SEE YOU AFTER THE REVOLUTION!

The Bauhaus is the most significant avant-garde art school of the 20th century. Established in Weimar in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus revolutionised methods of artistic education, creating ‘the new covenant between art and technology.’ Under pressure from conservative politicians, the school moved from Weimar to Dessau in 1925. There, it flourished and functioned until 1931, when the modernist building was taken over by the power-grabbing Nazi Party and this led to the school closing in 1933. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the Bauhaus staff and students realised its ideals, working both in Germany and as emigrées in the Soviet Union, the US, Japan or Chile.

The exhibition proposes to dismantle a monolithic vision of the Bauhaus, assuming the school engendered a homogenous style or a recipe for ‘the Modernist aesthetic’. It has been built upon a dialogue between invited artists, architects, designers and curators, with historic works and documents as well as subsequent reminiscences of the school (exhibited in Poland for the first time). It is an experiment in a communal and critical reading of the Modernist tradition in the context of contemporary creative, educational and social practices.

Guidebook

Tracts

Visual identity, website, prints, publication

This is a bTRACTS stands for ‘Trace as a research agenda for climate change, technology studies, and social justice‘. TRACTS is a COST Action (2021–2025) that brings together scholars from disciplines of the social sciences and humanities with artists, decolonial activists, memorialization experts and legal professionals to bridge current cultural, political and geographical gaps in research on traces.lock of text. Double-click this text to edit it.

Ophelias. Iconography of Madness, Zorka Wollny

“Wollny’s Ophelias. Iconography of Madness, which is a performance and theater piece at the same time, features twelve professional actresses who play Ophelia, one after another. The actresses, who come from different theater traditions and generations, all played Ophelia according to their divergent training, knowledge, skills, and so on. The procession of Ophelias was stunning—the audience entered the world of deception, sorrow, and madness caused by the system of patriarchal rule. Some performed the character as a woman completely alienated from reality, while others seemed perfectly “normal.” Any woman would feel that they might also fall, that in the given condition (of Shakespeare’s Hamlet), they would not survive. The eternal feminine that opened before our eyes did not consist in the perpetuation of women’s beauty or seductive capacities, as in the stereotypical fetish of femininity; it became a feminist Howl of the female personae non grata in the male-dominated world. In my text accompanying the project’s online release, I claimed that these Ophelias performed a structural transformation of the public sphere.”

Ewa Majewska E-Flux Journal #92 (2018)

performance for eleven actresses, 50min Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz 2012, Contemporary Museum Wroclaw 2013, International Schakespear Festival Gdansk 2013 performed by: Iwona Bielska, Monika Dąbrowska, Ewa Domańska, Gabriela Frycz, Anna Ilczuk, Elżbieta Karkoszka, Krystyna Łubieńska, Marta Kalmus-Jankowska, Katarzyna Misiewicz, Karolina Porcari, Agnieszka Radzikowska, Małgorzata Rudzka, Bożena Stryjkówna photos by Adam T. Burton movies by: Małgorzata Mazur

In one place, at the same time eleven Ophelias met, eleven ways of experiencing and playing the role, eleven actor performances. In the empty space of Muzeum Sztuki eleven actresses who have played the role of Ophelia in theatre productions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet performed the final scene of madness.

The oldest performer was 80 years old (played Ophelie in 1960), the youngest is still playing in the adaptation from this year. The joint appearance of the actresses, arranged by Zorka Wollny, was a performance in which different interpretations of the classic dramatic role created an image of female madness.

Pozowane, podpatrzone. Fotografie Wojciecha Plewińskiego

The Sun Does Not Move. Chapter 35

Social Museum

Dolnośląski Festiwal Architektury DoFA każdą edycję poświęca innemu hasłu określającemu miasto. Po spotkaniach o mieście w ruchu (edycja 2014), mieście w zieleni (edycja 2017), mieście poprzemysłowym (2018) i otwartym (2020) chcemy porozmawiać o miejskiej solidarności. Skąd pomysł na taki wybór hasła w tym roku? Z jednej strony jest historia.