Exhibitions2016Bread and Roses

Bread and Roses questioned the way artists define their status and position in the realm of an ever-widening economic gap: exploring the possibility of reconciling dreams of social justice with the need of artistic freedom and autonomy. At the same time, the show highlighted the tension between an artists’ rather ambivalent affiliation with the intellectual or financial elite and their responsibility for the rest of the society. The exhibition showed the ways in which this tension – which characterised the political and social conflicts in Poland at the time –  becomes central to the art world and the figure of the artist. The exhibition presented the nuance of this issue within a broader international context.

The exhibition featured artists who critiqued the reality of neoliberalism, but at the same time, acknowledged that this reality rules the possibility of a truly emancipatory artistic practice. They postulate a transition towards a more egalitarian society, while their project simultaneously articulates the impossibility of such a society in our times, marked as it is by growing class division (Adamas, Argote, Fraser, Güell, Martens, Melis, Sagri, Surowiec). Other artists articulate such an endeavour in the development of a consistent business model (Brace Brace, Debora Delmar Corp., Kulendran Thomas, Martens, Wilson) or enter into dialogue with popular culture as tool of resistance (Turk, Metahaven, Minujin).

 

Featured artists included: Jacek Adamas, Iván Argote, Art Workers Coalition, Brace Brace, Jesse Darling, Debora Delmar Corp., Deterritorial Support Group, Andrea Fraser, Nicolás Guagnini, Núria Güell, Rafał Jakubowicz, Christian Jankowski, Tobias Kaspar, Zofia Kulik, Gerard Kwiatkowski, Leigh Ledare, Zbigniew Libera, Michał Łagowski, Magdalena Malinowska, Adrián Melis, Metahaven, Marta Minujín, Teresa Murak, Daniela Ortiz, Zygmunt Piotrowski, Józef Robakowski, Daniel Rycharski, Georgia Sagri, Cindy Sherman, Santiago Sierra, Łukasz Surowiec, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Gavin Turk, Andrew Norman Wilson and Renzo Martens presents: Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs des Plantations Congolaises