EUTOPIA + UTOPIA:

Black Mountain CollAge Nr OnE …from Warsaw SOS series…

Warsaw Bauhaus Foundation, Zachęta National Gallery and Center for New Performance at CalArts invite you to a series of events titled UTOPIA: Black Mountain CollAge Nr OnE/SOS series dedicated to the legacy of the American avant-garde Black Mountain College.The events will take place at the Zachęta National Art Gallery and the experimental art space Curie City at Tamka 36 and will include: a facto-fictional space installation (CurieCity), interviews, pseudo-workshops, film screenings, performative action and lectures, and an improvised choreographed premiere. 

As part of the project, we will host a writer and performer, a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s fellow, Louise Steinman, co-director of the Los Angeles Institute for Humanities, and Travis Preston, Dean of the experimental Center for New Performance at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts, which continues the ideals of BMC). We have also invited Warsaw artists, curators and avant-garde researchers. Every day during open discussions, we will touch on a few topics related to the current mechanisms and practices of the Art World, such as: creation and survival / architecture and context / community and education / accessibility and transparency / goals and means.

 Black Mountain College was an experimental art school founded in 1933 in the town of Black Mountain, North Carolina. The faculty at BMC included  acclaimed artists like Josef and Anni Albers, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, and Walter Gropius, who continued the radical and liberating model of arts education initiated by Bauhaus. In this model, independent artistic work is preferred to rigid curricula; friendly relations within the community of artists over the hierarchical structure of teachers and students, and constant interaction between various fields of art over closing each of them within themselves.

PROGRAM

October 25, 2021 (Monday), beginning 5:00 p.m., Zachęta National Gallery of Art, 3 Stanisław Małachowski Square, cinema room

Pseudo-workshop on the educational utopia of an artistic colony

Based on the ideas and practice of Black Mountain College and Fluxus (in particular those of George Maciunas), as well as the philosophy of John Dewey, we will try to create a performative experimental and educational artistic colony in Zachęta for one day. Together, we will also consider the legitimacy of independent art education centers and the need for a revival of artist colonies in today’s world.

Curator: Weronika Trojańska

As part of the events of the day

• performative lecture by Antoni Michnik
• lecture / performance by Klaudia Szott
• interactive performance by Dorota Porowska

October 29, 2021 (Friday), beginning at 5:00 p.m., Zachęta National Gallery of Art, 3 Stanisław Małachowski Square, Multimedial Room

Black Mountain VideoCollAge: Art / Education / NonconFormism / Survival / Utopia...

Presentation of video fragments about Black Mountain College and Un / Known BMC figures prepared by the Warsaw Bauhaus Foundation. Open discussion and short performative action with invited guests on: education, art, nonconformity, survival, creating community spaces based on the statements of such figures as: John Dewey, John Cage, Bucky Fuller, M.C. Richards, Suzi Gablik, Anne Duformantelle, Pierre Bourdieu, Janusz Korczak and others.

Discussion and short performative action will be attended by Zbigniew Libera, Ewa Wiosna, Travis Preston, Louise Steinman, Bartek Jakubowski and unexpected guests. The discussion will be held in English.

November 3, 2021 (Wednesday), beginning at 5:00 p.m., Zachęta National Gallery of Art, 3 Stanislawa Małachowskiego Square, cinema room

Community Creation of New Ideas

During the third evening at Zachęta devoted to Black Mountain College, we will reach back to the past to visualize the future. We listen to today’s reinterpretations of R. Buckminster Fuller’s ideas – boldly drawn visions of the future and the search for architecture that responds to the challenges of the 20th and 21st centuries. Starting from the community aspects of artistic experiments at the university (e.g. the ways in which the dining room could function), we will try to reflect on today’s forms of communal creation of new ideas.

Curator: Antoni Michnik

As part of the events of the day:

• performative lecture by Paweł Szroniak
• Zajwert music project by Paweł Krzaczkowski, combining elements of experimental pop and avant-garde music
• an improvised performance by Filip Kijowski
• joint conversation after the lecture, attended by: Travis Preston, Natalia Korczakowska, Louise Steinman, Zbigniew Libera, Antoni Michnik, Joanna Klass and Voytek S… and the audience

The final event of the evening will be the premiere of Interludium 21, choreographed by Lucie Palazot and Alka Nauman (7:00 pm). Interludium 21 is inspired by the outstanding artist, co-founder and lecturer at Black Mountain College, Ani Albers.

Free Admission to all events

Black Mountain CollAge Nr OnE: Re / Search Utopia SOS series is supported by the U.S. Embassy in Poland

Warsaw Bauhaus – an organism cultivating progressive alternatives to the ART world involving all disciplines.

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