Supermarket blog

STROBOSKOP ART SPACE is an exhibition space located in a row of old car garages connected to a residential area in Warsaw. Curious about their initiative, we took the opportunity to ask the founders Franciszek Buchner and Norbert Delman a few questions on the current situation of artists’ initiatives in Poland, as well as their take on this year’s theme of intimacy.

STROBOSKOP is an experimental space set to promote various polarised artistic contributions as a means to fill in the gap between public institutions and private galleries in modern Poland. What is your recipe in doing so? And what are some of the challenges?

We believe in initiating grassroots projects and – above all – offering young artists a space in which they can experiment, try different solutions and learn. We also aim to invite foreign artists. Our dream is to create a window for art outside of Poland that will refresh the local scene. Funding is definitely a challenge – at the moment Stroboskop is funded solely by us, and we do not run any projects that are funded by the city or state.

What do you plan to exhibit at Supermarket 2017?

For the upcoming edition of Supermarket, Stroboskop will exhibit works by us, the founders of the space, as opposed to representing another artist – something that normally cannot be seen on site in Warsaw.   

This year's theme is Intimacy. Can you recall a specifically intimate moment in connection to art? Perhaps an exhibition or a certain art piece?

Public appearances are by definition devoid of intimacy. A work of art, however, is the essence of intimacy, a strange construct made of thoughts, instincts, and experiences. The very atmosphere of an exhibition is, nonetheless, an experience that is as intimate as it is public, and it creates an extremely interesting moment. I try to approach each exhibition as if it were a private, eye-to-eye conversation, and there are certain ones we will remember for the rest of our lives.

Visit STROBOSKOPS webpage here for more info!

CODE ROOD from Arnhem, Netherlands is an artists’ initiative situated in a former military base in the forests north of Arnhem – now turned into a lively artists’ community. We asked them three questions about their upcoming exhibition at Supermarket.  

During SUPERMARKET 2017 artist duo Frank & Michiel will present their

project THE CAMEO SERIES, tell us more about that project!

THE CAMEO SERIES is an ongoing project that consists of studio sets in which Frank & Michiel re-enact stereotypical commercial images. During one month artist-in-residence program in 2015 they made new works which are the fundaments of THE CAMEO SERIES. The inspiration for this project comes from television commercials and social media.

In contemporary society we are constantly confronted by media with a reality that exceeds the ‘real’ reality. It doesn’t seem important anymore to distinguish reality from non-reality. Sometimes the virtual experience is more real than the reality itself. This also applies to the way in which people are presented in the media. How they come across is almost as important as the talent and the knowledge they possess. With THE CAMEO SERIES the artists try to deconstruct this ‘commercial image’ by inviting the visitors into an alternate reality that makes people part of a commercial image.

The visitors are welcome to participate in the project ‒ is this an

important part? And how will this work in practice during the art fair?

Frank & Michiel believe that everybody wonders how it is to be a successful model, singer or actor. Or at least they wonder. People use modern media to project a reality that exceeds the “real” reality; everybody shows their best moments on social media and even the news give a certain perspective on reality. Being aware of this system and its pros and cons comes in handy in daily life. That’s why Frank & Michiel decided to reenact successful commercial images; so that we could understand the complexity of the successful images that a company like Gucci creates, and the effects that these images have on daily life. Like, for example, the effect that a lot of people strive towards ‒ being just as famous as Kim Kardashian.

The artists feel that it is important to talk about this subject and therefore think that participation of the visitors is important. During the art fair the visitors are invited on to the set where they can play their role as a Gucci model, take selfies, and create a reality that will maybe exceed the ‘real’ reality. They are welcome to participate, but it is not necessary for them in order to enjoy the work. What the artists hope to accomplish is a bit of fun, a nice new profile picture for social media and a bit of awareness on how things work.

What are your hopes and expectations for attending SUPERMARKET?

We are really excited by the prospect of sharing THE CAMEO SERIES with a bigger international public and we hope Frank & Michiel can complement the series with a lot of new performances from the SUPERMARKET art fair visitors. When organising our events CODE ROOD acts in a hospitable way, that means cooperations with other initiatives are an important part of our practice. At Supermarket we are looking forward to meet other initiatives and through the presentation of Frank & Michiel get in touch with many visitors.

The Cameo Series - Video

Visit CODE ROOD

This year’s first blog post reconnects to one of our returning galleries: Va Space. Regarded by many as an interesting artists’ initiative from Isfahan, Iran. We asked founders Mona Aghababaee and Samira Hashemi three quick questions!   

In connection to Supermarket 2016 Mona wasn't able to get a visa since she hasn't got any children. Will she apply this time? Last time it stood quite clear that one of the terms was having children, and thereby a strong connection to Iran.

Our priorities in such programs have always been 'collaboration' and 'mutual understanding' and we find both parameters as forces in moving forward steadily and with focused energies. We believe that parenthood and its connotations should not be taken into account while evaluating professional qualifications. If the Swedish embassy were to process visa requests more professionally and carefully, without forcing its employees to come up with superficial justifications and excuses, it would only evaluate the applicant based on their request and its requirements. An artist, curator, arts manager, or any person involved in cultural activities, aims to create dialogs and establish deeper understandings, and would not otherwise apply for a visa in such context. If they were to seek asylum in a Western country, you are fully aware that channels far more effective could be thought of and followed.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you plan to show at Supermarket 2017?

Va in Supermarket 2017 is about the occasion of Va at Supermarket 2016.

This year's theme is Intimacy. Can you recall a specifically intimate art experience?

There were many occasion when a series of works show a narrative like some of the works together create a story that we can connect to.They create dialogs with each other, and the dynamic of that dialogue resembles something in our own life, thus deeply and intimately affecting us.

Today we are talking to Agnieszka Szablikowska, co-founder and curator of Galeria Raczej from Poznan -  the only performance gallery in Poland.

Hi Agnieszka! Who are you?
I'm co-founder and curator of Raczej Galery in Poznan - Poland; which I lead together with my husband - Łukasz Trusewicz. I'm also Vice President of a Foundation which is creating a cultural district in Poznan in cooperation with a local social and cutural organisations, the City of Poznan and local councils.

Could you tell us a little bit about Galeria Raczej and the exhibition you have planned for Supermarket?
Galeria Raczej is the only art gallery in Poland which is focused on the presentation of performance art. For more than four years Galeria has presented about 90 artists from all over the world. The gallery also collaborates with other spaces, by co-curating international events with the participation of polish artists.

At Supermarket we want to focus a little bit on the problem of documentation of performance art. We will invite participants to interact with a performative installation by Łukasz Trusewicz presenting activities of the gallery. As well as that, every day we will have at least one live performance by invited artists: Paweł Korbus, Justyna Scheuring and Dominik Złotkowski.

What do you look forward to the most at this year's Supermarket?
Of course we look forward to meet all the interesting people from other galleries, as well for all the meetings with Supermarket visitors's and participants! We also look forward to the performances by our invited artists and hope to experience other performative events!

Click here for more info about Galeria Raczej.

Today we are talking to the artist Lizaveta Matveeva, one of the Project Managers at LUDA gallery, one of the artist-run galleries that will participate in SUPERMARKET 2016.

Hi Lizaveta! Nice to meet you. Could you tell us a little bit about LUDA Gallery?
LUDA gallery is a non-profit gallery that was first opened by the artist and curator Peter Belyi in 2008. It existed for one year in its first version and during that year Peter presented more than 50 solo exhibitions by St Petersburg artists, so there were openings almost every week, and towards the end of the year even more regularly. After the end of the project, a final large exhibition summarising the year was held in a different space and in subsequent years a series of several small exhibitions and large projects happened that were based on the experience from the first LUDA.

Today's LUDA is almost two years old and presents artists from other cities and countries. We are trying to study, uncover, explore and represent marginal, unknown and hidden micro-communities from other regions and countries and in this way compare them with our own situation and think about what unites and separates us, our similarities and differences.

At Supermarket LUDA gallery will show the project Metanoia. How would you describe Metanoia?
Metanoia (μετάνοια), the Greek for 'changing one's mind', is a personal project by the St. Petersburg artist Denis Patrakeev, who is representing contemporary St Petersburg minimalism. 

Metanoia is about looking our mysterious surroundings in the eye, remaining alone, sensing reality in eternity, in a halted reality. Through print, fragility and links, through colour and inversion to the symbol, to anonymous consciousness and back to the beating of your own heart. The process of finding out, of identifying with everything, putting your own consciousness through the deconstruction of its chimera, from stereotypes of social programmes to the acquisition of experience of spacial undoing. 

What do you look forward to the most at Supermarket?
We expect that Supermarket will become a forum for international representation for our gallery.  We have created a certain reputation as an exciting, independent space where you can see art that you cannot see anywhere else in St Petersburg or to some extent elsewhere in Russia. We feel a need to move to an international level – to take a step towards organising and curating exhibitions not only in St Petersburg or Moscow, but in Sweden, Holland, England, France and elsewhere, because art has no borders – apart from the ones that we have ourselves created.