Exhibition "Experiment! Photography at the Beginning of the 20th Century in Lviv and its Polish and Ukrainian Continuators in the 20th and 21st Centuries"

Venue: Galeria FF, Galeria Imaginarium, Galeria Nowa, ŁDK, ul. Traugutta 18, Łódź

Opening times: Tuesday to Saturday: 12:00–18:00

A homage to Lviv photographers and filmmakers of the interwar period, the exhibition Experiment! Photography at the Beginning of the 20th Century in Lviv and its Polish and Ukrainian Continuators in the 20th and 21st Centuries will first be presented at three galleries of the Łódzki Dom Kultury: Galeria FF, Galeria Imaginarium and Galeria Nowa (ca. 350 sqm of exposition space altogether) from 24 November to 15 December 2018. The organisational and expositional centre of the project is the Galeria FF, a venue with 35-years’ experience and considerable achievement in the field of experimental and exploration photography as well as media art. The show will comprise works by about 30 artists, mostly eminent photographers active in Lviv: Henryk Mikolasch, Witold Romer, Jan Neuman, Aleksander Krzywobłocki, Władysław Bednarczuk, Danylo Figol and others. Their works are surely part of the "shared cultural heritage of Ukraine and Poland." One of the objectives behind this project is to provide a new and fresh dimension to this concept.

One of the works presented at the exhibition will be a video art piece TIME FORWARD. TWO TIMES BACK made by a media artist Oleh Voronko, on the basis of archive video materials processed by the Urban Media Archive, particularly, the newsreels from the Pshenychnyi Central State Film and Photo Archives of Ukraine, television news of Lviv television station from the 1950/60s stored at the State Archives of Lviv Region, and recordings from private collections.

Visitors will also get the chance to view works by classic avant-garde artists from Poland, including Józef Robakowski, Wojciech Prażmowski, Krzysztof Wojciechowski, Krzysztof Cichosz (founder of the Galeria FF), Jerzy Lewczyński, the Łódź Kaliska group, as well as younger artists, for instance Maciej Bohdanowicz and Maurycy Gomulicki. Contemporary artists from Lviv, including Roman Huk, Serhij Bratkovsky/Andrij Sahajdakovsky, Anastasija Starko, Oleg Voronko, Andrij Bojarov will contribute their photographic and video works, and even paintings inspired by both art history and digital techniques (Vlodko Kostyrko).

The project is meant to highlight the topicality and vitality of the experiments conducted in Lviv in the domains of film and photography in the period between the two world wars, as well as the importance of Lviv as a centre of contemporary European art. Crucial here are the obvious artistic connections and relationships between artists on either side of the border – an arbitrary one for them.

The exhibition is curated by Magdalena Świątczak (Galeria FF, Łódź) and Andrij Bojarov (Lviv), accompanying essays are authored by Adam Sobota, Marek Grygiel and Bohdan Schumylovych.

Co-funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Fund for the Promotion of Culture.

Works displayed at the exhibition come from collections of the following institutions and individuals: Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, Muzeum Narodowego we Wrocławiu, Muzeum Historii Fotografii w Krakowie, the Romer Family and others.

Main Project Partners:
Muzeum Historii Fotografii w Krakowie
Konsulat Generalny RP we Lwowie
Instytut Ukraiński, Ambasada Ukrainy
Arton Foundation

Media Partners:
TVP Kultura
DOC! Photo Magazine
Magazyn Szum
Magazyn Kalejdoskop
Toya TV
Center for Urban History of East Central Europe

Credits

Сover Image: Still from video art piece TIME FORWARD. TWO TIMES BACK / Oleh Voronko