Conference speakers:

Alexander Alberro
Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Florida, is the author of Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity (MIT Press 2003). His essays have appeared in a wide array of journals and exhibition catalogues. He has also edited and co-edited a number of volumes, including Art After Conceptual Art (2006), Museum Highlights (2005), Recording Conceptual Art (2001), and others.


Sabine Breitwieser
curator, since 1991 Artistic and Managing Director of the Generali Foundation in Vienna (Founding-Director). In this function she has built a renowned collection of contemporary art of more than 2000 works of about 200 international artists. She curated and directed numerous exhibitions in Austria (a.o. in Generali Foundation: Edward Krasiński. Les mises en scène, 2006; Gustav Metzger. History History, 2005; The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, 2004; Occupying Space. Generali Foundation Collection; Allan Sekula. Performance under Working Conditions, 2003; Designs for the Real World; Adrian Piper. seit 1965. Metakunst und Kunstkritik, 2002; double life. Identity and transformation in contemporary arts; Mia san mia. Hans Haacke, 2001) as well as abroad. She edited and published more than 80 books and catalogues and contributed many essays on contemporary art as well as on museum management. She is a frequent lecturer in Austria and abroad. Among her recent publications are: Two Times Four: Isa Genzken’s Hi-Fi Series.in: Isa Genzken, London-New York 2006; Art and Artists: Please wait for a Commission, in: International 04, Liverpool Biennial 2004. Editor of the Generali Foundation Collection Series, first volume Art After Conceptual Art, edited by Alexander Alberro and Sabeth Buchmann (2006).


Rachel Haidu
is Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Rochester. She has published on Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Gerhard Richter in Artforum, Documents, Obieg, Texte zur Kunst, and several anthologies, and is completing the book The Absence of Work: Marcel Broodthaers 1968-1976 (October Books/MIT Press, forthcoming).


Piotr Juszkiewicz
(born 1959), Professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University, where he lectures in the Art History Department. His main field of interest is the 20th century art, contemporary art and art criticism of 18th – 20th century. His critical texts were published in Odra, Nowy Nurt, Artium Quaestiones. His is the author of the following books Wolność i Metafizyka. O tradycji artystycznej twórczości Marcela Duchampa (Poznań 1995), Od rozkoszy historiozofii do gry w nic. Polska krytyka artystyczna czasu odwilży (Poznań 2005), and also the editor of numerous publications, including Melancholia Jacka Malczewskiego (Poznań 1998). He was granted fellowships by Cambridge University (1990), the Getty Grant Program (Columbia University, 1996; Rochester University, 1998), and the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities (Edinburgh University, 2005).


Klara Kemp-Welch
lectures in the History of Art Department at University College London, U.K., where she is in the final stages of her PhD, supervised by Professor Briony Fer. Her thesis is called Between Affirmation and Negation: Modes of Subversion in Central European Action-Based Practice 1965-1981. Beyond this, her research interest is in the political dimensions of post-conceptualism in a global context. She has published articles on Tadeusz Kantor, Endre Tót, Jerzy Bereś, and Aernout Mik.


Maria Matuszkiewicz
(born 1981), student of Art History and Philosophy at the University of Warsaw. Works on MA dissertation on the work of Anka Ptaszkowska.


Luiza Nader
(born 1976), art historian, lectures at the Institute of Art History, University of Warsaw. She has just completed her PhD thesis on conceptual art in Poland. Her interests are focused on avant-garde and neo-avantgarde art, memory, trauma and relation between history writing and the experience of psychoanalysis. She published texts, reviews and translations on European and American art in catalogues (a.o. Grupa Zamek. Lublin 1956-1960. Experience of structures), periodicals (a.o. Artium Quaestiones, Ikonotheka, Obieg, springerin)and readers (a.o. in Memory/haunting/discourse, Art after Conceptual Art). In 2005 she was granted Fulbright scholarship.


Paweł Polit
(born 1965) is an art critic and curator. Education: MA in Philosophy at the University of Warsaw (1990) and MA Curating and Commissioning Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, London (1997). He curated exhibitions at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, among others: Peter Downsbrough: Inside (1994); Conceptual Reflection in Polish Art. Experiences of Discourse: 1965-1975 (1999), Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. Marginalia filozoficzne (2004), Martin Creed (2004). Published widely on contemporary art in exhibition catalogues and art periodicals. Since 1997 Pawel Polit is Curator of Public Events Programme at the CCA Ujazdowski Castle. Since 2001 he teaches American art at the American Studies Centre, University of Warsaw.


Andrzej Przywara
(born 1968), curator, art critic, co-founder of the Foksal Gallery Foundation, whose director he has been since 2001. He studied in the Art History Institute at the University of Warsaw (1988-1994), between 1988-2001 he worked in the Foksal Gallery. He edited the following publications: Hans Bellmer (1995), Tadeusz Kantor. Z archiwum Galerii Foksal (1998). He curated the following exhibitions organised by the Foksal Gallery Foundation Exotic Journey Ends(Warsaw 2006), David Lamelas. Time as Activity (Warsaw 2006), Hidden in a Daylight (Cieszyn 2003), and others.


Anka Ptaszkowska
(born 1935), art critic, co-founder of the Foksal Gallery in Warsaw. Since 1970, has lived in Paris, where she ran Galerie 1-36, and then Vitrine pour l'art actuel. She lectured contemporary art history at the Fine Arts School in Caen. She has widely published in catalogues and periodicals such as Struktury, Współczesność, Artpress. She co-organized a number of exhibitions a.o. Echange entre artistes. Pologne- USA. Her book Traktat o życiu Krzysztofa Niemczyka na użytek młodych generacji will be published soon by Ha!art publishers.


Karol Sienkiewicz
(born 1980), critic and art historian. Graduated from International Relations at the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) (2005) and Art History at the University of Warsaw (2007), editor of an Internet contemporary art magazine Sekcja.


Blake Stimson
Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis, is the author of The Pivot of the World: Photography and Its Nation (MIT Press 2006) and co-editor of three volumes: Collectivism after Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination after 1945 (Minnesota, 2007), Visual Worlds (Routledge 2005), and Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology (MIT Press 1999). Essays, reviews, and interviews with Professor Stimson have appeared in wide range of journals and other venues.


Adam Szymczyk (Kunsthalle Basel)


Andrzej Turowski
Professor of History of Contemporary Art at the Burgundy University in Dijon, Doctor Honoris Causa of the Władysław Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź (2004), art critic. Until 1983 he lectured in the Art History Institute at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. In the 1970s, he cooperated with the Foksal Gallery in Warsaw, co-creating its programme. He directed Centre de Recherches Comparatives sur les avant-gardes. He is the author of numerous articles, papers and books devoted to modern and contemporary art, especially to Polish and Russian avant-garde and the issues of Modernism in Central Europe (among others: Malewicz w Warszawie,Cracow 2002; Budowniczowie świata, Cracow 2000; Awangardowe marginesy, Warsaw 1998; Wielka utopia awangardy, Warsaw 1990; Existe-t-il un Art de l'Europe de l'Est?, Paris 1986; Konstruktywizm polski, Warsaw 1981). Curator of many exhibitions in Poland and abroad (a.o.: Fin de Temps! L’histoire n’est plus, Tulon 2004, Jerzy Kujawski. Maranatha, Poznań-Warsaw 2006), co-organiser of the exhibition Europa, Europa (Bonn 1994). He lectures in France and internationally.



Museum in the Bloc discussion participants:

Joanna Mytkowska
(born 1970), curator and art critic. From July 2007 she is the director of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. She studied in the Art History Institute at the University of Warsaw (1988-1993). In 1994-2001 she worked in the Foksal Gallery. She co-founded the Foksal Gallery Foundation, where she worked in 2001-2007. From 2006 she has been the curator at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She edited the following publications: Edward Krasiński (1997), Henryk Stażewski. The Economy of Thought and Perception (2006). The exhibitions she curated in Poland and abroad include Le Nuage Magellan (2007), Oskar Hansen. Warsaw's Dream (2005), Loophole (2005), Nova Popularna, Prym, Parallel Action (2004), A Walk to the End of the World With Robert Walser (2002).


Charles Esche
director of Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and co-editor of Afterall Journal and Books, based at Central Saint Martins College, London. His activity is focused on issues involving art institutions, global cultural exchanges and local communities, singularity and public sphere. He curated a wide array of exhibitions and projects in Holland and in the world a.o.: Riwaq Biennial (Ramallah 2007-2009), Istanbul Biennial (2005), EindhovenIstanbul (Eindhoven 2005), Nedko Solakov (Rooseum, Graz 2003-2004), Surasi Kusolwong (Rooseum, 2004), Fixing the Bridge, Community and Art workshop 2 (Yogyakarta, Indonesia 2003), Gwangju Biennial (2002). He published texts in books, catalogues and periodicals and a book of selected writings was published as Modest Proposals in 2005 by Baglam Press, Istanbul.


Maria Hlavajova
(born 1971), based in Amsterdam. Hlavajova was director of the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia from 1994 to 1999. She co-curated Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2000. In addition, Hlavajova was a guest professor at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York from 1998 till 2001. In 2004, she was responsible for the project Who if not we…?,the visual arts component of the cultural program Thinking Forward, organized in the context of the Dutch presidency of the European Union that year. She has been the artistic director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst in Utrecht since 2000. Hlavajova has organized exhibitions and projects at BAK with Netherlands-based artists including Yael Davids, Gerrit Dekker, Job Koelewijn, Krijn de Koning, Germaine Kruip, Aernout Mik, Maria Pask, Jeroen de Rijke/Willem de Rooij, as well as with artists from all over the world such as Kamal Aljafari, Paweł Althamer, Gerard Byrne, Josef Dabernig, Jens Haaning, Deimantas Narkevičius, Roman Ondák, Ene-Liis Semper, and Ann-Sofi Sidén. She is currently the curator of the Dutch Pavillion at the Venice Biennale 2007.


Joanna Tokarska-Bakir
is cultural anthropologist, Professor at the Collegium Civitas. She is the head of the Department of Cultural Anthropology there and the lecturer in the Institute of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Warsaw. Among her numerous publications the following two books are especially worth mentioning: Rzeczy mgliste. Eseje i studia (Sejny 2004) and Obraz osobliwy. Hermeneutyczna lektura źródeł etnograficznych (Cracow 2000).


Artur Żmijewski
(born 1966) graduated from the Department of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1995, completed his diploma in the studio of Professor Grzegorz Kowalski. Żmijewski makes installations, objects and photographs. However, he is especially renown for his videos and films. He very often uses opinion polls and interviews in his works, which in turn determine their form – registered statements and conversations. Żmijewski is one of the founders of Czereja magazine. He also works as a curator and critic. He was granted Gerrit Rietveld Akademie in Amsterdam fellowship in 1995 and awarded the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Per L'Arte Prize during the exhibition Guarene Arte 2000 in 2000. His film Repetition was presented in the Polish pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennial in 2005. The last film Oni/Them (2007) had its première at the documenta 12 in Kassel.



transl. Katarzyna Bojarska