Outset supported The Forgetting of Proper Names, a new exhibition at Calvert 22. Shaped as a multi-strand two-month season, the exhibition focused on vibrant contemporary art and culture from Poland, exploring the subjectivity of memory, language and translation, the way the past is reshaped over time and reinterpreted as it crosses cultural boundaries.
Centred around a core exhibition of three young and dynamic Polish artists showing for the first time in London: Wojciech Bukowski (b. 1979, Poznao), Anna Molska (b. 1983, Prudnik) and Agnieszka Polska (b. 1985, Lublin), this specially conceived season also interweaved performance, screenings, readings and discussions, exploring the fresh and innovative ways in which the artists engage with the history of the avant-garde and the changing social conditions in contemporary Poland, and further making explicit the connections to contemporary Polish literature, poetry and music.
The Forgetting of Proper Names was a unique opportunity for UK audiences to engage with the exciting and influential emerging Polish art scene, presenting a new generation of artists who have already gained international acclaim but remain largely unknown in Britain.
Now in their late twenties and early thirties, Bukowski, Molska and Polska grew up in post-communist Poland, and their work reflects a new-found internationalism which references the developments of modernism and the avant-garde whilst simultaneously engaging with the legacy of the Former East. Although connected generationally and sharing certain eclecticism in their use of media and materials, each of these artists interacts with their subject matter in highly individualised and diverse ways.
ON VIEW: 25th January – 18th March 2012
