13 Feb 2017

Superorganism. The Avant-garde and the Experience of Nature at Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz

Superorganism. The Avant-Garde and the Experience of Nature

Artists: Ansel Adams, Eileen Agar, Jean (Hans) Arp, Alexander Archipenko, Alexander Calder, Robert Delaunay, Boris Ender, Karol Hiller, Vasily Kandinsky, György Kepes, Paul Klee, Ivan Klun, Katarzyna Kobro, Le Corbusier, Len Lye, Mihhail Larionov, Kazimir Malevich, Franz Marc, Mikhail Matiushin, László Moholy-Nagy, Piet Mondrian, Edvard Munch, Lyubov Popova, Man Ray, Alexander Rodchenko, Kurt Schwitters, Anton Stankowski, Alfred Stieglitz, Władysław Strzemiński i inni.

Curators: Aleksandra Jach, Paulina Kurc-Maj 

Coordinators: Katarzyna Mróz, Monika Wesołowska
Exhibition architecture: Piotr Bujas, Małgorzata Burkot (BADR)

Superorganism. The Avant-Garde and the Experience of Nature is the first in a series of exhibitions organised by the Muzeum Sztuki in 2017 as part of the centenary of the avant-garde in Poland, aimed at examining its legacy from the contemporary perspective.
The exhibition shows how the shift in the relationship between man and the environment that took place at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century was reflected in art. The title's metaphor of the superorganism is an allusion to the expansiveness of mankind, which has brought about civilisational progress, but also degradation of the Earth. Modernity is a point in the history of Homo sapiens when the environment is intensively transformed by developing industry, ongoing urbanisation, and the colonisation of successive parts of the world.
The attitudes that we encounter in avant-garde art comprise an intriguing mosaic of human fascinations, anxieties, reflections, and effects that we experience in relation to nature and which, due to their universality and the enduring character of the experience, remain invariably topical. 

The exhibition consists of the following parts: Postnatural Landscape, Biophilia, Embodied Vision, Fourth Dimension, Microcosm and macrocosm, and Evolution.

The exhibition will display around 150 works on loan from public and private collections, among others: Tate in London, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The State Museum of Contemporary Art - Costakis Collection in Thessaloniki and Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue in two language versions: Polish and English. The publication is divided into two parts. One is connected with the show focusing on its themes.The second part features essays by the renowned researchers Fae Brauer, Iwona Luba, Jacob Wamberg, and Isabelle Wünsche, who write about new ways of interpreting the relationship between the avant-garde, technology, and nature.

Exhibition is presented in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of Polish avant-garde.

The Honorary Patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda.

Under the auspices of The Polish National Commission for UNESCO.