Haunts 8.12.2017-31.01.2018 HAUNTS: What Haunts Contemporary Art? Contemporary culture is somewhat uncontemporary. One can even say that it is anachronistic and filled with nostalgia and unexplainable longing for what has been recently alive and new in it. Its numerous references to the past, borrowings, interceptions, abuses and finally cultural recycling, i.e. creativity taking the form of processing, was perceived for a long time in terms of exhaustion, barrenness and the absence of ideological depth. It soon became clear that the lack of the expected novelty and progress was not caused by the meager condition of artists and thinkers, but it was rather the result of their disappointment with the utopian aspirations of modernity and reluctance to create the future understood as a better tomorrow and a completely new, ideal world, which has always tured out to be a nightmare in practice, The escape to the world of the past by re-consuming what was worn or old was initially not only a gesture of resistance to capitalist economy and its desire for novelty, but it also gave a sense of security from the uncertain and precarious tomorrow. Artists soon began to resemble archivists intoxicated and overwhelmed by the past, who used the archive in a remarkably creative and uniquely disobedient manner, thus leading to the confusion of time and anachronism. Since that time, one can no longer speak of pure ideas DUZA SCENA UAP GALLERY Al. Marcinkowskiego 28, Poznafi opening: 8.12.2017, 6 p.m. curators: KATARZYNA KUCHARSKA ANDRZEJ MARZEC MALGORZATA MYSLINSKA coordinator: ALEKSANDRA GAJ and concepts, as well as original or completely new art, which always bears traces of the past. Ithas become clear that we live in a bygone, second-hand reality, which has little in common with the assumed, yet unachievable freshness, sterility and purity. To be haunted means, first of all, to be aware that someone was here before us, that the space we inhabit previously belonged to someone else and that everything that surrounds us bears traces of ‘the other’. Therefore, the desire for novelty would be an attempt to erase or deny what exists in a weak, residual and vestigial form. Melancholic aesthetics and nostalgic sensitivity to a large extent stem from the desire for survival and become ethical gestures performed to claim for otherness. The lack of a new, strong narrative that would organize the landscape of contemporary culture does not result from its secondary nature, but rather from the reluctance to bury and thus destroy the past with which we do not want to part. This is the source of all unburied, undead, ghostly and decaying cultural creations that retum from the past. Contemporary and at the same time uncontemporary art has no intention to ask what is ‘now’ and what characteristic features it has. It wants to report on the weak, dim presence that does not let go, disappear and perish. Andrzej MarzecHaunts 8.12.2017-31.01.2018 HAUNTS — co nawiedza sztuke wspétczesna? Wspétezesna kultura jest w pewien sposéb niewspotezesna, mozna wrecz powiedzieé anachroniczna, przepeiniona nostalgia, trudna do wyjaénienia tesknota za tym, co jeszcze niedawno bylo w niej Zywe i nowe. Jej liczne powroty do przeszloéci, zapozyczenia, przechwycenia i naduzycia, wreszcie kulturowy fecykling, czyli tworczo8¢ jako przetworczosé, postrzegana byla przez dlugi czas w kategoriach wyczerpania, jalowosci, czy tez nieobecnoéci ideowej glebi. Wrétce okazato si oczekiwanej nowosci i postepu nie jest wcale spowodowany mizerna kondycjq artystow ‘oraz myélicieli, lecz raczej ich rozczarowaniem i postulatami nowoczesnosci, ‘do tworzenia przyszlosci, jako go jutra i zupetnie nowego, idealnego ‘ktéry zawsze okazywal sie w praktyce Ucieczka w Swiat przesztoéci rie tylko gest oporu przed GALERIA DUZA SCENA UAP Al. Marcinkowskiego 28, Poznan wernisaz: 8.12.2017, godz.18.00 kuratorzy: KATARZYNA KUCHARSKA ANDRZEJ MARZEC MALGORZATA MYSLINSKA koordynatorka: ALEKSANDRA GAJ ‘oryginainej, czy tez zupeinie nowe| tworozosci, gdyz ta zawsze nosi w sobie Slad przesztosci, Okazuje sie, Ze zyjemy w rzeczywistosci przechodzonej, uzywanej, ktérej daleko do postulowanej, lecz niemozliwej do osiagniecia Swiezoéci, steryinosci i czystoéci. Bycie nawiedzonym to przede wszystkim Swiadomosc tego, ze ktos by! tutaj przed nami, przestrzer', kt6rq zamieszkujemy nalezata wczeénie} do kogos innego, jednym stowem wszystko, co nas otacza jest dotkniete, nosi na sobie siad innego. Wiaénie dlatego pragnienie nowosci bytoby proba wymazania lub wyparcia tego, 0 istnieje w postaci stabej, resztkowe] i éladowe Melancholijna estetyka i nostalgiczna wrazliwosé_ ufundowana jest w duzym stopniu na pragnieniu ocalania, staje sie etycznym gestem upominania sig o innogé, Brak nowej, mocnej narracj, ktora zorganizowalaby pejzaz kultury wspétczesne nie wynika zatem z jej wtérnosci, ale raczej niecheci do pogrzebania i jednoczeénie unicestwienia przeszlosci, z kt6ra nie chcemy sie rozstaé. ‘Stad wlagnie pochodzi obecnosé wszystkich rniepogrzebanych, nieumarlych, powracajacych