Agnieszka Polska
Voices, Birds, Stone Tools.
“In the dark times, will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.”
(Motto, Bertold Brecht)
In dark times, can there be poetry? In the late ‘30s, Bertolt Brecht wrote a short poem called ‘Motto’ in which he reflects on the possibility of writing poetry amid the deadly forces that swept Europe between the two world wars. In the few lines that compose the poem, Brecht works through his dilemma as lyric poet, showing us what the poet wants to write about, and then how these human and ordinary things are annihilated by fascism. In such situation, as Brecht himself comments, poetry becomes impossible. Yet, while acknowledging the impossibility of poetry, Brecht insists on its necessity, a need denied by the overwhelming terrors of the approaching World War. The poem is a maxim, a note to the self, and a reminder that silence is not an option. Brecht believed in the necessity of combining literary creativity with political commitment. When war, violence, and oppression threat to render everyone and everything mute, poetry that bears witness to its times becomes a form of resistance against death and destruction. And so, Brecht’s poem answers the question by saying, “Yes, there will be singing.”
The ethical dilemma the lyric poet works through in the lines of Motto feels all the more relevant today in these time of profound crisis – economic, social, ecological, environmental, existential, and political. What can art do? How do artists, poets, writers speak of and back to the present? Like Brecht’s poem, Agnieszka Polska’s work is an exploration of the relation between art and politics, between artistic agency and the larger socio-political context which influences the production of art. Her work asks questions about the possibility of poetic actions and social transformation through art and culture, in times of political turmoil and social unrest. However, unlike Brecht, her engagement with art and politics is not strictly speaking militant; and her work doesn’t offer political truths or revolutionary solutions. The protagonists of her video-works are often stuck between a desire for action and its impossible fulfillment; between individualism and a love for others that can lead to significant transformations; between clarity and confusion, optimism and desperation. They exist in a state of existential vulnerability, exposed to the contradictions that animate our present. And they urge us to act.
In the video ‘Dark Times’ (2017), the central piece of the exhibition ‘Voices, Birds, Stone Tools’ at Georg Kargl BOX, floating in a dark liquid, a disembodied mouth repeats a slightly modified version of Brecht’s poem which enacts a refusal of singing the dark times. The mouth exhorts us to “stop singing about the dark times and go.” Like a mantra, the voice repeats the same line over and again. Stop singing and go. Stop and go. But where to it’s hard to say, as we are stuck, suspended in a present without time facing a future unknown, while history seems to repeat itself, and nations raise and fall. It’s hard thus not to feel a sense of frustration and impotence vis-à-vis a reality that continuously crashes our hopes, turning dreams into nightmares, making impossible to envision existence beyond the violence of a present in disarray. In this respect, Polska’s video is a call to act that is also an investigation of precarious forms of life and of our collective psyche in these uncertain times.
A sense of stasis seems to reign in a world supposedly moving and transforming at high speed. Nothing seems to really change, not even the urge with which the voice urges us to do something. In the print Dream (2017), a sharpened black stone like those used as tools in the stone-age, blocks the vision, impeding the eye to look back to the viewer. Yet, the stone does not simply and only obstruct vision. What we see foregrounded is the stone, that appears as the central element of the image. The artist seems to ask us to focus our attention on the black stone which is here depicted like those tools and weapons, means of survival fashioned into knives, scrapers, spear blades, hand axes and used by humans for hunting, for gathering food and in the the production of clothing and shelters. The history of human kind is a history of violence and fierce resistance; of catastrophes, but also of survival. Despite the impossibility to imagine forms of life beyond capitalism, Polska reminds us that the possibility of action and transformation is always on the horizon. And like an omen, the enigmatic eyes of the black birds in the print Birds (2018), which shows the profiles of two black birds looking in opposite directions, seems to announce changes. We can only guess what these changes will bring. And yet, the impossibility to know should not prevent from embracing the openness of what we don’t know, and experimenting with the possibilities of new forms of sociality immersed in refusal and subversive songs.
In the print We Don’t (2017), juxtaposed to and in the middle of what looks like an exploded version of a constructivist landscape painting, is the sentence, “We don’t share the same temporality.” No. This is not the time in which Brecht wrote his poem, and although the political and social crisis investing Europe today bears some resemblances to that period, this is neither time for despair and resignation nor for the dream of messianic redemption. The multiplicity of temporalities that we inhabit has collapsed given concepts of time and space, opening a space for action, one in which art can be play a part in making the impossible become less so.
Federica Bueti
Biography
born 1985 in Lublin/PL, lives and works in Berlin
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024
Agnieszka Polska – Flowers on the Sun, MUHKA - Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, Antwerp
Dreaming Clocks, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
2023
Polska/ Ziętek, Dzielna Foundation, Warsaw
The Talking Car (Theatre Piece), BoCA Biennale, Lisbon
A Bonobo Looks At A Butterfly, A Black Moon Eclipses The Sun, Dawid Radziszewski, Warschau
2022
Creamcake: Outer Space Agencies, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
A Thousand Year Plan, Batalha Film Centre, Porto
2021
A Thousand Year Plan, Museum of Modern Art, Warschau
Two-Headed Horse, Agnieszka Polska and Sam Samiee, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Wien
The Thousand-Year Plan, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, Warschau
The New Sun, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Where Have You Been So Long?, La Casa Encendida, Madrid
2020
Agnieszka Polska: The Demon's Brain, Gdansk City Gallery, Gdansk
Agniezska Polska: Love Bite, FRYE, Seattle
5 Thousand-Year Plan, Museum of Modern Art, Warschau
The New Sun, Heide Museum, Melbourne
2019
Agnieszka Polska. I Call your Name, Associazione Barriera, Turin
The Burrow, Neuer Kunstverein, Wien
Voices, Birds, Stone Tools., Georg Kargl BOX, Wien
Agnieszka Polska at the Mobile Dome, New Infinity, Berliner Festspiele/Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin
2018
The Demon’s Brain, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin
Softly Spoken, Project Arts Center, Dublin
2017
Little Planet, Overduin & c.o., Los Angeles
Couckoo, Kasia Michalski Gallery, Warschau
2016
Screens Series: Agnieszka Polska, New Museum, New York
Poetry Passage, National Art Gallery, Prag
2015
The Moving Finger: A Performative Lecture with Agnieszka Polska, MoMa, New York
The Body of Words – Gallery Weekend Berlin, Gallery ZAK, Berlin
Future Days, TRAFO, Budapest
In the Search of the Talking Mountain, Arsenał, Białystok
2014
I Am the Mouth, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham
The Body of Words, Rijksakademie van de beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam
2013
Pseudoword Hazards, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg
Nonsense Syllables, Summerhall, Edinburgh
2012
Three Videos with Narration, video screening, Tate Modern, London
IBB-Viodeolounge, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
How the Work is Done, PinchukArtCentre, Kiev
Aurorite, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warschau
Intervention, Belvedere, Wien (Kuratiert von Martha Kirszenbaum)
2011
Gardener's Responsibility, Georg Kargl BOX, Wien
Duo, Goldex Poldex, Kraków (mit Tomasz Kowalski)
The Garden, BWA Gallery, Zielona Góra
2010
Three Videos with Narration, Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki, Krakau
Decades, Kunstmuseum Dieselkraftwerk Cottbus, Cottbus
Freisler, TV Tower, Berlin (mit Antje Majewski)
Three Videos with Narration, Zak | Branicka, Berlin
2009
Towards Oskar Hansen's Open Form, Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych, Lublin
The Calendar, art agenda nova, Krakau
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024
Ten Thousand Suns, 24th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney
Cosmos Cinema, 14th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station, Shanghai
My Last Will, Casino Luxembourg, Luxemburg
2023
... and they lived..., Kunsthalle Bratislava, Bratislava
Don´t Dream Dreams, Moderna galerija, MG+, Ljubljana, Slovenien
My Last Will, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Chemnitz
My Precious, Werkleitz Media Art Centre, Halle
FOOD AGE, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome
Chronic desire - Sete cronică, Museum of Public Transportation,Timișoara
2022
Climate of Concern: Burning Out in the Age of Fossil Expressionsm, RADIUS CCA, Delft
Blickle Archive Series #53: Surface Tensions, Belvedere, Wien
2021
Avantgarde und Gegenwart. Die Sammlung Belvedere von Lassnig bis Knebl, Belvedere 21, Vienna
An Incomplete & Unreliable Guide to Social Media War Room, Curated by Valentinas Klimašauskas, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Der Apfel. Eine Einführung (Immer und immer und immer wieder), Kunstmuseum Thun, Thun
What If a Journey... 3th Autostrada Biennal, Prizren
State and Nature, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden
Baltic Triennial 14: The Endless Frontier, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius
GEORG KARGL EDITIONS, Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna
2020
All the Love, MoCA - Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, Skopje
Would You Be Available…, Georg Kargl Permanent, Wien
Attempt at Rapprochement, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Wien
Dallas Aurora Biennale
Melbourne Festival
Biennale Labin
The Penumbral Age - Art in the Time of Planetary Change, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw
7th Canakkale Biennale
2019
Unfolded Matters, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Wien
Art Encounters Biennial of Contemporary Art, Timișoara
Female Video Artists from Poland, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokio
2018
Anti-, 6thAthens Biennale
Low form, MAXXI, Rom
Brace for Impact, de Appel, Amsterdam
Writing the Mountains, 6th Biennale Gherdëina
I am the Mouth, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (MSU), Zagreb
No Looking Back, Okay?, UGM Maribor Art Gallery, Maribor
2017
VIVA ARTE VIVA, 57th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, Venedig
Preis der Nationalgalerie 2017, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
PEACE, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Frankfurt
Suspended Animation, les Abattoirs - FRAC Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse
Paratoxic Paradoxes, Benaki Museum, Athen
Half-Truth, Museum of Sculpture – Królikarnia Palace, Warschau
Everything Is Getting Better. Unknown Knowns Of Polish (Post)Colonialism- SAVVY Contemporary Berlin
Commercial Break, Public Art Fund, New York
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, Warschau
Watchlist, Signal, New York
The Beguiling Siren is Thy Crest, Museum of Modern Art, Warschau
Sequences VIII: Elastic Hours- Sequences Performance Festival, Reykjavik
2016
The 8thClimate, 11thGwangju Biennale, Gwangju
Extended animation, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC
Common Affairs: Revisiting The Views Award– Deutsche KunstHalle, Berlin
Szalona Galeria, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (curated with Janek Simon and Jakub Barbaro)
Iwillmedievalfutureyou4– Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde
Iwillmedievalfutureyou4–Aarhus Kunsthaal, Aarhus
Histories of a Vanishing Present, The Mistake Room, Los Angeles
AMOR, OI Futuro, Rio de Janeiro
Memory at Last. Art in Poland: 1989 – 2016, Galleria Civica di Modena
Lost in the Archive, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga
The End of the World, Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato
Shape of Time – Future of Nostalgia, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bukarest
De – Mo – Cra – Cy, Galeria Labirynt, Lublin
2015
Shadow Scenes, Colomboscope Festival, Colombo
Kaprow’s Fluids, Public space project by Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
The Shadow of the Dome of Pleasure, Artspace, Auckland
Speaking Parts,Raven Row, London
Undiscovered Words, Highline, New York
Antje Majewski:Apple. An Introduction. (Over and over again), Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach
Laugther and Forgetting, Bucharest Art Week, Bukarest
Time Lapse, Sihtasutus Tallinna Kunstihoone Fond, Tallinn
2014
You Imagine What You Desire, 19. Bienale of Sydney, Sydney
In the Near Future, MOMA Warsaw Collection, MOMA Warsaw, Warschau
Antje Majewski: Apple. An Introduction. (Over and over again), Lodz
The Night of the Great Season, Kunsthalle Mulhouse, Mulhouse
The Structure and Properties of Matter, Hordland Kunstsenter, Bergen
The Sky is Blue in Some Other Way: A Diagram of a Possible Misreading, Galeria Elba Benitez, Madrid
As You Can See: Polish Art. Today, Museum of Modern Art, Warschau
Still bewegt. Videokunst und alte Meister, Altana Kultur Stiftung, Bad Homburg
The Mystic Gardener, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht
Development and Hygiene, Zachęta National Art Gallery, Warschau
The Lamp of Memory, Valentines Mansion, London Borough (with Tomasz Kowalski)
Collection. Fragment, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warschau
Future doesn’t wait, La Capella, Barcelona
Fragile Sense of Hope., Art Collection Telekom - me Collectors Room, Berlin
Crime in Art- Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków (MOCAK), Krakow
Strawberry Sausages, Nosbaum&Reding
Call me on Sunday, Krinzinger Projekte, Wien
2013
Mom, Am I Barbarian?, 13. Istanbul Bienali, Istanbul
Leisure, Discipline & Punishment, 6th Contour Biennial of Moving Image, Mechelen
30th Biennial of Graphic Art, Ljubljana
The Black Moon, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
The Future Generation Art Price @ Venice, Palazzo Papadopoli, Venedig
BRITISH BRITISH POLISH POLISH: Art from Europe's Edges in the Long '90s and Today, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Moulhouse
Views 2013 - The Deutsche Bank Foundation Award, Zacheta National Art Gallery, Warschau
Magazin 4, Bregenzer Kunstverein, Bregenz
Focus Poland Project: Take 5, CCA Znaki czasu, Toruń
2012
Intervention (with Lisa Oppenheim), Belvedere and 21er Haus, Wien
Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev
Project 35 - Volume 2, Independent Curators International, various venues
SOUNDWORKS, ICA, London
GREY PEAK OF THE WAVE, Harris Lieberman, New York
Air de Pologne, De garage, Mechelen
The Poster Show, Carlier | Gebauer, Berlin (mit Tomasz Kowalski)
Forgetting of Proper Names, Calvert 22, London
Sport in Art, MOCAK, Kraków
Misplaced, Displaced, Replaced, Rotwand Gallery, Zürich
2011
Sport in Art, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAK), Krakau
Misplaced, Displaced, Replaced, Rotwand Gallery, Zürich
In PRL only Military Academies, Militia Academies and PWSSP aren’t on strike,
Pies Gallery, Poznań
21 Artists Shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev
The Call for Fashion, Museum of Modern Art, Warschau
Project 35 – Volume 2, Independent Curators Internationational, Various venues. Soundworks, ICA –The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Grey Peak of the Wave, Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York
Objects and Disintegrations, Gdańsk City Gallery, Gdańsk
Air de Pologne, De Garage, Mechelen
The Poster Show, Carlier | Gebauer, Berlin
The Forgetting of Proper Names, Calvert 22 Gallery, London
Passion of an Ornithologist. On Myth Making, CCA Sokół, Nowy Sącz
The Promise, Galerie Crèvecoeur, Paris
2010
Vedo Cose Che Non Ci Sono, Polish Institute by MOMA Warsaw, Rom
Rapidshare, Atelierhof Kreuzberg, Berlin
Un seminaire a la campagne, France Fiction, Paris
Early Years, KunstWerke – Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Multiplex, peer to space, München
Disobedience, Lmakprojects, New York
Good Old Days, Aarhus Kunstbygning, Aarhus
The past is a foreign land, Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu, Toruń
Nothing Important is Just Art, Anaid Art Gallery, Bukarest
No Sleep!, BWA Gallery, Zielona Góra
2009
Anabasis, Festival of Dialogue of Four Cultures, Łodź
Wolność Od-zysku, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warschau
Qu'est–ce que c'est degueulasse?, Vienna center
Sport dla niewysportowanych, ZPAF i S-ka Gallery, Krakau
Polish landscape, Museum of Modern Fine Arts, Minsk
A!, Arsenal City Art Gallery, Poznań
Polish Alphabet_1, BWA Tarnów
2008
Medical Gymnastics, Video point, Galerie Zak | Branicka, Berlin
Ain’t no sorry, Museum of Modern Art, Warschau
The last, the new, Stalowa Wola
Blankly, perfect summer, Gallerie VertexList, New York
2007
16 objects that may not be found, artpol, Krakau
Selected Screenings and Performances
2023
Agnieszka Polska at e-flux Screening Room
2019
Black Atlantis, SALT, Istanbul
The sky above …, CCA, Tallinn
Medical Gymnasctics at Millennium Docs Against Gravity, Warschau
2018
Agnieszka PolskaatCentre Pompidou, Paris
Videoart at Midnight Festival, Kino Babylon, Berlin
Unfolded Matters, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
2017
The Leisure Time of a Firearm, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, Georgia
Videoart at Midnight #85: Agnieszka Polska, Babylon, Berlin
Children of the Internet, KIASMA, Helsinki
Agnieszka Polska, Tensta Konsthalle, Stockholm
2016
The Wrong Side of Me, Space, Tensta konsthall, Spånga
The Body of Words – performative lecture, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC
My Little Planet (performance), Kunstwerke, Berlin (Teil vom Emily Roysdon’s program)
Open Frame Award, goEast Film Festival, Wiesbaden
Film and Talk, Agnieszka Polska: Future Days, Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle, Berlin
Future Days, RISD Museum, Providence
2015
The Moving Finger – performative lecture with Agnieszka Polska, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Undiscovered Words, High Line Channel 14, New York
Talking Mountain at CPHD film Festival, Kopenhagen
Speaking Parts,Raven Row, London (performance mit David Bernstein)
Double Feature, Shirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
Watery Rhymes at T-mobile New Horizons Festival, Wrocław
2014
Future Daysat Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close, Salt Beyglu, Istanbul
Me and You and Everyone we meet, BAR, Barcelona
Agnieszka Polska at Me Collectors Room, Berlin
Nativity, Nottingham Contemporary (performance mit Sebastian Cichocki)
Future Daysat T-mobile New Horizons Festival, Wrocław
Sound Waves and Garbled Gibbers, Van Eyeck, Maastricht (performance mit Jay Tan)
Future Daysat Akbank, Istanbul
Future Daysat Tramway Artists’ Moving Image Festival 2014, Glasgow
2013
Future Days, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (screening und performative Lektüre mit Sebastian Cichocki)
All About These... Ladies and Gentlemen, Viafarini, Mailand
Hair, CPH:DOX, International Documentary Film Festival, Kopenhagen
Future Days, Contour 6. Biennial of Moving Image, Mechelen
Time To Recollect: Civil Virtue/ Sil Krol, Stadthausgalerie Kunsthalle Münster, Münster
goEast – 13th Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, Wiesbaden
Hair, 13th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul
20th International Festival of Animated Film, Stuttgart
Kino der Kunst, München
2012
How the Work is Done, 29th Kasseler Dokumentarfilm- und Videofest, Kassel
Film in Contemporary Art, Stockholm
FETISH & FIGURE, Institute of Contemporary Arts / Lux Biennal of Moving Image, London/ Palace de Tokyo, Paris / La Loge, Brüssel / Galerie KAMM, Berlin
Memoirs of an Amnesiac, Images Festival, Toronto
Between us, Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund
Art and Film: Tate Modern – Agnieszka Polska/Alina Szapocznikow, Tate Modern, London
The Themersons: 1 Day Before Yesterday – 1 Day After Tomorrow, ICA – The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
12x12. The IBB Video Lounge, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
Awards
2017
Winner of the Preis der Nationalgalerie
2014-2015
Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam
2013
Film Award 2013, MOMA Warsaw & Polish Film Institute
The Site Residency, Baltic Art Center, Visby, Gotland
Nominated for The Future of Europe Art Award, Stiftung Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig
Shortlisted for Views 2013 - The Deutsche Bank Foundation Award
2012
Shortlisted for Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev
2011
Grand Prix in the Geppert Award 2011, BWA Wrocław
Shortlisted for Preis für junge Filmkunst, Deutsche Filmakademie, Berlin
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