ArtBoom 2011

Art For All
For the third time Kraków’s streets and squares will be taken over by artists – ArtBoom festival is an explosion of modern art in public space; art which provokes, strikes, interacts with the viewer, evokes contemplation... This year’s themes are new technologies in art, utopias, and games.

Recapturing the city
The new formula for the event, prepared specially for this year’s festival, moves a step away from individual interventions into cityscape towards a process. The City Recovery Bureau, a group of curators assembled especially for the implementation of this project, declares: “We are going for an urban and artistic process, and long-term experimentation with various forms of creating and organising communities”. The Bureau will remind us of Kraków’s gardens that are usually inaccessible (project by Malwina Antoniszczak; details at the Monastery Garden Information point, open during the festival), help us look at the city through the eyes of its elite (views out of VIP office windows by Konrad Pustoła will be displayed on billboards throughout the city), and hand over RUMB, a construction propelled by muscle power of a dozen people (authors: Natalia Romik and Ewa Rudnicka). The “anti-tourist” Kraków-Kraków tour with Pau Faus will provide an opportunity for an unusual way – on foot – to cross city “gates” at the railway station and Balice airport, and experience Kraków from the perspective of a pedestrian, often overlooked in our everyday rush.

Everyone’s Space, No-one’s Space
This is the title of an event and intervention by Łukasz Surowiec, who will be breaking through our habits as to how we should behave in urban spaces. During the festival street art performers from all corners of the globe will come face to face with Kraków’s matter and spirit. We are especially excited by the visit from the American artist Jenny Holzer – she displays words by famous poets and writers in the world’s greatest cities, most recently as giant light inscriptions on the sides of buildings. In Kraków she will use words by Czesław Miłosz projected onto the walls of the Wawel Castle. Urban buildings across the world are also the subject and medium for the art by BLU: the artist created a mural at Józefińska Street in Podgórze.

Interactive video installations by Elodie Pong and “garage video” by the Armenian post-punk artist Tigaran Tachatryan will be displayed at Planty Park in front of the Contemporary Art Gallery. Konrad Smoleński’s BNNT Sound Bombing project, combining performance with music, will destroy street routine in a single anarchic sweep – artists assailing passers-by with sound will appear unexpectedly any time of day or night. Grunwaldzki Bridge will also speak with a new voice – it will be transformed by Lara Favaretto’s installation into… an instrument generating sounds of a stonemason’s workshop.

Florian Dombois is producing a concept of “art as scientific research” – in Kraków he will present his project Talking Towers, alluding to the legends about the uneven towers of the Basilica of St Mary and the Tower of Babel, and “study” the unfinished Communist-era skyscrapers: the dilapidated “Szkieletor”, and “Błękitek”, adapted after many years into an office block. In turn Cracovia Hotel, a classic example of modernist architecture from the 1960s underestimated due to its Communist connotations, will be the subject of artistic reflection by Pavel Büchler.

David Černý, Marcin Maciejowski and Sławek ZBK Czajkowski have created a set of works (R)evolution inspired by the Orange Alternative; it is a complement to the exhibition at the International Cultural Centre devoted to the history of the movement which poked fun at absurdities of Polish Communism in the 1980s. The Massmix Group will treat Kraków as a giant board game – participants, milling among the crowds, will play the game according to rules known only to themselves, blurring the boundaries between illusion and reality. Cecylia Malik will teach us how to discover our inner artist: she’ll be inviting children to a treasure hunt in Salwator – a charming yet somewhat forgotten Kraków’s district. Everyone who wishes to present their own concept for art interventions and visions of Kraków will get their chance during the Cityprojector debates.

Street art inside?
Street art – originally independent, anti-elitist, politically engaged and frequently anonymous – is undergoing a transformation to increasingly become more mainstream. March this year saw Poland’s first auction of works from this artistic trend. The subject of “museumization” of street art and the consequences of this phenomenon will be discussed by its originators Newer, Miesto and ZBioK, and Marcin Rutkiewicz, expert on Polish outdoor and street art. An opportunity for a critical look at the current status of engaged art will be provided at a meeting with Martha Rosler, alluding to her famous project from 20 years ago If You Lived Here… Compiled by over 50 artists, architects, students and the homeless, it initiated a major discussion on the issues concerning New York life.

Fresh Zone
This year’s ArtBoom also saw the second competition for young artists and architects – Fresh Zone. This year the participants’ task was to create an intervention in Kraków’s urban space, using the broadly-understood concept of gaming. The jury rewarded five projects which will come to life during the main festival.

The artists will take to the streets to search for a city within the city, provoke, point out problems and maybe even suggest solutions. Be on guard, and... let them surprise you! (Dorota Dziunikowska, "Karnet" monthly)

10-24 June 2011
Organisers: Krakow Festival Office, East of Art Foundation
www.artboomfestival.pl