There are artists who transfer art into space and those who bring space into their art. For some of them it is the realisation of their own dreams – just like for Forrest W. Myers, who in 1969, in cooperation with engineers from Experiments Arts Technology, sent to the Moon, together with the Apollo 12 mission, the first work of art: Moon Museum – a small ceramic tile with works by six American artists. For others, it is a matter of light and cosmic mystery. The subsequent circles of Wojciech Fangor, including the M82 created in 1969 in Madison/New Jersey, broaden the illusionary space of his painting and are based on fascination – not so much with astronomy, as with the light of cosmos, being discovered by the artist since his childhood during observations of the sky through the telescope. The light and mystery filling an infinite space – this is the dimension of cosmos brought by Wojciech Fangor into his art. For the American group MoonArk, which in 2019 will place on the Moon art in nano-size format – the smallest scale in which people express meaning through art – it is a celebration of the creative expression of man.
In this transfer of art into space and space into art there are also several other common fascinations. Space photographs are very often beautiful images and act as icons. The sounds of cosmos pulsate slowly and rhythmically, like beating of the heart. Looking at the sky has a lot to do with the sense of freedom and makes one want to reorient the Earth’s position in space and to change one’s perception of oneself as a human being.
Intergalactic journeys of art often create confusion and uncertainty. They show us what visions of life we stick to and stop us to show us this is what is not…
Artists: Rafał Bujnowski, Wojciech Fangor, Rafał Iwański, Kornel Janczy; MoonArk: Lowry Burgess, Mark Baskinger, Dylan Vitone, Matt Zywica, Mark Rooker with Chris Robinson and Andrew Kaiser; Forrest W. Myers, Łukasz Patelczyk, Agnieszka Piksa, Sebastian Soberski, Anna Witkowska.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with texts by among others Sebastian Cichocki.
A special event during the exhibition (December 15th) will be a concert Voices of the Cosmos.
beginning: 28.11.2017, 6pm
curator: Danka Milewska
end: 28.01.2018
BIOGRAMS
Rafał Bujnowski – author of paintings, videos, objects and actions. He studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology and at the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. He explores the possibilities of painting in conceptual terms. He was a co-founder and member of the Ładnie group, as well as the founder and curator of the Otwarta Gallery in Krakow. He’s a winner of the international art award Europas Zukunft. His works are in collections in Poland and abroad.
Lowry Burgess – born in 1940 in Philadelphia (USA), conceptual artist and environmental creator, professor of the Carnegie Mellon University/STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, collaborated with Center for Advanced Visual Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. He is a co-founder of the MoonArk project aimed at placing artistic works on the Moon.
Wojciech Fangor (1922-2015) – painter, draughtsman, sculptor and poster artist, creator of spatial installations and stage design. A co-founder of the Polish School of Posters. He studied with Tadeusz Pruszkowski and Felicjan Szczęsny Kowarski. He received a diploma from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He was a scholarship holder at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Washington, then at the Ford Foundation in West Berlin. He worked as a lecturer in England and the United States. There he created a series of works with characteristic circles and waves, which made an important contribution to op-art and minimal art. Fangor dealt with both figurative and abstract art. He was a laureate of many important awards and distinctions ( among others Gloria Artis, Gold Medal of Merit,Cyprian Kamil Norwid award in visual arts, Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Jan Cybisaward). Wojciech Fangor participated in significant individual and collective exhibitions, both at home and abroad (among others at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Washington; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Zachęta, Warsaw; Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; National Museum in Krakow).
Rafał Iwański – sound artist and percussionist. Graduate of ethnology at Nicolas Copernicus University in Toruń. He performs solo as X-NAVI:ET. Co-founder and musician of HATI, INNERCITY ENSEMBLE collective and KAPITAL duo, member of ALAMEDA 5. Co-founder of the musical and astronomical audiovisual project VOICES OF THE COSMOS (together with Wojciech Zięba – Beast Of Prey and Sebastian Soberski – radio-observer from the Astronomy Centre of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń). Member of the Polish Electroacoustic Music Association. Co-founder and curator of the international CoCArt Music Festival, which has been organised since 2008 at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń.
Sebastian Soberski – head of the Planetarium and Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Observatory in Grudziądz. Radio-observer at the Department of Radio-Astronomy on the Astronomy Centre of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. He researches the remnants of supernova explosions and the distribution of the magnetic field in the Galaxy. Organiser and co-organiser of astronomical expeditions to the total solar eclipse belt in Mongolia (Asia’97), Hungary (Europe’99, Zambia (Africa’01), China (Asia’09), Indonesia (Asia’16) and the USA (North America’17).
Kornel Janczy – painter and inter-media artist. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and at the Akademie der Bildende Kunste in Munich. Currently he is a doctoral student in the field of Fine Arts at the Pedagogical University of Krakow and an assistant at that university. In his work he explores phenomena connected with the world of nature and the universe. He transposes them, moving between the micro and macro scales. His works have been exhibited at individual and collective exhibitions, at home and abroad. Lives and works in Krakow.
Andrew Kaiser – american composer, author of texts on psycho-geography and space, member of the MoonArk group; with Lowry Burgess, a co-founder of the Deep Space Signaling Group.
Forrest W. Myers – born in 1941. New York-based sculptor, designer and member of the E.A.T. collective (Experiments in Art and Technology). He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute. He’s the author of such realisations as Moon Museum or The Wall. Moon Museum is a small ceramic tile, sent to the Moon with the Apollo 12 mission, containing works by the six most important artists of the 1960s.
MoonArk – www.moonarts.org is an art and research project that Carnegie Mellon University will send to the Moon on board the Astrobotic landing vessel in 2019. The project enlarges the lunar mission to ponder how the Moon stirs the tides, the growth patterns of life, the rhythms of society, and how the Moon always continues to pull us further into the heavens. Before the presentation of the sculpture in the Centre Pompidou in Paris, MoonArk presents selected documentation of their activities in the Municipal Gallery bwa in Bydgoszcz – MoonArk: Lowry Burgess, Mark Baskinger, Dylan Vitone, Matt Zywica, Mark Rooker with Chris Robinson and Andrew Kaiser.
Łukasz Patelczyk – graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. He deals with painting projects. He is a laureate of the second prize of the 10th edition of the Hestia Artistic Journey competition, thanks to which he received a scholarship for creative work in Valencia. He’s taken part in several individual and collective exhibitions, among others, at the Arsenal Gallery in Poznań, PGS in Sopot or the Artists’ Colony in Gdańsk. Lives and works in Warsaw.
Agnieszka Piksa – visual artist and draughtswoman. She studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and at the University of Art in Cluj. Author of comic books entitled Unknown Genius (Centrala, 2013) to the script by Mikołaj Tkacz, and It’s just the spin of inner life (Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, 2014). Winner of the Audience Award in the Spojrzenia 2015 competition (Zachęta, Warsaw). He lives and works in Krakow and the Tuchola Pinewoods.
Sebastian Soberski – head of the Planetarium and Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Observatory in Grudziądz. Radio-observer at the Department of Radio-Astronomy on the Astronomy Centre of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. He researches the remnants of supernova explosions and the distribution of the magnetic field in the Galaxy. Organiser and co-organiser of astronomical expeditions to the total solar eclipse belt in Mongolia (Asia’97), Hungary (Europe’99, Zambia (Africa’01), China (Asia’09), Indonesia (Asia’16) and the USA (North America’17).
Anna Witkowska – visual artist, graphic artist, and lecturer. Graduate of the Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts. Together with Adam Witkowski, curator of the Narracje 2014 Festival. Her projects often have a synthetic, graphical character, the artist introduces text elements into them. She uses video, photography, installation or objects. The author of, among others, a video triptych Past, Remote viewer, The first, the only, the best, created together with Adam Witkowski, and of films: Treasure, Such a Landscape, or Black Cloud. Two-time holder of the scholarship of Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, nominated in 2011 together with Adam Witkowski for the Deutsche Bank Award Spojrzenia. In 2013 she received the Scholarship of the Marshal of Pomorskie Voivodeship.
