SCONTRUM is a year-long project and exhibition in progress presented in Królikarnia (the Rabbitery), sculpture division of the National Museum in Warsaw, which since 2011 has marked its new interesting chapter under curatorial directorship of Agnieszka Tarasiuk.
The exhibition features the National Museum’s sculpture collection in a form of installation – an overwhelming environment created by the curatorial team (Tarasiuk, Michał Suchora and Aleksandra Janiszewska) consisting mainly of figurative sculpture from the classical period and early 20th century. The exhibition space evokes the sense of body of the collection, which is first of all material, physical before it is subjected to curatorial, historical and ideological abstraction. Presented as a storage space, the volume of ‘national heritage’ contains an element of chaos and an aesthetic value of excess. Three artists were invited to a dialogue with a performative display: Agnieszka Polska, Nicolas Grospierre and Jan Szewczyk. Their works focus mainly on storing, gathering, conservation as practical metaphors of museum’s process.
The exhibition evolves continuously, with the current edition (SCONTRUM. Evolutions) incorporating into its body the sculptures by contemporary artists of generation which flourished on the threshold of 21st century, such as Paweł Althamer, Anna Baumgart, Olaf Brzeski, Zuzanna Janin, Agnieszka Kalinowska, Piotr Kurka, Tomasz Mróz, Konrad Smoleński, Iza Tarasewicz. Interestingly, these works (as well as contemporary art in general), are missing from the Museum’s collection, and this lack is being tackled by assuming a tangible continuity and family resemblance between both sets.
Anna Ptak
