{"id":11614,"date":"2025-01-13T14:22:49","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T14:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mck.krakow.pl\/wystawy\/fotoblok-europa-srodkowa-w-ksiazkach-fotograficznych\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T12:57:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T12:57:58","slug":"fotoblok-europa-srodkowa-w-ksiazkach-fotograficznych","status":"publish","type":"wystawy","link":"https:\/\/mck.krakow.pl\/en\/wystawy\/fotoblok-europa-srodkowa-w-ksiazkach-fotograficznych\/","title":{"rendered":"Photobloc: Central Europe in Photobooks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The exhibition presented a wide-ranging and critical view of the tumultuous history of Central Europe through photobooks. Over one hundred publications, artistic yet in some instances propagandistic, too, were presented from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary. The curated selection showed how photography reflected the process of the forging of new identities of emerging or re-emerging Central European countries, and influenced their image, ideology, dreams of modernization and the future. The broad, transnational perspective made it possible to see the common fate of people of this part of the continent.\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photobooks constitute a genre that has not, as yet, been fully explored by lovers of photography, graphic design, history, politics, or art. Throughout the twentieth century, coffee-table books, booklets, and photobooks have chronicled humanity\u2019s turbulent past, showing the particularities of the history of different countries and parts of the world. As part of the exhibition Photobloc: Central Europe in Photobooks<\/em>, we decided to show selected publications related to our region of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n \n The exhibition was part of a research project on photography books launched by co-curators \u0141ukasz Gorczyca and Adam Mazur. The selection presented at the ICC included books by the most eminent masters of the lens: the Czech Franti\u0161ek Drtikol, Edward Hartwig, one of the best-known Polish photographers, and the outstanding Romanian photographer Hedy L\u00f6ffler, as well as shocking collections of photographs documenting the most important moments in the history of individual nations or communities. <\/div>\n
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The exhibition showcased not only popular and readily collected photobooks, but also newsreels, photographs, prints, and art objects. Visitors could not only view the assembled books, but also leaf through and read them. It was a rare opportunity to come into direct contact with a photobook \u2013 an object that, in the digital age, is increasingly valued, but also less and less known and accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The exhibition was accompanied by a book in which we attempted to create a canon of Central European photobooks and a synthesis of knowledge on the subject. \u00a0The project was part of our series of exhibitions devoted to photography, which included such shows as Made in Hungary: Hungarian Photographers, 1919\u20131956<\/em><\/strong> (2000), Andreas Feininger: New York in the Forties<\/em><\/strong> (2010), Istanbul: Two Worlds, One City <\/em><\/strong>(2018),\u00a0More than Bauhaus: German Photography between the Wars and Polish Parallels\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>(2021), Homing:<\/em><\/strong> W\u0142odzimierz Puchalski<\/strong><\/em> (2022), and Lithuania: Two Centuries of Photography<\/em><\/strong> (2023).<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n From the left: Natalia \u017bak, Agata W\u0105sowska-Pawlik, ph. Pawe\u0142 Mazur<\/div>\n
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Curators<\/div>
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\u0141ukasz Gorczyca<\/div>\n
Curator<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Adam Mazur<\/div>\n
Curator<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Natalia \u017bak<\/div>\n
Curator at the International Cultural Centre<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n
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Curators<\/div>\n \n
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\u0141ukasz Gorczyca<\/div>\n
Curator<\/div>\n \n
\n Art historian, critic, gallery owner, writer, and curator of exhibitions in Poland and abroad. He graduated from the Institute of Art History of the University of Warsaw. In 1995, together with Micha\u0142 Kaczy\u0144ski and Adam Olszewski, he founded the print art magazine Raster, devoted to Polish contemporary art, which was later moved online and functioned as an \u2018online rapid response weekly\u2019 from 2000 to 2005. He has collaborated with the monthly magazines Art&Business, Machina, and the editorial team of the TV programme Pegaz. Since 2001, he and Micha\u0142 Kaczy\u0144ski have run the Raster Gallery, which represents Polish and foreign artists at the largest international art fairs. <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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Adam Mazur<\/div>\n
Curator<\/div>\n \n
\n Photography critic and theoretician, art historian and Americanist. Since 2013, he has been teaching at the University of Arts in Pozna\u0144 (Department of Photography). Winner of the Rev. Szcz\u0119sny-Dettloff Award, the Jerzy Stajuda Award, and the Gloria Artis medal. Between 2002 and 2013, he was a curator at the Warsaw CCA Ujazdowski Castle. Editor of anthologies and catalogues, he has also authored books including Kocham Fotograi\u0119 and I Love Photography (2008, 2009), Historie fotografii w Polsce 1839\u20132009 (2010), Decyduj\u0105cy moment. Nowe zjawiska w fotografii polskiej po roku 2000 (2012), G\u0142\u0119bia ostro\u015bci. Eseje o fotografii polskiej po 1945 roku (2014), Po ko\u0144cu fotografii (2018). Together with \u0141ukasz Gorczyca, he has been systematically compiling the history of Polish and Central European photography books since 2013. <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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Natalia \u017bak<\/div>\n
Curator at the International Cultural Centre<\/div>\n
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\n Art historian, curator. She has worked with both domestic and foreign art galleries. For the International Cultural Centre, she has co-curated exhibitions such as More Than Bauhaus: German Photography Between the Wars and Polish Parallels (2021) and Travelling Images: Ma\u0142gorzata Mirga-Tas (2022). <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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