Creating a collection from scratch is an enormous challenge for the CoCA „Znaki Czasu” in Toruń. However, it is simultaneously a unique experience not only cultural, intellectual but also artistic. The more it is a challenge when it comes to the variable – sometimes risky – pieces of contemporary art. The collection carries the potential to transform the experimental and the uncertain content into stable values. Nevertheless, can one be sure about that? What should be the nature of such a collection for it to be contemporary, fitting the changing world?

Exchanging their thoughts concerning these topics will be the participants of the international conference entitled „Modernity of collection” organized by the CoCA together with Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. The debate will touch upon the aspects of the innovative role of the collection/collector within the culture. To present the continuum of this phenomenon, selected aspects concerning the history of collecting and museums in the 17th, 18th and 19th century will be discussed. Each epoch has its own modernity, and sometimes the case is that the older art becomes the peak of the modern tendencies.

The major part of the conference, however, will be dedicated to (with respect to the CoCA’s profile) the key aspects of the modern visual culture, the place of modern art within the collection, the relation between the artist and the collection in the last decades, and finally
the situation of the collector at the end of the 20 and the beginning of the 21 c.

The conference will be taking place on 16-18th October 2008 in the premises of CoCA and the Department of Fine Arts Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland.

The organizing committee under the supervision of prof. Krzysztof POMIAN:

• Agnieszka KLUCZEWSKA-WÓJCIK, PhD (The History of Art and Culture Faculty, The Department of History Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń)
• Katarzyna LEWANDOWSKA-MICHALSKA PhD (Centre of Contemporary Art „Znaki Czasu” in Toruń)
• Stefan MUCHA (the director of the Centre of Contemporary Art „Znaki Czasu” in Toruń)
• Tomasz F. de Rosset, PhD (Fine Arts Department of the Nicolas Copernicus University, Toruń)
• Marcin SZELĄG  PhD (National Museum, Poznań)

Attachments

• conference programme (57 kB)