video des monats #67: Spectrum. From the Zacheta Video Collection

Spectrum. From the Zach?ta Video Collection - kuratiert von Anna Tomczak The compilation of videos presented in the ursula blickle videolounge is a selection of works from the Zach?ta video collection. The thematic screenings of videos form a kind of spectrum; in other words, a specifically organized selection of phenomena and concepts analyzed by the authors of the films. Outstanding artists of the young and middle generation created this presentation of the newest video art in Poland. The screenings that comprise the project Spectrum have been divided into the following thematic blocks: sound, gender, social portrait and roles. The technical conditions of the place of presentation partially shaped the selection – the videos are one-channel projections, whose theme and aesthetics made them appropriate to be shown in the proposed form. These works were also chosen as an attempt to emphasize the range of themes engaged in by Polish video artists. It shows both a cross-section and the spectrum of problems relevant today in Polish art. This should not be treated as a full picture, but rather as an overview of Polish video art of the last two decades. The artists use a variety of film techniques – from animation to the aesthetics of documentaries, films or television (for example, reality shows). Through the medium of the camera, they record the signs of the times in which they work.

Aufgeteilt in vier Screenings:

Zach?ta is an institution whose roots date back to the mid 19th century (as the Zach?ta Fine Arts’ Society) and whose mission, both then and now, is promoting contemporary art, albeit understood rather differently in different epochs. Zach?ta possesses a collection of contemporary art, whose particular character has been formed because of the historical changes in Poland that the gallery has both witnessed and participated in. After the World War II, the National Museum received the enormous collections of Polish art gathered by the Zach?ta Society of the Fine Arts during the 19th century. The Zach?ta Society was also replaced by the Central Bureau of Artistic Exhibitions, an institution designed to realize the state’s cultural politics through the purchase of artworks (during real socialism, the state, as the only patron, purchased works from artists on a broad scale). This collection, uneven from an artistic perspective but fascinating from a political one, has been systematized and transformed into a genuine collection by the Zach?ta team only after the 1990s. After the change of system in 1989, the Ministry of Culture supported Zach?ta’s transformation into a national gallery with an autonomous program and the potential to independently purchase works for the collection.

The video collection was begun at the end of the 1990s. Zach?ta has co-produced some of the newest videos added to the collection. Some were made for exhibitions and projects organized by the gallery in Poland and overseas (such as the Venice Biennale).