The European Capital of Culture Wrocław 2016 is proud to announce the opening of the exhibition Dispossession, a collateral event of the 56th Venice Biennale. Dispossession takes as its departure point Wroclaw’s post-War history of displacements. The exhibition is guided by the recognition of a universal and atemporal dimension of dispossession in its psychological and material manifestations.
Artists living in Poland, Ukraine and Germany participate in the exhibition. A historical axis of displacements – Lviv-Wroclaw-Dresden – sketched out here serves as a departure point for thinking about contemporary migration in the light of current conflicts that have left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.
Dispossession does not mean only depriving somebody of their property, but also pertains to freeing from evil spirits, an exorcism that is meant to oust unwanted energies. The exhibition focuses on a home, both in relation to its symbolic and spatial meaning. A home that is abandoned and which carries traces and histories of its former inhabitants; which is longed for and fought for; which can be given and refused; which might mean safety or death.
The exhibition located in the renaissance Palazzo Doná uses domestic spaces, such as bedrooms or a kitchen, to present site-specific installations in order to further complicate a dialogue between artistic intrusions and an intimate context. Dispossession – curated byMichał Bieniek and Małgorzata Miśniakiewicz – is composed of previously unseen works by ten artists: Manaf Halbouni, Susanne Keichel, Thomas Kilpper, Szymon Kobylarz, Michael Merkel, Dorota Nieznalska, Tomasz Opania, the Open Group, Andriy Sakhaydakovsky and Oksana Zabuzhko.
Opening hours - 10.30-18.30 (Tuesday- Sunday)
Venue: Palazzo Dona Brusa
Opening period: 9th May – 22nd November 2015 (6-8th May preview)
Names of exhibiting artists:
- Dorota Nieznalska
Lives and works in Gdańsk, Poland
http://www.nieznalska.com/
- Tomasz Opania
Lives and works in Wrocław, Poland
https://www.facebook.com/tomasz.opania.5
- Szymon Kobylarz
Lives and works in Katowice, Poland
http://culture.pl/pl/tworca/szymon-kobylarz - Open Group – Founded in Lviv in 2012 by five Ukrainian artists: Yuriy Biley (born 1988 in Uzhorod), Anton Varga (born 1989 in Uzhgorod), Pavlo Kovach (born 1987 in Uzhgorod), Yevgen Samborsky (born 1984 in Ivano-Frankivsk), Stanislav Turina (born 1988 in Makeevka in the Donetsk region). The permanent members of the group are Mr Yuriy Biley, Mr Pavlo Kovach (based in Lviv), Mr Stanislav Turina (based in Mukachevo), Mr Anton Varga (based in New York).
http://open-group.org/en/
- Yuriy Biley
Lives and works in Lviv, Ukraine
- Pavlo Kovach
Lives and works in Lviv, Ukraine
- Stanislav Turina
Lives and works in Mukachevo, Ukraine
- Anton Varga
Lives and works in New York, USA
- Oksana Zabuzhko
Lives and works in Kiev, Ukraine
http://zabuzhko.com/en/
- Andriy Sahaydakovsky
Lives and works in Lviv, Ukraine
- Manaf Halbouni
Lives and works in Dresden, Germany
http://www.manaf-halbouni.com/
- Susanne Keichel
Lives and works in Dresden, Germany
http://www.susannekeichel.de/
- Thomas Kilpper
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany
http://www.kilpper-projects.net/blog/
- Michael Merkel
Lives and works in Weimar and Dresden, Germany
http://www.michael-merkel.eu/
Names and qualifications of curators and collaborators:
- Małgorzata Miśniakiewicz – curator
- Michał Bieniek – curator
- Paweł Rogowski – producer
- Katarzyna Zielińska – coordinator
- Special thanks to Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz for her advise on German context
Names of Supporters:
- The City of Wroclaw
- The City of Lviv
- The City of Dresden
- Embassy of Ukraine in Poland
- Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Lviv
- Consulate General of Germany in Wroclaw
- Honorary Consulate of Ukraine in Wroclaw
- Polish Institute in Kyiv
- Kunsthaus Dresden, Municipal Gallery for Contemporary Art
