30.06 - 08.10.2023 / vernissage at 19:00 / gallery BWA Wrocław Główny, 105 Piłsudskiego Street (1st floor)
Exhibitions on the revolutions of matter - Afterlife i Mining - are two independent narratives from Silesia, the historical land where Anna Orlowska and Michal Luczak live. The artist and the artist work mainly in the medium of photography. The double exhibition at BWA Wrocław's largest gallery, located in Wrocław's Central Station, is a central exhibition for the institution's 2023 program.
Afterlife Orlowska is an entry into the depths of her own history and an account of this deceptive journey. The artist takes us to the old village of Sandowitz, today's Zędowice, where a water mill stands, around which successive family generations orbit. Their history is intertwined with water, forests and bog ore, a deposit used since prehistory to smelt iron. Thanks to it Afterlife They take on a rusty color. The soothing voice of the narrator-medium is the guide. The exhibition is presented in two locations: Afterlife in the left wing of the BWA Wrocław Główny gallery and Afterlife (Hidden Room) At the Open Cultural Space in Szczytnicki Park. Hidden in the old wooden church of St. John Nepomucene is Room, a multi-element installation by Anna Orlowska, which is an extension of the exhibition in the gallery at the Central Station.
Mining Luczak tells the story of coal and its circulation. The artist has been working with the subject for the past eight years, observing and documenting the impact of mines on the human body, architecture and material culture, as well as the land and landscape. It's a multifaceted visual story about the processes humanity constructs against nature to increase its own wealth and standard of living, without regard for the long-term consequences of its actions. The guides to Mining There are also voices of experts who, in reference to Luczak's work in Silesia, point to its universal dimension.
Afterlife i Mining is united by a common slogan: Exhibitions on the revolutions of matter. Michał Łuczak's exhibition is curated by Maciej Bujko - director of BWA Wrocław. The curator of Anna Orlowska's exhibition is Katarzyna Roj - program director of BWA Wroclaw.
Thursday, 22.06, 7 p.m., Open Space of Culture, Szczytnicki Park - opening of part of Anna Orlowska's Zaświaty (Hidden Room) exhibition as part of the Wrocław Festival
Friday, 30.06, at 19.00, BWA Wrocław Główny - opening of the Exhibitions on Revolutions of Matter: Afterlife and Extraction
Friday, 30.06, 9:15 pm, location will be revealed at the opening of the exhibition - Secret party - DJs from the Wub Wub initiative: BSVN, Michal Sember, Vicky Nasty, Princess Error
Saturday, 01.07, 15:30, BWA Wrocław Główny - guided tour of exhibitions with Lukasz Rusznica
Saturday, 01.07, 4:30 p.m., BWA Wrocław Główny - premiere of Anna Orłowska's book "Warm Mother, Cold Mother", published by: Bored Wolves
Saturday, 01.07, at 18:30, Gallery u Agatki - accompanying exhibition by Justyna Streichsbier Diary of Czajka
Afterlife | artist: Anna Orlowska, curator: Catherine Roj
Mining | artist: Michal Luczak, curator: Maciej Bujko
Production: Karolina Jaworska
Coordination: Agata Poeć
Visual identity and set design: Damian Nowak
Promotion: Joanna Glinkowska, Agata Kalinowska, Żaneta Wańczyk
Honorary Patronage: Mayor of the City of Wroclaw Jacek Sutryk
Partners: Pedagogical University named after the Commission of National Education in Krakow, Wroclaw Center for Social Development, Gunia Nowik Gallery.
Media Patrons: DailyArt Magazine, KALTBLUT Magazine, Radio RAM, Radio Wroclaw Culture, SZUM Magazine, Kwartalnik Fotografia.
Organizer: BWA Wrocław Contemporary Art Galleries
Anna Orlovskaya (b. 1986) - photographer, visual artist. She uses photography to reveal the invisible layers of history and their ideological conditions, usually absent from the official narrative. She works with various conventions, from documentation to staging, revealing hidden myths, legends and fantasies about the past and creating new constellations of meaning. Her objects, based on photographic images, test the limits of the medium. Orlowska treats the medium of photography as an instrument for investigating the very notion of knowledge and a tool for working with memory, which are inherently fragmentary. She lives and works in Warsaw and Silesia.
Michal Luczak (born 1983) The biggest difference is that technology and the internet has speeded everything up tremendously in just a few years. We take the instant transmission of photos and text for granted. As a photojournalist for 60 years, I well recall a different time when I would send packages of undeveloped rolls of film with hand written captions to editors all across the world. DHL and FedEx were vital for my international work, even the regular mail system on occasion. Then digital cameras and the internet came along, changing everything, and a lot more time had to be spent at the computer. Newspapers were the first to take advantage of the technology as they require a quick turnaround for news stories and photo quality was less demanding. It took longer for color magazines to adapt, the sort I worked with, who had to wait until digital photography improved. Online media didn't exist at all until relatively recently but it certainly didn't kill print media, as some predicted. photographer, visual artist, curator. Works mainly with photography and video. Graduate of the Institute of Creative Photography at Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic and Spanish Philology at Silesian University in Katowice. He has been part of the Sputnik Photos collective since 2010. He co-leads the annual documentary photography workshop Sputnik Photos Mentoring Programme and teaches at the Faculty of Arts of the Pedagogical University of Krakow. In recent years, he has been focusing on the complex and ruthless relationships between humans, their immediate surroundings and the natural environment. He doesn't look far - his most recent works focus on local problems, such as the consequences of the coal industry or the economic treatment of forests, which can also be viewed universally. He is the author of photography books: Brutal (2012), Circle of Place / Elementary (with Krzysztof Siwczyk, 2016), 11.41 (with Filip Springer, 2016). His work has been awarded in such competitions as the Magnum Expression Award, the Mio Photo Award and the Photographic Publication of the Year.