What you see when you see: Contemporary art and new collaborations from Poland
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The Polish embassy and the cultural centre are making efforts to connect and collaborate with India through cultural exchange. And visual artists seem to strike the right chord to have creative conversations across cultures.
“Mutual ignorance is a major constraint on stronger bilateral cooperation between
Poland is seen through a historical prism (“a country that suffered a lot during the Second World War”, “a fellow socialist country”), with some social affinities to India (“the strong role of religion”, conservative society, very strong family ties, friendly people). As was observed, “the image of Poland is still a tabula rasa, and you can write on it as you like”. Another interesting comment was that even if the perception of Poland in India is weak, it creates rather positive associations, which are neutral at worst but rarely ever negative. This offers Poland a pool of goodwill which should be exploited wisely. As most respondents confirmed, their image of Poland has improved considerably after only their first visit. There were also complaints raised at treatment as a “potential immigrant” by border guards at the airports.
Investment in cultural exchange is an initiative that aims at promoting innovative and creative approaches which enhance culture as a bridge to sustainable social, economic and human development, and at better enhancing creativity, cultural industries and cultural heritage in all its forms as a powerful and unique tool for sustainable social, economic and human development, job creation opportunities, social cohesion, education and mutual understanding, thus bringing forth new opportunities for international cooperation.
Throughout the twentieth century, political changes have usually had an influence on fundamental changes in Polish art. The country’s recovery of independence in 1918 and the birth of the
The emergence of
The
‘Absurd – Nonsense – Oxymoron’, a unique project encompassing the artistic creations of contemporary Polish artists, is being staged at the premises of the Chitrakala Parishat, from November 25.
The exhibition is a review of artworks provoking reflection, based on the mechanism mentioned in the title, using also grotesque exaggeration, and a specific sense of humour. It reveals the issue of evaluation of the reality surrounding us, a critique of the political and artistic systems and the artist’s position in the social hierarchy. In a perspicacious way, it undermines the status quo, not avoiding intelligent criticism, humorous punch lines, grotesque or absurd lapses. Using the resources and stylistics typical of pop culture, it is, at the same time, full of nonsense humour, which often purposefully breaks the division between low and high culture.
The exhibition has the artworks of 11 contemporary Polish artists extending through diverse creative fields like videography, photography, street art, wall painting and oil painting. The exhibition, on till Dec 23, is complemented by a series of workshops conducted by the exhibiting artists that create a much-needed interaction within the college.
(Suresh Jayaram is a visual artist,curator and art historian; his column features perspectives on the Arts)
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