Focus Poland project aims to promote the idea of discursive museum that articulates its activity not only through program of exhibitions but also through a series of other initiatives, including collection and storage of information about artistic activities of Polish artists, as well as meetings with and lectures by invited curators and their contribution to promotion of this institution and of Polish art abroad. The project has been inaugurated in 2011 with an exhibition curated by Rainer Fuchs, main curator and assistant director of Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna who presented works of Marzena Nowak. The curator of the second exhibition of the cycle, entitled Phantom Capital (2012), which presented the works by Agnieszka Kurant, was Joanna Sandell, the director of Botkyrka Konsthall in Stockholm.

The third installment of the project was a group exhibition Take 5, curated by Friederike Fast from Marta Herford. The artists that took part are: Oskar Dawicki, Jacek Malinowski, Agnieszka Polska, Aleksandra Waliszewska and Honza Zamojski. The exhibition reflected the lively, diverse Polish art scene, offering a personal insight into this particular sphere of a society in the grip of dynamic development. Despite the significant differences between the participating artists in terms of their work and their background, they share a special ability to sensitively or even probingly question their environment and their role as artists while lightly skipping over the boundaries of human logic. Clear visions are fused with dark, distorted images of reality. Aspects such as fact and fiction, originality and imitation, failure and magic are recurring themes of this existential analysis. And the artists keep slipping into the role of ingenious charlatan in order to cope almost acrobatically with the heaviness of being..

CURATOR
Friederike Fast

CATALOGUE EDITED BY
Friederike Fast

TEXTS
Dobrila Denegri
Friederike Fast
Roland Nachtingäller

TRANSLATIONS
Monika Ujma
Anna Wajcowicz

PROOFREADING
Natalia Cieślak
Ian Corkill
Paweł Falkowski
Katarzyna Radomska

DESIGN
Grzegorz Laszuk K+S
Anna Hegman K+S

TYPESETTING
Marcin Treichel

EXHIBITION PRODUCTION
Wojciech Ruminski

PROJECT COORDINATION
Natalia Cieślak

PHOTOGRAPHS
Jerzy Gumowski
Jacek Malinowski
Wojciech Olech (zdjęcia ekspozycji)
Konrad Smoleński
Honza Zamojski

LENDERS AND COPYRIGHT
All the artists

SPECIAL THANKS TO
To all the artists, as well as:
Galeria LETO, Warszawa
Galeria Raster, Warszawa
Żak | Branicka Gallery, Berlin

COVER DESIGN
Radosław Staniec

PUBLISHER
Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu
Ul. Wały Gen. Sikorskiego 13, 87-100 Toruń
Poland
© Authors of the texts
© 2013 Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu
All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-83-62881-36-9