The Catch-Up Revolution - exhibition

The exhibition that could be consider partially a outcome of the workshops and surely an important part of the whole project was open on 23th of Nov in F.A.I.T. gallery. Check some photos from the opening. Soon more I'll published a full documentation.

F.A.I.T Gallery, November 19–30, 2015
opening: November 19, 19:00

visual essay / “W miasto”, film by Anna Janczyszyn / mural by Martin Lukáče

To account for the reality of the 1990s in the countries of the former Eastern Block, Jürgen Habermas coined the term the rectifying revolution. The very terms: “revolution,” “velvet revolution,” and the Polish notion of “transformation” still remain debatable. At the same time, they do capture the variety of ways in which particular countries reviewed their communist past, seeking their way outside the Iron Curtain. The specificity of the rectifying revolution can be found in its lack of concrete postulates or clear visions for changing reality, which characterised major revolutionary projects such as the October Revolution or the French Revolution. The goal of creating visions of a better, even utopian future was reduced to the wish to reach the living standards of the rich West, to achieve its colourful prosperity and idealised democracy. The much desired West “flooded” the neglected East with the blessing of VHS cassettes, fake shoes, cheap sunbeds and businessmen in holey socks. An exotic mix of the 1990s. Post-communist greyness tinted by the new democracies with willow-green and purple. As the Croatian sociologist Boris Buden aptly defined it: “the misery of catching up.”

The exhibition is a visual essay constructed on the basis of books and other materials, addressing the specificity of the final decade of the 20th century. It is complemented with two works that allude to the 1990s – the “liberated” Poland after the Round Table and the infamously divided Czechoslovakia. It is also a result of curating workshops that took place on November 23–24 at the Arteteka of the Voivodeship Public Library in Krakow with the participation of Hubert Gromny, Sonia Kądziołka, Magda Klimkowicz, Karina Kottová, Wiktoria Kozioł, Mateusz Okoński, Pavel Sterec, Zuzana Jakalova and others. I would like to thank all of them.

concept: Piotr Sikora
support: Magda Klimkowicz 



Organised as part of the Scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

fot. Magdalena Klimkowicz

after the workshops part 3

The second day of our meetings was mainly focused on discussions that took part on Saturday afternoon. We have been trying to develop several issues on the nineties seen from perspective of artists and curators that have been born at the second part of '80. The starting point for the conversation was the moment of transformation 1989 and its outcomes that had a strong impact both on visual culture and contemporary art. 

Two sessions of the panel discussion were dominated by the problems such as influence of western pop-culture on Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, forgotten heritage of Eastern Bloc and subjectivity perceived as a way of shaping post-structural art history. As a bottom line we have established a hypothesis if the revolution or transformation that happen in '89 wasn't destructive for the cultural institutions and whether it has any other impact on art. Poland seem to be a unique example where we could observe some kind of continuity in cultural institutions. In rest of the countries breakthrough had rather negative impact. After all we have decide to continue our research on subject that - as we have decide - is still a interesting and vivid even 25 years after the end of communism.