Art Symposium Wroclaw 50 years later

08 of May '20

Symposium Wroclaw 70/20

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It was 50 years ago that the Wrocław'70 Art Symposium was held - a meeting of artists, critics and art theorists, which became a space for the exchange of ideas and the creation of new directions in Polish art. On May 9 this year, half a century later, a grassroots initiative to celebrate the anniversary of this event - the Wrocław 70/20 Symposium - is being launched.

Walking through the streets of Wroclaw, one can still see individual traces of the Wrocław '70 Art Symposium, such as Tadeusz Kantor 's concrete "Chair" set up by the Contemporary Theater, the "Living Monument. Arena" by Jerzy Bereś on Piasek Island, or the recently completed "Solitude" monument by Barbara Kozłowska inPopowickiPark .

Anastazy Wisniewski, Art Center (pillory), 1970, project, documentation from exhibition at the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw.

photo: Tadeusz Rolke © collection of MWW Contemporary Museum Wrocław

initiative of the Wroclaw cultural community

The Wrocław meeting became legendary back in the 1970s, and over the following decades it fired the imagination and provoked discussion. Not surprisingly, the idea of a new social initiative was born in the minds of the Wroclaw cultural community. Now numbering some seventy members and women, the group involved in building the Wrocław 70/20 Symposium is a diverse group of people involved in culture. They represent various forms of activity: they are associated with museums, galleries and cultural institutions with a long tradition, but also with young NGOs or independent art collectives. Each brings his or her own perspective on the meeting of the early 1970s to the discussion - each is moved by a different aspect of it, inspired by a different theme taken up during thesymposium sessions and a different artistic proposal submitted as a result .

The working group has jointly outlined a program for the celebration, the pillars of which are: exhibitions, presentations and artistic interventions; research on and dissemination of archives and documentation of the Wrocław'70 Symposium; educational initiatives to popularize knowledge of the Wrocław meeting, but also of conceptual and neo-avant-garde attitudes in Polish art.

9 rays of light in the sky, or a new opening

Due to the epidemic situation, the original plans for the opening of the Wrocław 70/20 Symposium year have changed. The new opening date for the event is May 9 - the anniversary of the premiere of Henryk Stażewski's installation "9 rays of light in the sky." On that evening, in 1970, a multicolored light composition could be seen in the sky over Wroclaw. 50 years later, on May 9, 2020, there will be an official opening of the year-long celebration of the Wrocław 70/20 Symposium, of course, online - via social media sites and the official website of the project.

eventprogram

9.05.2020 r. (Saturday)

16:00 Presentation of the program of the Symposium Wroclaw 70/20
The Implementation and Intervention Committees will talk about the Wrocław 70/20 Symposium initiative and its program via teleconference.

17:00 Premiere of the broadcast "Here the Symposium."
Broadcast prepared by the Wrocław 70/20 Symposium working group - a podcast built from conversations between its members, which will discuss the genesis and course of the Wrocław '70 Art Symposium; its artistic, political and social context; the projects submitted in the course of thesymposium and profiles of the submitters themselves; finally, the legacy of the Symposium and why it remains a living source of inspiration to this day; Iwona Kaluża, Piotr Lisowski and Kuba Żary will talk.

18:00 Online lecture by Dr. Magdalena Ziolkowska: "Renewing Something Alive. The Wroclaw '70 Symposium and the concept of the Museum of Current Art".
Dr. Magdalena Ziolkowska will look at how the Symposium brought to life the concept of the Museum of Current Art, created by Jerzy Ludwinski four years earlier, and other ideas of institutions dedicated to the latest artistic phenomena.

19:00 Streaming of Antoni Dzieduszycki ' s film "Wroclaw'70. Art Symposium" on MWWwebsite Contemporary Art Museum Wroclaw.
One of the few archival recordings of the Wrocław'70 Visual Arts Symposium: in the unique photos we can observe both the urban fabric of the time andframes from the opening of the exhibition of submitted projects at the Museum of Architecture. Antoni Dzieduszycki also talks here with invited artists, including Zbigniew Makarewicz, Jerzy Beres, Andrzej Lachowicz and Oskar Hansen.

12:00-18:00 Edyton 70/20 organized by Kariatyda Collective and MWW Contemporary Museum Wrocław
Edyton will consist of collective editing of the Wikipedia article on the Wrocław'70 Art Symposium. The action will be open, but participation requires registration. You must also take part in a mandatory training on the basics of editing Wikipedia, which will take place on Friday, May 8.