We’ll manage, of course / Stay Ready

We’ll manage, of course / Stay Ready
Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2016
opening: 23.09.2016, 5 p.m.

“Of sabres there are plenty; all gentry to horse,
Nephew and I shall lead, and – we’ll manage, of course!”

This quote from “The Settlement”, the 6^th book of Adam Mickiewicz’s epic novel “Pan Tadeusz”, which has been imprinted on the national attitude towards political reality in Poland. Mickiewicz wrote his great epic in exile, turning towards the idealised image of the past as the start of a better future. Perhaps in this same way he gave a shape to an approach to history and the past as seen through the prism of the past, guaranteeing Poland its journey forward, but always facing the opposite direction. Poles’ experience of history and their reactions to certain events consistently reveal the same traits characteristic of the Polish spirit and their role in the tumult of history.

The works of seven artists presented at the Biuro Wystaw are a commentary on Poland’s political reality. These observations take on new meanings for reality at large. They ask questions about the engagement of art and its political nature. In the face of changes in local and global politics that have shaken up the prevailing order, the works of these artists make the viewer conscious of the pendulous movement of history. They say: “Stay Ready”.

The exhibition is a continuation of “We’ll Manage Somehow / Polish Elections in Poland 2005 A.D.”, which was shown at Piotr Nowicki’s Gallery in Warsaw in 2005.

Artists whose works are shown at the exhibition: Hubert Czerepok, Monika Drożyńska, Weronika Ławniczak, Slavs and Tatars, Mieczysłąw Szczuka, Władysław Strzemiński, Piotr Wysocki, Jerzy Ryszard Zieliński (Jurry), Rafał Żarski

Works of Weronika Ławniczak courtesy of Czułość Gallery.
Works of Slavs and Tatars courtesy of Raster Gallery.

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