STATE OF EMERGENCY. POLISH PHOTO ART TODAY
ZAK – Center for Contemporary Art, Spandau, Berlin, Germany
10.9.2022 – 1.1.2023

Artists:
/ Filip Berendt / Kuba Dąbrowski / Karolina Gembara
/ Weronika Gęsicka / Aneta Grzeszykowska / Magda Hueckel
/ Paweł Jaszczuk / Irena Kalicka / Anna Kieblesz / Zuza Krajewska
/ Adam Lach & Dyba Lach / Diana Lelonek / Michał Łuczak
/ Rafał Milach / Igor Omulecki / Anna Orłowska / Witek Orski
/ Zosia Promińska / Agnieszka Rayss / Łukasz Rusznica
/ Michał Siarek / Michał Szlaga / Dominik Tarabański
/ Łukasz Wierzbowski / Karolina Wojtas / Piotr Zbierski

“State of Emergency. Polish Photo Art Today” is the most comprehensive exhibition to date in Germany devoted exclusively to Polish Photo Art. It is not so much an overall show as it focuses on the generations of photographers who grew up, began their studies and started their careers in the Third Polish Republic after the end of communism.

The participating artists take a comprehensive look at contemporary life in Poland, telling not only of freedom and informality in a neighboring European country, but also of new restrictive developments. Their works represent an immediate, authentic, anarchic, diverse, queer and cheeky Poland, as they also show those people on the fringes of society whose biographies ran into the void after 1989. “State of Emergency” tells fascinating stories from our neighboring country that are often absent from the big new narratives about Poland. The works live from the tension between realism and staging, between direct access and artistic distance.