The arts festival is an explosion of modern art in urban space - this year's themes are new technologies in art, utopias and games
Art that provokes, wonders, strikes and interacts with the viewer. A new formula, prepared for this year's third edition of the ArtBoom Festival, moves a step away from individual interventions into cityscape. The City Recovery Bureau (Zakład Odzyskiwania Miasta - ZOM), a group of curators assembled especially for the implementation of this project, declares:
We are going for an urban and artistic process, and long-term experimentation with various forms of creating and organising communities.
The Bureau brings attention to Kraków's gardens that are usually inaccessible (project by Malwina Antoniszczak; details at the Monastery Garden Information point, open during the festival), shows viewers the city through the eyes of its elite (views from the VIP office windows by Konrad Pustoła is displayed on billboards throughout the city), and displays street art such as RUMB, a construction propelled by the muscle power of a dozen people (authors: Natalia Romik and Ewa Rudnicka).
ArtBoom Festival is the biggest festival presenting modern art the urban spaces in Kraków: both Polish, as well as foreign. The aim of the organisers is to create a cyclical event, which enables permanent contact with the most interesting phenomena in most recent art. Some of the works presented at the festival will become part of the collection of the National Museum in Kraków, and others will permanently remain in public spaces of the city.
Artist, Łukasz Surowiec breaks through habits on how one should behave in urban space with his intervention entitled, "Everyone's Space, No-one's Space". Also during the festival street art performers from across the world come face to face with Kraków's matter and spirit. Jenny Holzer, an American artist who displays words by famous poets and writers in the world’s greatest cities, most recently as giant light inscriptions on the sides of buildings. In Kraków she uses words by Czesław Miłosz projected onto the walls of the Wawel Castle. Urban buildings across the world are also the subject and medium for the art by BLU: the artist creates a mural at Józefińska Street in Podgórze. Planty in front of Bunkier Sztuki displays interactive video installations by Elodie Pong and "garage video" by the Armenian post-punk artist Tigaran Tachatryan.
Combining performance with music, Konrad Smoleński's "BNNT Sound Bombing" project, in an anarchist gesture destroys the streets routine - day and night, appearing unexpectedly artists assail passers-by with sound. Grunwaldzki Bridge also speaks with a new voice - transformed by Lara Favaretto's installation into an instrument generating sounds of a stonemason's workshop.
The subject of the "museumisation" of street art and the consequences of this phenomenon is discussed by its originators Newer, Miesto and ZBioK, and Marcin Rutkiewicz, expert on Polish outdoor and street art. An opportunity for a critical look at the current status of engaged art is provided at a meeting with Martha Rosler, alluding to her famous project from 20 years ago "If You Lived Here…". Compiled by over 50 artists, architects, students and the homeless, it initiated a major discussion on the issues concerning New York life.
The ArtBoom Festival also presents "Fresh Zone", for the second time, a competition for young artists and architects. This year the participants were asked to create an intervention in Kraków's public space, referring to the broadly-understood concept of a game. The jury awarded five projects which come to life during the main festival.
The artists also presenting their works include David Černy, Marcin Maciejowski, Sławek ZBIOK Czajkowski, Cecylia Malik, Florian Dombois, Pavel Büchler, Łukasz Surowiec, Jenny Holzer and many more.
The festival organisers are the City of Kraków, the Kraków Festival Office and coordinates the programme Six Senses, which brings together all the major Kraków events.
The ArtBoom Festival of Contemporary Visual Arts 2011 runs from June 10-24, 2011.
For a detailed programme of events, see: www.artboomfestival.pl.
