systeMY / systemUS - A Review

As promised earlier I will attempt to give you an over-view of the exhibition opening I attended on Friday evening. Friday was for me and, more importantly the artists and curator, the culmination of a week of on-site preparation and many months of personal work.

The exhibition is at Lodz Dom Kultury (Culture House) and more specifically Galeria Imaginarium on the ground floor of the building.

I am not a professional art critic and have no real idea how to write a review and thus I will attempt to give you a virtual tour of the exhibition and allow you to draw your own conclusions as to its effect.

Entering through the glass doors you can not help but notice the striking logo of the exhibition designed by the exhibition's curator Mariusz Sołtysik (PL). The bar code logo pertains to the automated process found as a central theme of the individual exhibits of SysteMY/stystemUS.

The first thing you will notice is three large flatscreens displaying three videos of Dmitry Strakovsky (USA) entitled "The Mall; The Wheel; The Departure." Filmed in a shopping centre, mountainous area and aircraft; these films have a strikingly spooky similarity from what are essentially three very different realms.

Keyword: communities by Travis Shaffer

 Opposite these films lie the work of Travis Shaffer (USA). The work, "Keyword: communities" the artist uses Google search to map community centres in the UK, USA, Manhattan and Kentucky. Next to these large scale maps are two small books entitled "34 Parking Lots in Los Angeles" and "Real Estate Opportunities/A 2010 International Investment Guide. Both books look at the distribution of resource with the second plotting the ten most indebted countries following the 2008 financial crash.

The next piece you notice as you walk through is a collection of photographs by US artist Talena Sanders. The photos depict the rich Mayan cultural history found in ethnic Guatemalan traditional dress and fabrics. Opposite these are two vidoes and accompanying pieces by Ela Wysakowska-Walters called "Pocket Dictator" which was reviewed by me here.

On the same side of the room is a vidoe by Karolina Głusiec entitled "Perfornance 2011." The work is an animated film bringing to life the structure and sound of a pianola. The video becomes hypnotic in its simple beauty.

Wall 38 by e.w.walters

Opposite this film are two somewhat complimentary pieces. The first by Ela Wysakowska-Walters is an interactive sculpture called "Wall 38". The visitor must plug a headphone jack into one of 38 sockets and then construct their own experience based on the "indefinite references" they hear, continuing onto other sockets as and when they wish. Next to this lies a sculpture by Anna Macleod called "Polar Tension". The piece uses magnets to construct a seemingly impossible arrangement of metal sheets and strings.

Access all Areas by Anna Macleod

Macleod's work has the honour of holding the last position of the room in the form of "Access All Areas. Water Optics" which uses similar optical illusions to bring attention to the disproportionate use of water in the world.

The Erotic life of XAU by Dmitry Strakovsky

 Last but by no means least, Strakovsky's work returns in a second room shield by large black curtains. "The Erotic Life of XAU" looks at the position of aesthetics in the world through an analysis of the artificial position of gold within the world economy.

As promised this was a virtual tour of the exhibition. Intentionally i have not gone into huge detail as I do not wish to spoil the effect. I therefore simply recommend going to the exhibition in Lodz (ul. Traugutta 18) which is open until 2nd July 2011.

systeMY / systemUS

This is just a short pre-posting in way of a form of advertising. On Friday 20th at 18.00 in Lódź is the grand opening of the much awaited systeMY / systemUS exhibition at Lódź Culture House's 'Galeria Imaginarium' (ul. Traugutta 18).

The exhibition is curated by Mariusz Sołtysik and features four American artists, one Irish artist and one Polish artist. Importantly for me, the Polish one is me wife Ela Wysakowsk-Walters (see Pocket Dictator) hence my pre-posting.

I will of course post a full report after the opening. The exhibition will be open for a further month and so please take the time out to take a look :)

Karma and petrol stations

A few weeks ago I moaned on this blog about an Orlen petrol station on the A2 (here) and am happy to report that my insistence on not being ripped off (no matter by only 37gr) has had a positive effect. Well at least that's how I like to see it.

On Saturday I and my wife stopped at a BP petrol station in Łódź. To be honest I didn't really plan to get petrol but we wanted to use the toilets and so I decided to stop at BP as they are always nice and clean (the toilets that is). While my wife went in to use the toilets I started filling up (thankfully no attendants at BP). I noticed that the screen was displaying 48zl and thought that perhaps the pump had not been cleared from the customer before and was not actually giving me petrol. I released my grip on the pump and could feel the pressure difference and then re-squeezed the pump and again felt the difference; therefore I continued filling my car believing that the screen was just broken.

Upon finishing I went into pay and told the women my pump number and that I thought the pump was broken as it had displayed 48zł from start to finish. She told me that the computer showed zero and that pump 3 had not been used. This was odd. For a second I felt that I was a complete idiot and that I had been standing for several minutes next to a car while not actually achieving anything. I said I'd go and check/refill my car. I decided first to check my car's petrol guage and guess what: I had at least three times as much petrol as I had before pulling into BP. This was bizzare.

I returned to the cashdesk and told them that I have petrol and that the machine must be wrong. Here begun the surreal part. For the next ten minutes the cashiers and the manager tried to convince me that I had not taken any petrol and that as far as their systems were concerned everything was fine. I pride my self on being an ethical and honest person and will always alert a waiter if they have undercharged me in a restaurant etc and so told the BP staff several times that I had taken petrol. Alas to no avail. If you have ever watched episodes of Little Britain then the line "the computer says no" will aptly describe this situation.

The manager refused to accept/comprehend the possibility that the computer/pump was broken and just repeated that I/we were wrong/mistaken. In the end I left my card and told her to call me if her accounts do not add up and we left. I estimate that we drove away with around 80-100zł worth of free petrol.

Dead man's boots

There is an old phrase that means a position/trade is very hard to advance within because you have to wait for the person above you to leave or die in order to take their place, hence 'dead man's boots'.
Why am I talking of some smelly fellas footwear? Well, being the simple Englishman that I am, I naturally understood that when the Mayor (or President) of Lodz was booted out (excuse the over use of foot related vocabulary, but I couldn't resist) that a new one would be elected. Oh how wrong I was.
It is only due to a passing remark of a colleague that the truth was unveiled to this intrepid little explorer. For the best part of a year, Lodz has been in the hands of a prime-ministerial stand-in. PM Tusk simply appointed some bloke to do the job. Problem was that as an un-elected official he does not/did not hold all the powers of a full president.
The up-shot: money from one department can't be re-assigned to another etc... and Lodz remains in a mess. Only now after 9 months do we have a new PO President-elect. Hanna Zdanowska won the run-offs against SLD Dariusza Jońskiego with a roughly 60/40 split of the votes. That said only only 22.34 percent of the electorate turned out to vote and so 60% is not much, but hey!
Let's see what President Zdanowska is able to do with Lodz's often chaotic administration.

HUB or SChAB

Hub or Schab – an exhibition which did not happen.
by Mariusz Sołtysik

participating artists:

Agnieszka Chojnacka (PL)
Christine Mackey (IRL)
Ela Walters (PL)
Wiktor Polak (PL)
Mariusz Soltysik (PL)
Dmitry Strakovsky (USA)

place: Mediations Biennale, Poznań, Poland www.mediations.pl
date: 11/09/2010

The above exhibition took place as part of the Poznan Biennale, however it was organized by Lodz based artists and involved an international cast as the list above shows. The exhibition consisted of six videos simultaneously playing in the same room. The life-size projections told differing stories but rested on the same basic brief: to construct a video in which you talk about a piece of work or your work in general. By doing this Mariusz Soltysik risked bringing together a mish-mash of images in an incoherent deluge, yet this bold stroke on the curators side allowed for true artistic freedom and when placed together the six films created a symbiant whole that more than superceeded its component parts. HUB or SChAb illustrates well the often chaotic competition that exists within many 'curated' exhibitions, where works scream out for attention. These works from six very different artists draw the viewer in, enticing them to discover more about the artist and their work. HUB or SChAB allows us to enter the thought process of the artists.
For more details please visit the artists' websites.

Mayoral Eviction

The Warsaw Voice reported on Tuesday that:

Łódź Residents Vote to Recall Their Mayor , January 19, 2010 Inhabitants of the central city of Łódź have voted unanimously to recall their mayor, Jerzy Kropiwnicki, in a special referendum on Sunday.

Over 95 percent of these who took part in the referendum wanted the incumbent mayor dismissed, with the 22.2 percent turnout, which is enough to consider the results binding.

When the referendum results are confirmed Kropiwnicki, who has been the mayor of Łódź since 2002, will be replaced by a commissioner appointed by the Prime Minister.

The referendum was inspired by local Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) politicians, who blame the right-wing mayor for ineffectual investments, expensive and unnecessary business trips, closure of a new theatre complex and faulty infrastructure and transport.

To those who know Lodz this comes as no surprise. There have been a catalogue of bad decisions and people are generally frustrated with his actions.

Wacky Races

As I mentioned in a previous post, Lodz has done what no other city (I know of) has dared to do. The BBC reports today that legal street races have begun along Lodz's ring-roads. The idea has sprung from the need to combat illegal races that often occur along the cities streets. Now anyone with a road legal car and a licence can compete in the night races where it is claimed that up to 10,000 people turn up to watch.

As I said previously, this is a bold and innovative step and I highly commend Lodz's city council and police authorities for what is inevitably a controversial initiative. - Good effort :)

Wackey races

I was surprised to see the following article on Top Gear's Website:

Lodz of fun
Crudely informed stereotype it may be, but we'd never have
flagged the Polish police force as a progressive bunch.
However, news
reaches us that police in Lodz, Poland's second city, plan to cordon off
sections of the town at night to allow street racers to compete without speed
limits.
It's all part of a bid to keep youths from organising illegal night
races, and police believe the measures will help to cut down accidents in the
city.
"We've come to an understanding with the organisers of the illegal
races," said Lech Ryszewski, head of the Lodz motoring club, which has been
working with the police force to get the night races up and running.
"The
motoring club has created a Street Legal section, which will organise the races
in closed-off streets, under the supervision of licensed organisers and judges.
In return, participants are obliged to make sure no one organises similar races
on city streets."
Understandably, some sections of the Polish media have
likened the measures to organising a piss-up in a brewery and not expecting
people to get drunk outside. But just imagine all those pimped-up Ladas and
Trabbies...

I think the idea is both great and terrible. Generally finding alternative ways for young men (mainly)to get excitement is great. But surley the streets have houses and the likes next to them. Can't a race track be found?

If anyone knows if this is going ahead then please let me know. Perhaps TG has got the wrong end of the stickshift.

That said, perhaps TG should update their info on Poland as Ladas and Trabbies are not too common these days!!

Łódż Arising

It is rare that the journalists at Poland Monthly venture much outside the safe environs of Warszawa, with industrial projects in Silesia and the like being perhaps the exception. However, I was pleased to see this months PM had an article about Łódź. What is more, it wasn’t purely economy or business related. It was on a grander scale; that is Culture and People!! I had heard through the Grape Vine about Atlas owner Andrzej Walczyk and film maker David Lynch’s ambitious project for Łódź. However, I had not read the details about it in an English language article (Polish still mainly being of the spoken/listening variety despite being her three years). The plans are defiantly ambitious and will revolutionize the center of Łódź. Not mentioned in the article is the rebuilding of Łódź Fabryczna (one of the two main stations in Łódź). The plan apparently is to build an underground station akin to Warszawa’s. In a city with 120+-year-old buildings and street foundations this will require a delicate hand. That said if completed, then it will immensely improve and somewhat dreary and dare I say it foreboding place.
What does this all mean for Łódź? Well, Łódź has a somewhat poor reputation. It is not up there in the top destinations in Poland. Krakow, the Tri-City, the capital and others outshine poor old Łódź. After seven years of coming to Poland as a tourist and visiting mainly the Tri-City and Warszawa, I moved to the Łódź region having never actually seen it (Strange but true!). After being here for three years I can honestly say I love the city and wouldn’t swap it for any other in Poland. Due to its poor reputation it doesn’t have the pretension and attitude of some of the others. That said, it has original architecture, dating back to the 19th Century. This is not the Regal grandeur of Krakow or the merchants haven of Gdansk, but the hard reality of an industrial epicentre. Combine this with a bountiful supply of universities colleges and academies and you have the makings for a cultural centre. Lynch has recognized something that has been hidden for a long time and I hope will finally be let out of the bag.

Ok, enough if the flag-waving, Let us just sit back and see what will happed. After the neglect of the post-industrial period, Łódź can only get better!!

Lodz's Anti-Semetic Reign of Acceptance

On the 14th March the Lodz City Hall hosted a Teenage protest concerning the amount of anti-semetic graffiti and general anti-semitism that exists in Lodz. Lodz (Poland's second largest city) is regarded as being the most anti-Semitic city in Poland. The City's mayor was even vocal about the issue. However, how much has changed? Everyday I go past vulgar graffiti, which one would think could be easily white-washed over. However, little seems to be done about it. It is left to scar the city. If the authorities truly wished to deal with the situation, surely a few cans of paint and a band of willing workers from the city's unemployed could be found. - But no, the graffiti stays. Is this a case of public abhorance, while privatly the city's management accept and condone the anti-semetism that prevails.