WARSAW UNDER CONSTRUCTION 6
The City of Artists
(11 October – 9 November 2014)
So far, the WARSAW UNDER CONSTRUCTION festival has dealt with architecture and its creators, advertising in the public space and participation processes. Now the time has come for the artists.
Warsaw AD 2014 is a focal point of Poland’s artistic life. Here the most important cultural institutions, commercial galleries and culture magazines have their registered offices. Each month several exhibitions are opened, presentations of books, performances, discussions and film screenings take place. Warsaw’s art finds its way onto magazine covers and the capital’s residents have entrenched opinions about it, largely owing to symbolical realizations present in the public space (Joanna Rajkowska’s Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue, Julita Wójcik’s Rainbow). The artists themselves, through their lifestyles, set new trends that become a certain code over time and begin to be copied by the society or its certain groups. Therefore, artists and their art play an important role in emancipation processes.
Visual arts circles trigger numerous discussions devoted to artists’ economic situation and their inclusion into the social insurances system. Gentrification processes and availability of ateliers make up important themes as well.
For the very beginning the WARSAW UNDER CONSTRUCTION has been a festival aimed at describing the city. This year visual artists, whose role in the creation of Warsaw’s image is still being underestimated, will be talking about the city. They were often the pioneers of new urban lifestyles that now attest to the capital's attractiveness.
On 11 September, a month before the opening of the festival, we are publishing descriptions and locations of five exhibitions and an accompanying programme.
The festival has been organised in collaboration with the Museum of Warsaw.