Film Jill Godmilow: Close, Closer (Joanna Krakowska)Imagine a documentary film made up not so much of documentary footage as of fantasy, commentary, re-enactments, fiction, melodrama – Jill Godmilow’s ‘Far From Poland’ Literature I Had to Learn Spanish to Study the Aztecs (Inez Okulska)In my department here at Harvard, it used to be assumed years ago that if you taught a work in French, you’d bring it in the original. Nowadays, you can’t assume that every comparatist even knows ...| Biweekly - issue
Music The Intuitionists (Rafał Księżyk)The Grupa w Składzie and Andrzej Bieżan anthologies released in early 2014 along with the upcoming Tie Break box set offer a good view of avant-garde jazz in Poland| Biweekly - issue
Art Its own kind of truth (Jörg Heiser)Turowski and Baumgart provoke a reconsideration of actual history precisely by doctoring it. Maybe the term ‘metamodernism’ might apply for this Go Fuck Yourself (Zofia Maria Cielątkowska)Making love with my partner was a profound inspiration for ‘Fuses’. We focused on sexual erotic energy of love making. I wanted to be able to visualize what I felt within fucking – ‘Life Book’ exhibition in WRO Art Center until February 16 Film BOREDOM...| Biweekly - issue
Art Photographing a Peacock (Jacopo Fiorancio)Before you get going to Fotofestiwal in Łódź (6 – 16 June 2013) or Kraków Photomonth Festival (16 May – 16 June 2013), listen to the way stories are told by photographers Rafał Milach and Tomasz Wiech Literature Kronos. Personal accounting (Alan Lockwood)There’s a basic difference between the ‘Diary’ and ‘Kronos’. The ‘Diary’ is something that is created by the author. ‘Kronos’ is something that writes itself Ryszard K...| Biweekly - issue
Art Caucasian Bazaar (Iwo Zmyślony)Our work is transnational. We act like mediators or even post-national-mediators. We don’t belong to a single nation – we are intellectually and affectionately as Russian, as we are Polish, Iranian or American Szapocznikow in America (Alan Lockwood)You don’t often find a body of work that’s twenty years long that can sustain the range of really sophisticated interpretation that was brought to bear on it – says MoMa curator Cornelia Butler of the...| Biweekly - issue
Art Lovely, Human, True, Heartfelt (excerpt) (Alina Szapocznikow)The previously unpublished correspondence between one of the great women artists of the twentieth century, Alina Szapocznikow, and an eminent critic and museum director, her fiancé, then husband and friend, Ryszard Stanisławski Literature Diary Revisited (Alan Lockwood)Gombrowicz uses his own idiosyncratic terms like ‘maturity’, ‘immaturity’, ‘superiority’, ‘inferiority’, ‘form’. The index almost killed me....| Biweekly - issue
Art I Don’t Do Street Art (Zofia Zaleska)The authorities decided that styrofoam beams can’t just lie there without anyone around because they constitute a threat to public security – stories of art in public space by Krystian Truth Czaplicki Hey, You With the Camera! (Iwo Zmyślony)We go through the archive of the Exchange Gallery, established by Robakowski in 1978. My attention is drawn to a picture from Robakowski’s ‘An Exercise for Two Hands’ – the artist triumphantly pick...| Biweekly - issue
Art Design Centrum Kielce Opening (Klara Czerniewska-Andryszczyk)We will have to wait some time for tangible effects of DCK’s efforts, but the place itself merits a visit even today. It’s just a comfortable two-hour drive along E77 – exhibitions open till 4 August 2012 Literature CRAFTSMEN OF CULTURE:A Literary Kapo (Jan Gondowicz)The explosive mixture of hurt ambitions, feelings of superiority and complexes changes the editing process into a farce worthy of Gombrowicz himself. You ...| Biweekly - issue
Art Artur Żmijewski’s Reality Show (Nicola Trezzi)Nothing seems real at the 7th Berlin Biennale; even the term ‘biennale’ is fake, as this is not a biennial or a group exhibition. This is massive artwork by Artur Żmijewski. If we don’t realise that, we just believe in the fiction and becomes victims of it Industrial Ruinsand Other Objects (Karol Sienkiewicz)Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdańsk Shipyard keeps on redefining itself. This year’s Alternativa investigates two areas: mate...| Biweekly - issue
Art Never Surrender. The 7th Berlin Biennale (Karol Sienkiewicz)This is a biennale at a human scale. Despite its revolutionary slogans and personal tragedies served up on a silver platter, the overall sense is that of security Althamer in Minsk (Jan Szlaga)The night of 17 and 18 May was quite different in a country where public gatherings are illegal. 150 people dressed in golden suits marched the main street of Minsk to greet the sun Film Dumała (excerpt) (Paweł Sitkiewicz)My former Po...| Biweekly - issue
Art Occupation: Photojournalist (Iwo Zmyślony)I couldn’t fathom that plant directors would just let artists wander around their factory floors. That could never happen in a socialist country – Bogdan Łopieński about the 1st Biennale of Spacial Forms in Elbląg in 1965 National Museum Reopening (Krzysiek Krzysztofiak)The National Museum in Warsaw has been closed for more than a year. It reopens 17 May 2012. See the photos of the last arrangements SASNAL: In Theatres Now (Karol Sienkie...| Biweekly - issue
Art Art is Useless (Adam Mazur)I allow outside influences to reach me – Tillmans’ works are exhibited in Zachęta in Warsaw until the end of January The Final Showdown in Zachęta (Karol Sienkiewicz)The exhibition revolves around a few unpleasant stories with art taking centre stage in all of them. Macuga mixed the documents from the Gallery’s archive with her own works and interventions Film Polish Documentary Film Looking Up (Jo Harper)Tip of the iceberg of past, present and future o...| Biweekly - issue
Art Photography Reclaimed (Iwona Kurz)The albums ‘Polesie’ and ‘Kronikarki’ are a successful attempt at reclaiming photography. Chomętowska and Chrząszczowa’s images make the past seem contemporary, or at least stripped of the nostalgic patina of age PHOTOGRAPHY, STILLS & GNASH:Fraudulent Liaisons (Chris Niedenthal)The rules of our profession say that press photographs cannot be digitally manipulated in any way, other than what could have been achieved in a darkroom in the old d...| Biweekly - issue
Art Designing Objects, Designing Cities (Klara Czerniewska-Andryszczyk)Two parallel design events, the 5th Łódź Design Festival and Warsaw Under Construction 3 complemented each other perfectly this year WHO’S WHO AND WHY: Goshka Macuga (Agnieszka Le Nart)Goshka Macuga collects stories of censorship and revives an interest in the matter, leading the art world to question how much has changed in the past two decades The Castle is not Mine (Karol Sienkiewicz)For the last few months the Ce...| Biweekly - issue
Art Everything is a Black Girl (Katarzyna Bojarska)‘When the current president was running for office, all this racist shit just came right out from wherever it was sitting dormant and it was circulated in new, post-modern ways,’ says American artist Kara Walker Finding anInternational Language (Adam Mazur)‘My contribution isn’t new research. I’ve proposed a new way of presenting the work of Alina Szapocznikow within the context of contemporary art history,’ says Joanna Mytkowsk...| Biweekly - issue
Art PHOTOGRAPHY, STILLS & GNASH:Unidentified Family Photos (Chris Niedenthal)Very rarely, if ever, do we find any life-saving words on the back of a family photograph The Stage Opened Me (Karolina Sulej)Recently I was performing in a club with solid security and it didn’t prevent people from throwing bottles in my face. Fortunately I move a lot so I’m not an easy target WHO’S WHO AND WHY:Paulina Ołowska (Agnieszka Le Nart)As a child of socialist Poland, she thrives on the nostalgia...| Biweekly - issue
Art A Nature Lesson on Wspólna Street (Karol Sienkiewicz)The greatest attraction of Warsaw’s first Gallery Weekend was the opening of the Raster Gallery location, inaugurated with an exhibition by young Czech artist Eva Koťátková CULTURE 2.0 – Level 2.0 (John Biweekly)Accompanying to the Culture 2.0 Conference is the Enter Level 2.0 exhibition. What’s coming this year? There’s a selection for you Film Freedom Fighters in the Ghetto (Joanna Ostrowska)Panek’s film is an excellent...| Biweekly - issue
Intro Short Stop in Lithuania (John Biweekly)Will Poland take example of its neighbour and one day reach this beautiful state of no-billboards-on-top-of-other-billboards? Literature NOTES FROM UNDER THE TABLE: Flash-mob Miłosz vs. The Long and Lonesome Stand of Tadeusz Różewicz (James Hopkin)The centenary of Miłosz’s birth has been quite well covered in the UK. There was always something magisterial about him, both as a poet and as a man Media HALF A PAGE:Legia Apologises for Jedwabne...| Biweekly - issue
Art PHOTOGRAPHY, STILLS & GNASH: The Good Bad Old Days (Chris Niedenthal)All right then, so what are the advantages of shooting on film? WHO’S WHO AND WHY:Honza Zamojski (Agnieszka Le Nart)I feel lucky that I have a ‘profession’, that I don’t need to be an artist A Shaman of His Neighbourhood Tribe (Karol Sienkiewicz)The art-book publishing house Phaidon recently devoted an entire title to Althamer, thus inducting him into the club of modern classics Intro Exchange (John Biweekly)Pub...| Biweekly - issue
Art ROMAN OPAŁKA. A Time of Life or Time of Painting? (Ludovico Pratesi)Reflections on the works of Roman Opałka (1931-2011). Conceptual artist in need to represent irreversible time Film Big Top Cinema: The Two Riversides Festival of Art and Film (Jakub Socha)Movies often take second stage to meetings with the people behind the films. Audiences eagerly participate in the dialogue; there’s no ironic smirking Intro It’s All About the Congress (John Biweekly)This week we are focused mainl...| Biweekly - issue
Art WHO’S WHO AND WHY:Agata Bogacka (Agnieszka Le Nart)Agata Bogacka’s latest show is on at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw between 13 August and 9 October. Diaries are not as compelling as her earlier works as they don’t share a universality that inspired a greater degree of identification on the part of the viewer Film New Horizons. International Competition (Ludwika Mastalerz)The film I was rooting for the most was Daniel Cockburn’s ‘You Are Here’. This eclect...| Biweekly - issue
Art Ryfka Comethand Ryfka Goeth Away (Karol Sienkiewicz)At this year’s Venice Biennale Poland is represented by Israeli artist Yael Bartana. Her project is based on the idea of a Jewish renaissance movement forming in Poland. Unfortunately, the movement’s leader is assassinated... Intro Summer Break (John Biweekly)With this issue of Biweekly we’re taking a summer break, and will meet again on 19 August Literature Some Things Just Can’t Be Put Into Words (Agnieszka Słodownik)The Rea...| Biweekly - issue
Art AT A GLANCE: The Finger (Maria Poprzęcka)It is our quotidian experience — rather than the musings of researchers — which shows us that sight is effectively being superseded by an inferior, suspect sense: touch PHOTOGRAPHY, STILLS & GNASH: Nuts to Art Photography (Chris Niedenthal)I haven’t yet met a Pole who’s willing to pay me even $1,000,000 dollars for one of my pix WHO’S WHO AND WHY:Joanna Rajkowska (Agnieszka Le Nart)In this section we introduce Polish artists, places, an...| Biweekly - issue
Art AT A GLANCE: Too Beautiful (Maria Poprzęcka)Jodie Bieber’s picture of brutally destroyed beauty evokes associations with a photograph that few remember: that of Michelangelo’s ‘Pieta’ in the Vatican, damaged by a disturbed assailant in 1972 Film Filmmaker and Archaeologist (Piotr Czerkawski)Communist Poland’s Security Service analysed millions of our most intimate letters every year Intro BEFORE THE EUROPEAN CULTURE CONGRESS: The Wall (John Biweekly)You can recycle the intern...| Biweekly - issue
Film In Defense of Mothers (Bartosz Żurawiecki)If films display a lenient and understanding attitude towards fathers, it is because the directors are usually men themselves Intro Big Inauguration (John Biweekly)The Cultural Programme of Polish Presidency in the EU Inauguration is planned as an all‑day musical performance on 1 July, 2011 Literature BEFORE THE EUROPEAN CULTURE CONGRESS:Culture in a Uniting Europe (Zygmunt Bauman)Europe’s task consists of passing on to all the art of eve...| Biweekly - issue
Art PHOTOGRAPHY, STILLS & GNASH:63 Days of War Photography (Chris Niedenthal)The 63 days in question is the time it took for the Warsaw Uprising to start and stop. The year it started was 1944 Jewish Surrealism (Karol Sienkiewicz)He uses humour as a tool with which to probe the resilience of social taboos. Roee Rosen in Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw till 3 July Film BEFORE THE EUROPEAN CULTURE CONGRESS:Love Europe World of Zygmunt Bauman (John Biweekly)The film ‘...| Biweekly - issue
Art BEFORE THE EUROPEAN CULTURE CONGRESS:The Artist is Always Alone (Jacek Tomczuk)Grzegorz Kowalski, ECC Council member, on opportunism in art and the games artists play with the state and the financial market BEFORE THE EUROPEAN CULTURE CONGRESS:Man is a Beautiful Animal (DOROTA SEMENOWICZ AND KATARZYNA TÓRZ TALK TO JAN FABRE)‘The body is like an incredible paint box, a laboratory, a battlefield’ Rauch’s Hodge-Podge of Building Blocks (Jacek Dehnel)Is there really anything behind ...| Biweekly - issue
Art WHO'S WHO AND WHY:Julita Wójcik (Agnieszka Le Nart)Her primary focus is the tension created by the amalgam of divergent roles set upon women in contemporary society and the negative connotations of provincialism Film Poets Can Be Independent (Magda Chołyst)We don’t just live in Poland anymore. It’s time we abandoned the notion that we have any obligation towards Poland. Our obligation is to make good films Intro To All The Translators (John Biweekly)‘The kitchen window was open on...| Biweekly - issue
Art PHOTOGRAPHY, STILLS & GNASH: The Power of Photography (Chris Niedenthal)Why is it that photographs, even bad ones, can be so wanted by everyone? WHO'S WHO AND WHY:Radek Szlaga (Agnieszka Le Nart)‘My interviews are no longer valid after a month’ Jerzy Nowosielski (1923–2011).Villa dei Misteri (Dariusz Czaja)Let’s be honest: this isn’t a good time for icon-inspired painting, or for contemplating canvases that are so openly and ostentatiously religious The Art of Footnotes (Karol...| Biweekly - issue
Art WHO'S WHO AND WHY:Karol Radziszewski (KRZYSZTOF ŻUREK)‘Actually I always want to be somewhere else, but, at the end of the day, I am right here. I don’t know. Maybe it’s time to move out?’ Film An Emo Opera (Adriana Prodeus)Suicide cannot be unceremonious. But on the other hand, every good drama is an elegy White Boy From an Artistic Family (Michał Walkiewicz)We live in a society where the number of suicides is rising in direct proportion to the number of psychologists Intro Cu...| Biweekly - issue
Art The Simplest Hiding Place (Marta Lisok)She was climbing trees every day for 365 days. Her hyperactive behaviour was captured by a shutter Project Modernity (Lidia Pańków)‘We want to be modern’ is a must. Consider queuing up and socialising, because everyone is going Film Poland Suffers FromStockholm Syndrome (Piotr Czerkawski)Director of ‘Mother Teresa of Cats’ talks about family ties and lies Intro The Other Way Around (John Biweekly)The cover of Biweekly#14? Should one take ...| Biweekly - issue
Art Beyond Schengenia (Goran Injac)As a true feminist I make the personal political. I use my own body, with all its gender, racial, and temporal characteristics ― GORAN INJAC talks to TANJA OSTOJIĆ Intro 13 Ready to Go (John Biweekly)Let us absorb the surrounding, live it, and convert into something different. Change as the numbers in our archive. And congratulations to Wojciech Staroń for winning the Silver Bear at Berlinale for his camera work as an Outstanding Artistic Achievement Me...| Biweekly - issue
Art PHOTOGRAPHY, STILLS & GNASH: Love at First Click (Chris Niedenthal)Friedmann/Capa united in part by their hatred of fascism both went to Spain at the start of the Civil War in 1936, where they were slowly but steadily sucked into the whirlwind of war and war photography Kozyra’s Got the Power (Karol Sienkiewicz)Casting, which occupies an entire story of the Zachęta, is most likely the artist’s final foray into making dreams come true in art, or at least the end of her attempted caree...| Biweekly - issue
Art Afterimages of Life. Władysław Strzemiński and Rights for Art (Bogusław Deptuła)Up until now, Strzemiński has hardly been considered an artist with a limitless subconscious. His Łódź exhibition is an attempt to tap that source Intro Distant Close-up (John Biweekly)Visiting Isreal and / or Palestine could result in a political or social reportage, travel essay, a poem.. We will leave the political aspect on the side. Let street art speak for itself. Or is it wall-street art? Li...| Biweekly - issue
Film He was a brilliant observer (Mikołaj Jazdon)In December the National Audiovisual Institute is releasing another DVD in the Polish School of Documentary series: Władysław Ślesicki. We publish an interview with Barbara Ślesicka, wife of the film maker Intro Culture Counts (John Biweekly)The year 2010 is coming to an end. Should we COUNT on culture in the next one? Literature Pups (Sylwia Siedlecka)Read an exerpt from ‘Pups’, a novel by Sylwia Siedlecka Poems Pups (Sylwia Siedlecka)| Biweekly - issue
Art Art Translation Agency (Agata Diduszko-Zyglewska)The project’s main idea is to open people to more creative interpretations of art. I also try this way to stir things up a little in the available knowledge on contemporary art. Karolina Breguła talks to Agata Diduszko-Zyglewska Film Lone Wolf: Mariusz ‘Wilk’ Wilczyński Speaks (Kalina Mróz)Mariusz Wilczyński is a painter, performer, author of music vireos and animated films. He speaks about animation, music videos, life in Podko...| Biweekly - issue
Film 10 Errors that Have (Not) Changed Cinema (Rafał Marszałek)Wajda does not like those of his children that have not been successful. I once tried to explain to him that the audience does not always vote with its legs – he listened closely but with pity in his eyes Intro CULTURE 2. 0 – Culture Resources (John Biweekly)This year’s conference consists of discussions, lectures, interactive exhibition, and a surprising poetry event. If you didn’t get the chance to pin down the conce...| Biweekly - issue
Art WHO'S WHO AND WHY:Twożywo (John Biweekly)In this section we introduce Polish artists, places, new phenomena. We always ask the person or the place’s representative the following question: WHY ARE YOU HERE? It’s completely up to them, how are they going to interpret the question and answer it: TWOŻYWO Film Paweł Łoziński’s Cine-Eye (Tadeusz Sobolewski)I try to take a close look at the world which is seemingly unattractive. After all, what can be attractive about people being co...| Biweekly - issue
Art Catching Up (Bogusław Deptuła)There was supposed to be an awful scandal and a true revolution. There was none, but instead we may be dealing with a beginning of an evolution SOMETHING OR OTHER:Elżbieta (Irena Grudzińska-Gross)Actresses or not, we all struggled with difficulties, perhaps greater perhaps lesser, but most certainly somewhat similar to those faced by our contemporaries who did not emigrate From the Head: a Carnival Potential of Instability (Marta Lisok)In the ‘Do It ...| Biweekly - issue
Art WHO'S WHO AND WHY:The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (John Biweekly)In this section we introduce Polish artists, places, new phenomena. We always ask the person or the place’s representative the following question: WHY ARE YOU HERE? It’s completely up to them, how are they going to answer it. Time for The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw Film Public sunlightand private shade (Adriana Prodeus)Brothers Quay are the central figures of the retrospective at the 10th Era New Horizons festival...| Biweekly - issue
Art WHO'S WHO AND WHY:Mikołaj Długosz (John Biweekly)In this section we introduce Polish artists, places, new phenomena. We always ask the person or the place’s representative the following question: WHY ARE YOU HERE? It’s completely up to them, how are they going to interpret the question and answer it. MIKOŁAJ DŁUGOSZ is up next PHOTOGRAPHY, STILLS& GNASH: 3D or not 3D? (Chris Niedenthal)3D has been around now for almost a hundred and sixty years. Introduced to the public at London...| Biweekly - issue
Art Constellations of connections (Bogusław Deptuła)Words don't lie, but sentences do. A word cannot lie. But put three words together and distortion begins – Stanisław Dróżdż (1939-2009) had a very deep understanding of the verbal-linguistic structure of our world WHO'S WHO AND WHY:Kobas Laksa (John Biweekly)In this section we introduce Polish artists, places, new phenomena. We always ask the person or the place’s representative the following question: WHY ARE YOU HERE? It’s com...| Biweekly - issue
Art Dancing Eyes, Unclear Pictures (Antoni Ziemba)Maria Poprzęcka's fascinating book tells the story of art and artists interested in the phenomenon of uncoordinated and misty seeing Film WHO'S WHO AND WHY:Bartek Kulas (John Biweekly)In this section we introduce Polish artists, places, new phenomena: BARTEK KULAS is currently in Cannes promoting his latest animated movie Millhaven. Soon to be seen at the 50th Kraków Film Festival An Atlas of Polish Cinema (Paulina Kwiatkowska)Andrzej Wajda ...| Biweekly - issue
Art Learning the Gender Lesson (Marta Lisok)The title of the Zachęta exhibition, ‘Gender Check. Feminity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe.’ which sounds like a wake-up call or an interrogation question, makes you stand at attention. It demands a clear answer: what’s my gender? PHOTOGRAPHY, STILLS & GNASH:Which Way Photojournalism? (Chris Niedenthal)Why bother paying big money to professionals, when we can usually get much cheaper, if not free work from passers-by with ce...| Biweekly - issue
The comical aura surrounding the painter Rousseau led young Picasso to a grand idea. In December 1908, he decided to throw a party in honor of Rousseau’s genius – a banquet that would become history| www.biweekly.pl