Artur Zmijewski: The Social Studio

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst presents Artur Żmijewski: The Social Studio, a solo exhibition by Polish artist Artur Żmijewski, on view from 28 September until 16 November 2008. The opening takes place on Saturday 27 September 2008 at 20:00 hrs at BAK, Lange Nieuwstraat 4, Utrecht, the Netherlands.

The exhibition by Artur Żmijewski (born 1966, Warsaw, lives and works in Warsaw) presents a selection of recent works including videos Them (2007) and Repetition (2005) that could be described as "social studios," social experiments of sorts documented on film in a provocative and openly confrontational way. In these works, the artist sets up conditions in which individuals play out a trajectory of proceedings—negotiations of power, as it were—that harshly confront the possibility of a better world, yet at the same time also create a space for visual and individual expression.

Żmijewski believes that in order for art to regain its value in society, it has to expose societal conflict and disclose the conditions in which social antagonisms are cultivated and maintained by the powers that be. Convinced that the hard-won autonomy of art—in which art is considered independent from the "real" world—has actually disempowered it from acting as an accountable public voice, Żmijewski insistently requires of art that it take responsibility and engage in a dialogue with the current social and political reality around us. In this way, art can contribute to shaping that reality by imagining the world otherwise than we know it. The artist's manifesto, "The Applied Social Arts," in which he outlines these ideas further, is also made available in the exhibition.

The architectural concept for the exhibition is developed by artist Josef Dabernig.

Artur Zmijewski
The Social Studio

Architektonisches Konzept: Josef Dabernig