Duby smalone
30.06 – 3.09.2023
Arsenal Gallery Power Station (Elektrownia).
Elektryczna 13, Białystok
entrance from Świętojańska street
Artists: Agnieszka Brzeżańska, Eglė Budvytytė, Kasia Hertz, Anna Hulačová, Karol Palczak, Agnieszka Polska, Martina Drozd Smutná, Iza Tarasewicz
Curator: Katarzyna Różniak-Szabelska
The starting point of the exhibition Duby smalone [Fiddlesticks] is the work of artists who explore their own rural roots and their relationship to modernization. Thinking of their grandparents and great-grandparents, they ask about the consequences of rural electrification, collectivization and industrialization of agriculture. Looking at the history of their grandmothers, they ask questions about the emancipation of women in the villages of Central Europe and the history of social advancement in the Polish People’s Republic. Some go further back, speculating on the fate of their great-grandmothers and their ancestors – the human machines of the serfdom system.
The works rising from these roots are exposed to contemporary crises. The artists look at the stories of rural modernization, intertwined with the fates of their families, through the lens of climate catastrophe, the twilight of the capitalist order, the unfinished modernization of their family villages and the accelerated development of technologies serving mainly the most privileged members of society. However, they patiently nurture alternative visions. Ones in which the relationship between man, nature and technology is not hierarchical and not subordinated to the imperatives of profit or economic growth.
In the building of a former power plant in Bialystok, together we build a world suspended between fiction and reality. Surreal, post-humanist, inspired by pre-modern beliefs, science-fiction novels and alternative circuits of knowledge. A world inhabited by hybrid beings, where the necessary technologies are planted and their growth watched. We hope it will be a place of respite for our visitors.
Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok was established in 1965 and currently is a municipal cultural institution and one of the most important spaces dedicated to contemporary art in Poland. For years, the gallery has been implementing a comprehensive and consistent exhibition program, presenting and promoting contemporary art in various media and offering a perspective of most important phenomena in current Polish art, while not avoiding true engagement and challenges. Arsenal Gallery organizes about 10 exhibitions a year – not only in its two permanent locations in Bialystok, but also in other places in the country and abroad. A special place in the Gallery’s program is occupied by projects related to the countries of the Eastern Partnership and Central Europe.
Accompanying events:
Kasia Hertz’s work will be performed each week of the exhibition from Wednesday to Sunday from 12:00 – 18:00
30.06.2023 (Friday), 7:00 pm
Opening of the exhibition Duby Smalone
Ambient ~ Projekt New Hope
1.07.2023 (Saturday), 12:00 pm
Guided tour with exhibition curator Katarzyna Różniak-Szabelska and the artists
8.07.2023 (Saturday), 12:00 pm
Around the alternative history of electrification outside the capitalist circuit.
A guided lecture by Katarzyna Czeczot, a cultural studies scholar and professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, living in Bialowieza Forest.
9.07.2023 (Sunday), 3:00 – 6:00 pm
Ambient ~ Projekt New Hope
22.07.2023 (Saturday), 12:00 pm
Around the turn to the earth in Polish contemporary art.
Guided lecture by Ewa Tatar, art researcher, exhibition curator, permaculture practitioner, human rights activist living in the Podlasie swamps.
23.07.2023 (Sunday), 3:00 – 6:00 pm
Ambient ~ Projekt New Hope
29.07. 2023 (Saturday), 12:00 pm
Guided tour in Belarusian language
5.08.2023 (Saturday), 12:00 pm
Around mazurkas in the context of the relationship between labor, dance and rhythm.
Lecture with guided tour in English with Matthew Post of Post Brothers, an enthusiast, word processor, educator and curator living in Kolonia Koplany near Bialystok.
6.08.2023 (Sunday), 3:00 – 6:00 pm
Ambient ~ Projekt New Hope
20.08.2023 (Sunday), 3:00 – 6:00 pm
Ambient ~ Projekt New Hope
26.08.2023 (Saturday), 12:00 pm
Guided tour in Ukrainian language
2.09.2023 (Saturday), 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Day with curator available in the exhibition space
3.09.2023 (Sunday), 3:00 – 6:00 pm
Ambient ~ Projekt New Hope
