NATHALIE GRENZHAEUSER: Biennale Fotografii Poznan 2011

The Marginal Landscape

CURATORS: Marianna Michałowska, Justyna Ryczek

ARTISTS: Norbert Banaszyk, Nathalie Grenzhaeuser, Magdal Hueckel, Andrzej Kramarz, Wojtek Koykos, Jarosław Kozakiewicz, Katerina Mistal, Cecylia Malik, Rafał Milach, Laura Pawela, Basia Sokołowska, Melanie Wiora, Piotr Żyliński.

Landscape is one of the fundamental “subjects” of photography, a favourite motif chosen by amateurs and professionals alike. On the one hand, modern photography has adopted a patronising approach to landscape photos, seeing them as the embodiment of amateur “sure-fire hits” and pictorial kitsch. On the other hand, however, it has in the past been often entwined with ideological contexts (to mention only the context of “national photography”), which made photographers shy away from landscape. At present we deal with a Renaissance of landscape photography fostered worldwide and in Poland by currents such as the “new documentary” and by the revaluation of the idea of nature. Human perception of landscape (Belting, Boehme) and landscape itself is growing into a metaphor of contemporary culture (Appadurai). In turn, ideas of contested natures (Phil Macnaghten and John Urry) propose a replacement of the nature / culture opposition with a reflection on such relations as innocence and wilderness; the animate and the inanimate, or nature as the margin of civilisation. Moreover, today landscape is used outside the context of nature as such; we use terms such as the natural IT environment or the urban landscape. The world around us expands and makes us re-consider our earlier beliefs and positions. Landscape may be one of the directions of inevitable reflection on the world around us. “The Marginal Landscape” offers narrations about the shifting frontier between man and nature. We want to know the significance of landscape for today’s artists. We ask about the essence of the interaction of the human person and landscape: are we part and parcel of it or its enemies and destroyers? The exhibition likewise poses a question about landscape itself and its existence in culture as witnessed in the output of contemporary artists. We perceive photography broadly, showing two-dimensional images made by means of photographic techniques, “photographic” paintings, films and installations, as well as digital visualisations used in the design of architecture. We cannot miss the significance of landscape on the Internet and that is why we also follow photo-blogs.

EXHIBITION VENUE: Arsenał Municipal Gallery, Stary Rynek 6
LAUNCH: 23.09.2011, 4 pm
DURATION: 23.09 – 30.10.2011, with the exclusion of: 1-2.10.2011
OPENING HOURS: Tue-Sat 12-19, Sun 11-15