From the Discipline of the Whole to the Art of Concentration: Revisions of the Eastern and Central European Avant-Gardes: ReviewA review of two recent volumes concerning the idea of Central-European avant-garde: Awangarda Środkowej i Wschodniej Europy – Innowacja czy naśladownictwo? Interpretacje, ed. Michalina Kmiecik, Małgorzata Szumna, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 2015, 355 pp.; Głuchy brudnopis: Antologia manifestów awangardy Europy Środkowej, ed. Jakub Kornhauser, Kinga Siewior, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 2015, 578 pp. Od dyscypliny całości do sztuki koncentracji: rewizje wchodnio- i środkowoeuropejskiej awangardy; recenzjaRecenzja dwóch niedawno opublikowanych tomów poświęconych środkowoeuropejskiej awangardzie: Awangarda Środkowej i Wschodniej Europy – Innowacja czy naśladownictwo? Interpretacje, red. Michalina Kmiecik, Małgorzata Szumna, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 2015, 355 s., oraz Głuchy brudnopis: Antologia manifestów awangardy Europy Środkowej, red. Jakub Kornhauser, Kinga Siewior, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków 2015, 578 s.
This article reviews the various ways in which Julian Przyboś dealt with genre conventions in his poetry. He used old forms of prose poetry, reworked the convention of hymn, ode and sonnet, wrote lullabies and rhymes, and, as one of the first poetry writers, brought the non-literary genres into poetry (letter, menu, postcard, note). Przyboś is also a prolific author of articles published in periodicals, prefaces and afterwords in books by other authors, or texts included in joint publications, many of which were forgotten or scattered. Through recalling these mostly concise publications a fuller reconstruction of Przyboś’s attitude to genre conventions is enabled and helps to track the generic evolution of the avant-garde poet. Also, a new perspective is provided by reviewing the poet’s home archive, which has been kept by his wife thus far. The poet paid attention to form consciously constructed structure to his compositions, with precision and scrupulousness, forming complex, though apparently simple constructions. The hesitation accompanying the classification of some of the notes only confirms the innovative character of his poetry, putting forward new forms, which undertake the game with tradition and exploit the richness of modern Polish.
The traditional idea of aesthetics was connected to the sphere of art. Exclusively. Radical ideas of the avant-garde of the 20th century together with the expanding role of media and technology in contemporary culture led to broadening research of aesthetics. Contemporary aesthetics is interested in “aesthetic” in the broadest sense of this word. Thus, it is focused not only on art but also it is interested in everyday reality which is the very object of aesthetic processes. Most of all, however, it is focused on the relationship between art and various spheres of reality. One of the consequences of this changes is questioning the traditional hierarchy of senses with the sense of sight as prior. In my research I point at reasons for such hierarchy and I suggest some alternative ideas. According to the critics of the contemporary culture I mention in this work that balance to the hegemony of the sense of sight and vision may lie in the sense of hearing and sound as such. That is why I describe the metaphor connected to seeing and hearing and the vision of the world associated with it.
The article discusses the question of political implications of French feminist theories, also known as feminist avant-garde. Referring to the strategic re-reading of the concept French Feminism by Christine Delphy, it is argued that such projects as écriture féminine have been appropriated by postmodern Anglo-American critique, which tends to fetishize the strategies of displacement and aestheticization of the political field. The aim of the article is to examine whether contemporary feminist theories can take up the challenge of French feminist avant-garde by going back to its political roots.
The article is devoted to the subject of the New Objectivity movement in German art in the mid 1920s, its causes and consequences. The detailed depiction of post-war reality in New Objectivity painting with its social criticism and commitment is presented as the most suitable exemplification of Peter Bürger’s famous theory of the avant-garde. In his account of avant-garde, Bürger paid most attention to the avant-garde criticism of the institution of art in a bourgeois society and to dialectics of autonomy of art. However, he did not give many examples of such understood avant-garde art, mentioning only Dadaism and surrealism. This text tries to find another examples for Bürger’s theory, New Objectivity being a per-fect one. Not only was it very strongly connected with a social, economical and political situation of its times but it also tried to resolve the problem of art’s au-tonomy by praising artistic engagement and commitment to the society. High-lighting this sphere of activity of the artists of the New Objectivity and putting it together with Bürger’s ideas may help to understand better both New Objectivity, little known in Poland, and Theory of the Avant-Garde.
Within historical avant-garde movements from the beginning of the 20th century, a curious taste and fascination for boxing burst out, and developed later into the claim that art must become more similar to boxing, or to sport in general. This fascination with pugilism in the early stage of its popularity on the continent included such charismatic figures of the Parisian avant-garde as Arthur Cravan, who was Oscar Wilde's nephew, a pretty good boxer and an unpredictable organizer of proto-dada outrages and scandals.After WWI, the zenith of artists' and intellectuals' love for boxing was reached in Weimar Germany. One of the well known examples connecting boxing with art was Bertolt Brecht with his statement that we need more good sport in theatre. His and other German avant-garde artists' admiration for boxing included the German boxing star May Schmeling, who was, at least until he lost his defending championship match against Joe Louis, an icon of the Nazis as well. Quite contrary to some later approaches in philosophy of sport, which compared sport with an elite art institution, Brecht's fascination with boxing took its anti-elitist and anti-institutional capacities as an example for art's renewal.To examine why and how Brecht included boxing in his theatre and his theory of theatre, we have to take into account two pairs of phenomena: sport vs. physical culture, and avant-garde theatre vs. bourgeois drama. At the same time, it is important to notice that sport, as something of Anglo-Saxon origin, and especially boxing, which became popular on the European continent in its American version, were admired by Brecht and by other avant-garde artists for their masculine power and energy. The energy in theatre, however, was needed to disrupt its cheap fictionality and introduce dialectical imagination of Verfremdungseffect (V-effect, or distancing effect). This was "a hook to the chin" of institutionalized art and of collective disciplinary morality of German tradition.
The article concerns the results of transferring debut novel of Dorota Masłowska to silver screen, the novel which, as could be assumed, cannot be transferred successfully. The language of the book’s narrator influences strongly on the shape of the world created in the book, the story is filled with surrealistic visions, the characters are tangled in (linguistic) reality, ideologies (xenophobia and cosmopolitanism, radical ecology and “civilization of death”, liberalism and conservatism) and cultural clichés. The movie of Xawery Żuławski conducts – in my opinion – a fine adaptation, translating elements of the linguistic style into film style, and using for it such components as dialogues, acting, ways of deforming film world with specific formal endeavors as well as emphasizing fictional character of diegesis by introducing a character of Dorota Masłowska (played by her own) in the process of writing the very book and confronted directly with the invented characters.
The paper is on Katarzyna Kobro’s artistic achievements and theoretical writings which present the foreshadowing of a new understanding of the space, articulated later by philosophers. Her and her husband conception of avant-garde sculpture postulates new mechanisms of seeing reality. By eliminating borders between sculpture and space, Kobro initiated a true breakthrough in art. Her achievement should be recognized for its truly pioneering and visionary status. Kobro was one of the first artists who revealed the intimate relation between art and its environment.
Discussion of the exhibition "Hunting for the Avant-garde. Forbidden art in the Third Reich ", which took place in the Gallery of the International Cultural Center in Krakow, October 29, 2011-29, January 2012.
Przedmiotem analizy jest film Teinosuke Kinugasy "Uszkodzona karta" ("Kurutta ichipeiji", 1926) porównywany przez historyków do arcydzieł europejskiej awangardy okresu międzywojennego. Pomimo że ograniczenie się do prostych analogii z impresjonizmem francuskim czy ekspresjonizmem niemieckim może wydać się zwodnicze ze względu na odmienność kontekstów historycznych i kulturowych, to jednak japońscy krytycy chętnie pisali o wizualnej symfonii będącej rozwinięciem koncepcji kina Marcela L’Herbiera i porównywali ten film do poematu odbieranego zmysłami, a nie rozumem. Chcąc wyjaśnić szczególne znaczenie arcydzieła Kinugasy, Loska skupia się na okolicznościach jego powstania oraz kontekście historycznym i artystycznym, zwłaszcza na wpływie eksperymentów „neosensualistów” – grupy młodych pisarzy i poetów, wśród których znaleźli się współscenarzyści filmu: Yasunari Kawabata, Teppei Kataoka i Riichi Yokomitsu. Loska zwraca również uwagę na szereg nowatorskich rozwiązań formalnych widocznych zarówno na płaszczyźnie stylistycznej, jak i narracyjnej, pozwalających reżyserowi na oddanie subiektywnych stanów ludzkiego umysłu.
EN
The article presents an analysis of Teinosuke Kinugasa’s film "A page of madness" ("Kurutta ichipeiji", 1926) that is being compared by film historians to the masterpieces of European avant-garde of the inter war period. Although limiting oneself to simple analogies with French impressionism or German expressionism might appear misleading due to different cultural and historical contexts, Japanese critics eagerly wrote about the film as a visual symphony that is an extension of Marcel L’Herbier concept of the cinema, and compared the film to a poem received by the senses rather than rational reason. Loska, wishing to explain the special meaning of Kinugasa’s masterpiece, focuses on the circumstances in which it was created, especially on the historical and artistic context, particularly taking into the account the influence of the experiments of the “neo-sensualists”, that is a group of young writers and poets, among which were the script-writers of the film: Riichi Yokomitsu, Teppei Kataoka and Yasunari Kawabata. Loska also draws attention to a number of formal innovations visible at the level of style and the narrative, which allow the director to express the subjective states of the human mind.
The article describes a collection of contemporary Czech art at the National Museum in Wrocław. The collection was created by Janina Ojrzyńska (1933-2011), curator at the Łódź Art Museum, who in 1973 was a trainee at the National Gallery in Prague. At the time she made the acquaintance of numerous outstanding artists who became her friends. For the next ten years Janina Ojrzyńska continued travelling to Prague, already at her own cost. The outcome of those trips was a considerable collection of small-scale artworks, which she received as gifts. Janina Ojrzysńka presented the collection to the National Museum in Wrocław, heir of Polish museums in her beloved Lwów. The collection totals 197 works by 22 artists and provides a panorama of Czech avant-garde art of the so-called 1960s generation, at the me strongly opposed by the communist authorities of Czechoslovakia. Distressed by prevalent limited familiarity with Czech art, Janina Ojrzyńska organized or initiated 16 exhibitions of Czech artists in Polish museums and galleries.
Artykuł opisuje kolekcję czeskiej sztuki współczesnej znajdującej się w zbiorach Muzeum Narodowego we Wrocławiu. Kolekcję zgromadziła nieżyjąca już kustosz Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, Janina Ojrzyńska (1933-2011), która w 1973 r. przebywała na stażu muzealnym w Galerii Narodowej w Pradze. Poznała wówczas wielu wybitnych artystów, z którymi się zaprzyjaźniła. Jeździła następnie przez 10 lat, już na własny koszt, do Pragi. Owocem jej podróży była spora kolekcja kameralnych dzieł, które jej bezinteresownie darowywano. Zebrane dzieła ofiarowała Muzeum Narodowemu we Wrocławiu jako spadkobiercy polskich muzeów jej ukochanego Lwowa. Zbiór obejmuje 197 prac 22 artystów i daje panoramę czeskiej sztuki awangardowej tzw. pokolenia lat sześćdziesiątych, w tym czasie źle widzianego przez komunistyczne władze czechosłowackie. Ubolewając nad słabą znajomością sztuki czeskiej zorganizowała lub zainicjowała 16 wystaw artystów czeskich w muzeach i galeriach polskich.
The article examines the relation between Tuwim’s poetry and modern colloquial language. The avant-garde artists for whom in the beginning of the 20th-century art was an elite occupation, treated every-day speech as a mass form of communication. Tuwim’s poetry was frequently criticised for banality. Matywiecki presents the poet as a hero fighting with the demon of commonness. The crucial thesis of the article is that banality which is modified in a creative way says more about the epoch than elitist visions. In his poetry, satire and cabaret work Tuwim transformed triviality into dialog and a common human being into a creative person. Transition of the street talk into original speech is the defence against reducing individual being to cliché which means the fear of 20th-century killing ideologies.
The article examines the relation between Tuwim’s poetry and modern colloquial language. The avant-garde artists for whom in the beginning of the 20th-century art was an elite occupation, treated every-day speech as a mass form of communication. Tuwim’s poetry was frequently criticised for banality. Matywiecki presents the poet as a hero fighting with the demon of commonness. The crucial thesis of the article is that banality which is modified in a creative way says more about the epoch than elitist visions. In his poetry, satire and cabaret work Tuwim transformed triviality into dialog and a common human being into a creative person. Transition of the street talk into original speech is the defence against reducing individual being to cliché which means the fear of 20th-century killing ideologies.
The article traces the evolution of the status of objects, understood as a carrier of creative expression, from the avant-garde concepts of Duchamp readymades or surrealistic “disturbed objects” to neo-avant-garde installations (Spoerri, Anselmo, Černý, Jasielski, Schneider, Bałka, Hasior). The most important point ofreference for the considerations is the belief in the specific autonomy that the object acquires in avant-garde and neo-avant-garde theories. Moving constantly from a usable to artistic context - or at least participating in negotiations between these spheres - an object must also be seen in terms of everyday cultural practices. The author uses the theory of “smart object” developed by artists and art theoreticians (Agata Pankiewicz, Marcin Przybyłka, Roch Sulima) to show relationships between useable objects, which are intentionally non-artistic, but which are in the field of artistic activities (smart objects), with strictly aesthetic artifacts. Considering several selected properties (the degree of interference of the subject and the recipient in the structure of the object, its collagelike and temporary nature, external appearance, the way of functioning in space, the location on the axis of utilitarian / aesthetic), the author tries to extract those aspects of materiality that determine the status object. As it turns out in the case of some conceptual works, it is difficult to distinguish clearly between their artistic and “smart” dimensions. It leads to the elimination of the boundaries between art and non-art, but it also contributes to the conviction that the material nature of the object itself is in a way a guarantee of the “conceptual” character of the work, especially in the era of the dominance of the digital circulation.
The text discusses the most important theses of Aleksander Wójtowicz’s study devoted to the circles of New Art and it subjects them to critical reading. The author focuses primarily on confrontation of various narrative lines, which we encounter outside the mainstream research on the interwar avant-garde. What seems especially interesting is how Wójtowicz captures the history of the literary experiment as a space of oppression and exclusion, and above all, the struggle for discursive domination, in which gradually New Art was superseded by the avant-garde.
Lech Piwowar was connected, inter alia, with the Cracow Writers’ Association (1929–1930), with the literary and artistic societies “Litart” (1931–1935) and “Volta” (1935–1937), since 1933 he closely cooperated with the Visual Artists’ Theatre “Cricot” and published in the magazines “Naprzód”, “Gazeta Artystów” and “Tygodnik Artystów”. According to Heronim Michalski, Piwowar was a “keen student” of Tadeusz Peiper, according to Julian Przyboś – he was a “faithful and fanatical” student. The author of this article devoted to Piwowar focuses on his poems employing explosive imagery, motifs of fire and blood, primarily within the current of social, “committed poetics” (e.g. Spring, Build!, or A Beauty’s Funeral recalling the revolutionary Cracow of 23 March 1936), poems with a rhetorical exclamation – a call. They lead to questions about the avant-garde imagination annexing (making more substantive) the proletarian gesture of dissent, an expression of revolt.
The author presents a glossary for Wanda Melcer-Rutkowska’s biography, which draws on her social and literary activity in the context of cultural trans-formations at the beginning of the 20th century. Moreover, the author clearly outlines Melcer Rutkowska’s active engagement in a variety of initiatives intended to revolutionise the realm of customs and art. The article draws on the literary output of the author of Miasto zwierząt, indicating the impact it had during the interwar years. Special attention is paid to the forgotten poetry which was eventually included in a compilation of previously printed volumes and those poems which had been formally scattered throughout the press. Two aspects of Melcer-Rutkowska’s literary work were primarily analysed: feministic and avant-garde.
Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967) is one of the most written about avant-garde films. It has served as “a blue screen in front of which a range of ideological and intellectual dramas have been played out,” as Elizabeth Legge put it in a book-length study of the film, whose recent publication testifies to the continuing relevance of the film (Legge 2009). This paper takes Annette Michelson’s article, Toward Snow, one of the first and most often cited encounters with Snow’s cinema, as its point of departure (Michelson 1978). Michelson sees the film as a reflection which reveals the cinema as a temporal narrative medium. Drawing on Husserl’s phenomenology of time-consciousness, she argues that this reflection on the medium is at the same time a reflection on the structures of consciousness. However, the paper also draws on the work of Gilles Deleuze, whose two-volume study of the cinema has opened up new possibilities for thinking about time and the cinema (Deleuze 1983, 1985). The paper is not an interpretation of Deleuze. It appropriates and puts to work his idea that the cinema is not essentially a narrative medium; but a medium that disrupts linear time, making visible a non-chronological dimension of time, which fragments the subject and exposes it to liminal situations. Wavelength, I argue, reverses the flow of time, to make visible an abyss at the heart of time, which shatters the unity of the subject
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