Zachęta National Gallery of Art

curators: Maria Brewińska, Hanna Wróblewska

ar 1968 is a time of the culmination of a great number of wildly different political and social tensions. Protests, unrest and demonstrations took place all over the world, from Mexico and the U.S.A., through Germany, France, Poland and Czechoslovakia to as far as Japan (without neglecting Latin America). In France, a year earlier had appeared the book “The Spectacle Society” by Guy Debord, one of the founders of the International Situationist Movement, often referred to as the “last of the great revolutionaries”. This book, which can be seen as prophesying the coming revolts was an unflinching diagnosis of a society alienated through the impact of media and systems of selling, a society for whom everything had simply become a selection of images passively desired and over which one has no control. The cure for this state of affairs were to be artistic-political provocations, directed against all systems (not just political), that were to rip people from their lethargy.                                          

The “Revolutions 1968” exhibition does not present the art of those times. It is rather an attempt to portray this period through art (although not just through art) from different perspectives: historical and documentary, or through interpretations and re-interpretations of social problems and cultural phenomena characteristic of this turbulent time. The birth of counter-culture, along with a rapid development of pop-culture, emancipation movements (fighting for the rights of minorities and women), the fight for civic rights, the birth of ecological awareness, the fascination for leftist movements, utopian architectonic visions, the contestation of institutions and changes in universities are just a few of the themes touched within the framework of this exhibition. What art accompanied these changes and how or in what way was it engaged in them? What motifs, themes from 1968 can be found in later works? Art forms such as pictures, video films and photographs will be presented along with archive visual materials and installations prepared specifically for this occasion.                                          

The show will be accompanied by a reader – a collection of texts: essays dealing with the most significant phenomena of that time, and historical and source texts from Poland, Germany, France, Italy, the U.S.A., and the territories of the former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.                                   

The exhibition will include works/videos/films/documentation by the following artists: Vito Acconci (USA), Dennis Adams (USA), Bas Jan Ader (NL/USA), Eleanor Antin (USA), Tamas St. Auby (HU), John Baldessari (USA), Ant Farm (USA), Jerzy Bereś (PL), Thomas Bayrle (GER), Joseph Beuys (GER), Alighiero Boetti (IT), Bill Bollinger (USA), Włodzimierz Borowski (PL), Louise Bourgeois (FR/USA), Mark Boyle&Joan Hills (UK), Marcel Broodthaers (BE), Christo&Jeanne-Claude (USA), Elżbieta&Emil Cieślarowie (PL), Chris Burden (USA), Wojciech Bruszewski (PL), James Lee Byars (USA), Victor Nieuwenhuijs&Maartje Seyferth (NL) , Andrzej Dłużniewski (PL), Jan Dobkowski (PL), Guy Debord (FR), Stanisław Dróżdż (PL), Druga Grupa (PL), Valie Export (AT), Öyvind Fahlström (SE), Harum Farocki (GER), Robert Filliou (FR), Jean-Luc Godard (FR), Jerzy Grotowski (PL), Rodney Graham (CA), Johan Grimonprez (BE), Richard Hamilton (UK), Hans Haacke (GER/USA), Eva Hesse (USA), Hans Hollein (AT), Dorothy Iannone (USA/GER), Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz (PL), Michel Journiac (FR), Jagoda Kaloper (YU/HR), On Kawara (JAP/USA), William Klein (USA), Jiří Kolář (CZE), Guyla Konkoly (HU), Grzegorz Kowalski (PL), Edward Krasiński (PL), Zofia Kulik (PL), Yayoi Kusama (JP/USA), Przemysław Kwiek (PL), László Lakner (GER/HU), The Living Theatre (USA), Lee Lozano (USA), Dusan Makavejev (YU), Witold Masznicz (PL), Gordon Matta-Clark (USA), Ana Mendieta (CU/USA), Gustaw Metzger, Henryk Morel (PL), Bruce Nauman (USA), Marcel Odenbach (GER), OHO Group (YU/HR), Dennis Oppenheim (USA), Nam June Paik (KR/USA), (Niki de Saint Phalle (FR), Maria Pinińska-Bereś (PL), Charlotte Posenenske (GER), Waldemar Raniszewski&Wiktor Gut (PL), Bridget Riley (UK), Martha Rosler (USA), Jerzy Rosołowicz (PL), Joe Tilson (UK), Andrzej Urbanowicz (PL), Helke Sander (GER), Peter Sedgley (UK), Katharina Sieverding (CZE/GER), Carolee Schneeman (USA), Robert Smithson (USA), Leszek Sobocki (PL), Keith Sonnier (USA), Elaine Sturtevant (USA/FR), Steina&Woody Vasulka (USA), Wolf Vostell (GER), Andy Warhol (USA), Ryszard Winiarski (PL), Anastazy Wiśniewski (PL), The Wooster Group (USA), Jurry Zieliński (PL).