“IS IT BETTER TO BE A GOOD ARTIST OR A GOOD PERSON?”
co-presented by the Polish Cultural Institute in New York
- APRIL 18 – MAY 13, 2006
-
Opening: Friday, April 21 2006, 7-10 PM
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-
RENTAL GALLERY - 936 Mei Ling Way, Chinatown
- Los Angeles, CA 90012
- Tel. 213.617.0143
Curated by Lukasz Gorczyca & Michal Kaczynski
Artists: Azorro, Agata Bogacka, Michal Budny, Rafal Bujnowski, Hubert Czerepok & Zbigniew Rogalski, Tom Dale, Oskar Dawicki, Slawomir Elsner, Aneta Grzeszykowska & Jan Smaga, Igor Krenz, Zbigniew Libera, Marcin Maciejowski, Bartek Materka, Wilhelm Sasnal
The exhibition Is It Better to Be a Good Artist or a Good Person? is a show of artists represented by the Warsaw-based RASTER gallery. Beyond that, it is a presentation of a specific spirit that imbues Raster’s activities: friendships, collective activities of the artists, and a kind of art that questions and analyzes its own role, its rationale, and its ethics.
Raster Gallery has been run since 2001 by the highly regarded curators and critics Lukasz Gorczyca and Michal Kaczynski, best known for Raster art magazine, which they started in 1995 and transformed into an on-line weekly in 2000 (http://raster.art.pl/). The gallery almost immediately became one of the most influential contemporary art galleries in Poland, presenting the best of the country’s emerging young artists, and some from abroad. Raster not only sells their work but promotes the artists and helps them realize their projects.
Located in top-floor quarters of a 19th-century apartment complex, it maintains its private, independent character as a meeting place while organizing a challenging, even subversive program of multidisciplinary activities, including screenings, discussions, and literary or musical events. Working both internationally and locally, Raster Gallery can combine the most progressive art achievements with the spirit of everyday social existence.
Its projects often reflecting on the specificity of ambient visual culture, embracing both the underground scene and a commercial approach, Raster Gallery has co-organized festivals at the Centre for Contemporary Art “Zamek Ujazdowski” in Warsaw (“The Poets and the City”, 1998 & 2000; “Festival Ludique”, 1999), and has become increasingly known abroad through its co-operation with foreign artists and galleries and its presentations at such international fairs as Liste and NADA. Works by its artists are in several private and museum collections in Poland and abroad, including the U.S.