and social history.
The Cuban duo Los Carpinteros have reappropriated and parodied the image of the preindustrial artisan and his idealized relationship with materials (wood, drawings), nature, and society to develop an artistic practice that draws largely on investigations and readings of objects of everyday life.
In After the Order (2006), Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkácová tackle the issues of hierarchical distinctions among individuals and groups within societies or cultures. The artists transpose the concept of a class society onto Slovakia by creating a living sculpture classified by criteria such as occupation, education, income, power, and social prestige.
In his drawings and sculptures Andreas Siekmann investigates current structures of power within the paradigmatic shifts of neoliberal economies and conceptualizes alternative social models. In 2002 he installed on the Place Royal in Brussels a merry-go-round that revolved around the equestrian statue of Godfrey of Bouillon, the medieval leader of the First Crusade. Under the title The Exclusive, it was reinterpreted in 2007 at documenta 12 in Kassel, where it circled the statue of Frederick II, the duke of Hesse.
The exhibition is complemented by a daily film program True [Hi]stories of Work, consisting of works drawn from the holdings of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and a vast range of international fiction, documentary, animation, and artistic films and videos from the beginning of cinema history (1895) until today with a curatorial focus on Polish film.
| 1 | LEAVING THE FACTORY Louis Lumière Sortie d’usine (N°-1), 1895 Harun Farocki Chris Marker and Mario Marret Krzysztof Kieslowski Siegfried A. Fruhauf | 2 | A HARD DAY’S WORK - THE DAILY ROUTINE Charlie Chaplin Work, 1915 Hans Richter Kazimierz Karabasz Krzysztof Kieslowski Józef Robakowski Edyta Wróblewska |
| 3 | MICHAEL GLAWOGGER - WORKINGMAN’S DEATH Michael Glawogger Workingman’s Death, 2005 | 4 | ANDRZEJ WAJDA - ZIEMIA OBIECANA (Promised Land) Andrzej Wajda Ziemia obiecana (Promised Land), 1974 |
| 5 | COLLECTIVE MEMORY Mike Figgis The Battle of Orgreave, 2001 A television documentary by Mike Figgis of an artwork by Jeremy Deller (2001) Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba William Kentridge Natalia Brzozowska Juliusz Machulski, Andrzej Jakimowski, Jerzy Domaradzki, Jan Jakub Kolski, Piotr Trzaskalki, Filip Bajon, Krzysztof Zanussi, Robert Glinski, Ryszard Bugajski, Jacek Bromski, Feliks Falk, Andrzej Wajda, Malgorzata Szumowska | 6 | TRAINING AND EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS Adriana Monti and "Continuing Education for Teachers of the 150 Hours" Scuola senza fine, 1983 Želimir Žilnik |
| 7 | NEWS OF THE PRESENT - IDEOLOGIES OF THE PAST Józef Robakowski (dir. with Tadeusz Junak, Ryszard Meissner) Rynek (The Market), 1970 Krzysztof Kieslowski Kuba Maciejko Leslaw Dobrucki Andrzej Chodakowski and Andrzej Zajaczkowski Anetta Mona Chisa and Lucia Tkácová | ||
| 8 | DIFFERENT REALITIES OF A WOMAN’S WORKING DAY Nita Mocanu EDEN, 2005 Mamadou Kotiki Cissé Kristina Leko Sylke Rene Meyer Artur Zmijewski Artur Zmijewski Artur Zmijewski | 9 | POLAND AND THE REWRITING OF LABOR HISTORY Andrzej Munk Kierunek Nowa Huta! (Destination Nowa Huta!), 1951 Andrzej Wajda Andrzej Wajda |
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| 10 | MIGRATION AND GEOGRAPHIC MOBILITY Adrian Paci Centro di Permanenza temporanea, 2007 Turn on, 2004 Dirk Schreier Matei Bejenaru Chen Chieh-jen Marija Mojca Pungercar | ||
| 11 | COMMUNICATION NETWORKS AND GLOBALIZATION Kazimierz Karabasz Wezel (Railway Junction), 1961 Michael Blum Sean Snyder André Hörmann Raqs Media Collective |
The Way things are …
Works from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
| Curators: Press Conference: Opening: Duration: | Daniela Zyman, Barbara Horvath, film program (Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary) Friday, 13th June 2008, 3 pm Saturday, 14th June, 2008, 4 pm 14th June – 31st October, 2008 Centre of Contemporary Art Torun / www.csw.torun.pl |
Exhibition catalogue: The Way Things Are... Jak sie rzeczy maja...
With texts by Stefan Mucha, Francesca von Habsburg, Daniela Zyman, Daniel Muzyczuk,
Saskia Sassen, Andrzej Stasiuk, Eugenio Valdés Figueroa, Joachim Jäger, Konstantin Akinsha, Brigitte Huck, Andreas Siekmann
Available at T-B A21 shop (www.tba21.org) or Buchandlung Walter König (www.buchhandlung-walther-koenig.de); bilingual English/Polish, ISBN 978-3-86560-485-9, Euro 22
Information
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Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary
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T +43 1 513 98 56 29 / F +43 1 513 98 56 22
press@tba21.org / www.tba21.org
Press Relations / Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary
Christina Werner
w.hoch.zwei. Kulturelles Projektmanagement
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T +43 1 524 96 46 22 / F +43 1 524 96 32
werner@kunstnet.at
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