Jewish Culture Festival

The Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków (Polish: Festiwal Kultury Żydowskiej w Krakowie, Yiddish: ייִדישער קולטור־פֿעסטיוואַל אין קראָקע) is an annual cultural event organized since 1988 in the once Jewish district of Kazimierz (part of Kraków) by the Jewish Culture Festival Society headed by Janusz Makuch, a self-described meshugeneh, fascinated with all things Jewish.The main goal of the festival is to educate people about Jewish culture, history and faith (Judaism), which flourished in Poland before the Holocaust, as well as to familiarize them with modern Jewish culture developing mostly in the United States and Israel, and finally, to provide entertainment.
Each festival is held in late June or early July and takes nine days, from Saturday to Sunday. During that time concerts, exhibitions, plays, lectures, workshops, tours, etc. are organized. The two most important concerts are: the inaugural concert on the first Sunday, and the final concert on the last Saturday of the festival. The former usually takes place in one of seven synagogues of Kazimierz and features cantoral music; the latter is always held outdoors, in Ulica Szeroka, the main street of the Jewish part of Kazimierz, and features klezmer music. In between there are many more concerts, usually with some variations of klezmer music.
The workshops provide an occasion to learn about traditional Jewish cuisine, dance, music, calligraphy and other aspects of Jewish culture. More about Jewish culture, as well as about topics related to the Holocaust, is taught at numerous lectures. Exhibitions of Jewish art, particularly paper-cut, are also organized. The program of the festival also includes tours of the synagogues and cemeteries of Kazimierz as well as the former Nazi-era Kraków Ghetto in the nearby district of Podgórze. During the festival Gentiles are also invited to watch or participate in Jewish prayers at the synagogue.

Jewish Culture Festival brings together artists of Jewish culture from all over the world - music bands, soloists, choirs, jazz musicians and dance teachers. The festival promotes a whole variety of different styles of Jewish music: synagogue song, hasidic, classical, Jewish folk and – very popular in Krakow nowadays – klezmer. For the Poles this event is a way of promotion of Jewish culture and paying a homage to the community that used to live in Poland, although many Jews were reportedly offended by the commercialization of Polish Jewish culture. "Others argue that there is something deeper taking place in Poland as the country heals from the double wounds of Nazi and Communist domination."
It is one of Poland's major annual cultural events and one of the biggest festivals of Jewish culture in the world. Artists and entertainers usually associated with the festival include: Benzion Miller, David Krakauer, Frank London, Leopold Kozłowski, Michael Alpert, Theodore Bikel, Paul Brody and many others. Jewish dances are led by Steven Weintraub.

"Art Boom Festival" of Contemporary Visual Arts 2011

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.

Japanese Sci-Fi

Psychodelic movies.
Movies You ll not find in any cinema around the country.
Artists who cannot be ignored.
Almost 15 remarkable productions of Japanese Sci-Fi movies?
When?Where?
In Japanese Art Center "Manggha",in Cracow.