Ryszard Wasko
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Ryszard Wasko (Waśko) (born February 21, 1947, in Nysa) is a Polish artist, who has worked in multimedia, including
photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...
,
film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
,
video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
, installation,
painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
, and
drawing Drawing is a Visual arts, visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface, or a digital representation of such. Traditionally, the instruments used to make a drawing include pencils, crayons, and ink pens, some ...
. He is also known as a curator and organizer of art events. He lives and works in
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
.


Early life


Workshop of the Film Form (1970-1977)

He was born in Nysa. As a child he took painting-classes planning to become a painter and wanting to study at the
Art Academy An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on practice and related theory in the visual arts and design. This includes fine art – especially illustration, painting, contemporary art, sculpture, and graphic design. T ...
in
Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
. But instead of making his childhood dream come true, he made up his mind and went to
Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...
, where he studied cinematography at the
Film School A film school is an educational institution dedicated to teaching aspects of filmmaking, including such subjects as film production, film theory, digital media production, and screenwriting. Film history courses and hands-on technical training are ...
between 1970 and 1975. During that time he became a member of '' Workshop of the Film Form'', one of the most important artistic groups in Poland in the 70s. ''Workshop'' was an avant-garde collective of painters, filmmakers, critics, poets, philosophers and scientists, working with experimental film and multimedia. Later on Ryszard Wasko became a lecturer in the departments of experimental media and photography at the Film School in Lodz.


First accomplishments

In the 70s he took part in the XII
São Paulo Art Biennial The São Paulo Art Biennial ( Portuguese: ''Bienal de São Paulo'') was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennale (in existence since 1895), which serves as ...
,
documenta Documenta (often stylized documenta) is an Art exhibition, exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. Documenta was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgarte ...
6, the Third International Festival of Independent Avant-garde Film in London, the
Sydney Biennale The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney, Australia. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice Biennale, Venice and São Pa ...
, the XI Biennale de Paris, the V Biennale of Spatial Forms among others. He also created the '' Archives of Contemporary Thought'' (1979), a forum for symposia and art events.


Early works

After dealing with experimental film and photography, Wasko started to develop his painting skills again. ''"Wasko discovered himself as an artist and learned how to cope with everyday life with a greater vision of the world than simply the provincial circumstances of life. "'' Robert C. Morgan, Ryszard Wasko: Bedtime Stories, ''The Brooklyn Rail'', January, New York 2004 He left the ''Workshop of the Film Form'' and came to prominence as a conceptual artist. ''"After studying film-making at the Academy in Lodz in the late sixties, Wasko went on to become one of Poland's leading conceptualists, working as a pioneer in the media of video and photography. Much of this work focused on dense mathematical structures involving sequences of time and reality."'' His artistic output should be actually seen as a connection of two main fields: photography&film and painting. ''"(...) the character of Ryszard Wasko's work in general, as well as the character of his individual works, is often defined by inter-generic, inter-media relations. Those works set in motion a whole net of intertextual relations on the level of general structural and ontological determinants, and on the level of different types of perception and rules of interpretation. In other words, in order to grasp a work which belongs to a certain artistic genre in its specificity, one should refer to its non-specific features which are characteristic for another kind of art."''Ryszard Kluszczyński, Trans-media Art. On the Art of Ryszard Wasko in: ''Ryszard Wasko'', ''Galeria FF'', Lodz 1995 (catalogue)


Construction in Process (1981)

''"It is impossible (...) to separate his activities as an artist (as a maker of installations, as a creator of paintings and works on paper) from his other endeavors as a curator, organizer, teacher, writer, agitator (...)."''Gregory Volk, Meal for the Rich and the Poor in: Ryszard Wasko. Selected works 1986-2000, ''The International Artists' Museum'', Many H. Gallery, Tel Aviv (catalogue)
In 1981 in Lodz, Wasko initiated and organized '' Construction in Process'', a series of exhibitions featuring works of art created on site. ''"(...) it was an important, and in fact crucial, event in the Polish arts scene of that era."'' Artists who were invited to participate in ''Construction in Process'' invite in turn, another group of participants, giving the project a dynamic, open character. ''" The event became a symbolic alternative to larger institutional art events, including high-powered state and corporate-sponsored biennials and market-driven art fairs."'' The participating artists were
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, Richard Nonas and others. After the first event in 1981 ''The Solidarity Collection'' (which includes works by the artists created for that event) came into existence. ''"Wasko continued to produce international events into the nineties, including two additional projects in Lodz (1990 and 1993), one in Israel (1995), one in Australia (1997), and another,(...) in the small town of Bydgogosz in north central Poland (2000)."'' 2006, 25 years after the opening of the first exhibition, Wasko established the ''Construction in Process-Museum'' (also in Lodz). Unfortunately, a waterdamage forced him to close it down (2008) and to devolve the collection to the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz.


Exile (1983-1993)


Artistic career abroad

After
Martial Law Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties ...
was brought on in Poland, Wasko decided to leave for
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
(1983). He received there a DAAD scholarship in Berlin among other residencies. In the 80s he improved as a painter. Besides numerous one-man-shows Wasko took part in several international exhitbitions e.g. at
Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
,
Kunsthalle Hamburg The Hamburger Kunsthalle is the art museum of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany. It is one of the largest art museums in the country. It consists of three connected buildings, dating from 1869 (main building), 1921 (Kuppelsaal) and ...
and the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
(1991, 1999, 2001, 2007). At the same time he lectured extensively in Europe, including at
Saint Martin's School of Art Saint Martin's School of Art was an art school, art college in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1854, initially under the aegis of the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Saint Martin's beca ...
, Hochschule der Künste in Berlin and Freie Kunstakademie in
Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...
. The
Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing funding to visual artists internationally to further their artistic practices. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expr ...
has awarded Ryszard Wasko three times (1988,1993,1998).


The International Artists' Museum

Wasko went to Poland in 1989 and founded The International Artists' Museum in Lodz. It had developed into a worldwide network of locally run art centers, linking artists and intellectuals from diverse backgrounds, locations, and disciplines. It was ''" (...) an on-going alternative space that shows the work of international artists."'' The Museum has organized and sponsored over 60 major international events, exhibitions, meetings, panels, concerts, readings, and projects focusing on art, culture, borders, community, and identity. Due to political changes in the city government the building of the International Artist's Museum at Tylna Street 14 has been sold to a private Bank (1998). The artistic community was not able to gather the vast sum of money the city of Lodz wanted for the property. The beautiful sculpture garden has been destroyed by the new owners. Only the work of
Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...
is still standing at its original place.''"His paradoxical brand of conceptual humanism has always been toward developing a better world and more spiritually-oriented environment for artists in which they can produce work outside of marketing restrictions, and thus communicate ideas that will benefit common people."'' Unfortunately, his ideas were never understood by the authorities.


Growing up and experimentalizing

''"For many years, austere, yet gorgeous, works on paper have been a big part of Wasko's oeuvre."'' The drawings brought him to artpieces on canvas. In that time Wasko acted mainly as a painter. He started working with different materials lik soot, was, fat, zinc, fire, and others. ''"(...) the most important modification was the use of different materials than before. (...) Wasko turned to the simplest, 'poor' means of natural origin."''Grzegorz Sztabiński, The Berlin Period in Ryszard Wasko's Career, in ''Ryszard Wasko, Lodz – Berlin; works 1971-1996'', Museum of History of the City of Lodz, Lodz 2008 (catalogue)


Łódź (1993-2008)


Curator, director, teacher

Between 1990 and 1992 Wasko became Program Director at the P.S.1 Museum and Institute of Contemporary Art (today called
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution at 2201 Jackson Avenue in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in New York City, United States. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...
) in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
and in 1997 he was chosen President of the International Artists Forum (IKG). At the same time he still handled the ''International Artist's Museum'' in Lodz. That town became Wasko's new home for over 15 years. The Valand School of Fine Arts in
Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...
invited him to give lectures as a Professor for two semesters (2004–2005).
His artwork has been shown mostly in Europe (e.g.
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...
Gallery) and the United States (e.g.
The Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...
in New York).


Lodz Biennale

In 2004 Wasko amplified a new idea: the
Łódź Biennale The Łódź Biennale (English: ''Lodz Biennale'') was an international art exhibition that was founded by Ryszard Wasko in 2004 in Łódź, and is managed and supervised by the International Artists' Museum. The biennale is based upon ideas develop ...
, to be the first international Biennale in Eastern Europe.


Exploring new territories

Being successful as a director and curator he managed also to work creatively as an artist. In the 90s he worked mostly with primary painting materials like soot. He explored also the field of performance (''Meal for the Rich & Poor'', 1993) and installation (''Child Territories'', 1996). Around 2000 Wasko made his turn back to film and photography, but one should not think, he is an artist, who jumps from media to media, from material to material. His is an intermedial artist: ''"Wasko's works are not limited to any of the artistic genres he uses because they easily cross the borders between them: And his individual realizations, even if they remain - due to the materials used and some general genre manifestations - within a certain kind of art, they still cannot be explained by referring to the characteristics of that branch of art which is realized in them. On the contrary, quite often the fundamental principles which make up the structure of the artefacts come from a different branch of art than the one in which the works were actually created and where we would be inclined to place them."''


Back in Berlin (2008)

In 2007, together with his wife Maria Wasko, he decided to move back to Berlin. They live there since 2008. Recent solo exhibitions include a retrospection at the Museum of History of the City of Lodz (Ryszard Wasko, Lodz – Berlin, works 1971–1996) in 2008 and at the Haus am Lützowplatz in Berlin (Contemporary Portrait, Checkpoint Charlie Hypothetical) in 2009: ''"Ryszard Wasko zeigt in seiner gleichnamigen Malereiausstellung Bilder von Personen, die ihre Identität verbergen. Farbenfroh in Warhol'scher Plakativität verschwinden hier auch die letzten Details. Doch sind es Armeen oder vervielfältigte Individuen? Die Persönlichkeit wie das Anliegen bleiben bei Wasko auf der Strecke und der Hintergrund verschwimmt zu einem psychedelischen Farbenmeer."''''Im Westen nichts Neues?'' w: ''Tageszeitung'', Berlin, 24.06.2009

''"The entire trajectory of Ryszard Wasko's career has comprised a substantial, in many ways risk-taking and innovative, extension and enlargement of the role of the artist. (...) He is, in fact, one of those figures who consistently shakes things up and pushes the borders of the possible, certainly with a sense of mission, but also with humor and verve."''


Gallery

File:Chair I, 1971, photography, 104,5x137,5cm.jpg, Chair I (1971)
photography File:Chair II, 1971, photography, 104,5x137,5cm.jpg, Chair II (1971)
photography File:Four-dimensional photography II, 1972, photographic composition, 216x47cm.jpg, Four-dimensional photography II (1972)
photography File:Stills from 'Negation', 1973.jpg, Negation (1973)
stills from the film File:Wasko, stills from 'Event on pane', Remont Gallery, Warsaw, 1975.jpg, Event on pane (1975)
happening at ''Remont Gallery'',
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
File:Wasko, Discontinous Sculpture, 1985, acrylic on wood, 2,5x5,5m.jpg, Discontinuous Sculpture (1985)
acrylic on wood File:Wasko, Hypothetical Checkpoint Charlie, 1987-88, acrylic on photo and white board, 40x60 each.jpg, Hypothetical Checkpoint Charlie (1988)
acrylic on photo and board File:Wasko, Man in the Night (to Barnett Newman), 1988, soot and gold leaf on canvas, 120x160cm.jpg, Man in the Night (1988)
painting
(soot, gold leaf, oil on canvas)
''dedicated to
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American painter. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense ...
'' File:Small Rose Garden, 1993, oil and pencil on canvas, 120x170cm.jpg, Small Rose Garden (1993)
painting
(oil and pencil on canvas) File:Wasko, Red Rock at Dawn, soot pigment canvas, 1994.jpg, Red Rock at Dawn (1994)
painting
(soot and pigment on canvas) File:7 Paths of Roses, 1995, sand painting, Negev Desert Israel, 50x100m.jpg, 7 Paths of Roses (1995)
sand painting
Negev Desert The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...
,
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

work for Construction in Process V File:Small Rose Garden, 1997, 4000 plastic roses, International Artists Museum Lodz.jpg, Small Rose Garden (1997)
installation with 4000 plastic roses
at the Zacheta Gallery
in
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
File:Small Rose Garden, 1997, plastic roses on steel plate, 50x70cm.jpg, Small Rose Garden (1997)
plastic roses and pitch on steel plate File:Monidło dla Polski na XXI wiek, 2000, photography, 100x70cm.jpg, Monidło dla Polski na XXI wiek (2000)
digital photography on canvas
''Flower Power'' series File:Wasko, I am telling you a secret, 2004, digital photography, 78x114cm.jpg, I am telling you a secret (2004)
digital photography
''series'' File:Wasko, I am telling you a secret, 2004, photography, 78x114cm.jpg, I am telling you a secret (2004)
digital photography
''series'' File:Wasko, Marcel, albo sen z papugą, 2004, installation.jpg, Marcel, or dream with parrot (2004)
installation
Łódź Biennale The Łódź Biennale (English: ''Lodz Biennale'') was an international art exhibition that was founded by Ryszard Wasko in 2004 in Łódź, and is managed and supervised by the International Artists' Museum. The biennale is based upon ideas develop ...
File:Wasko, TV Stories (series), 2006, oil on canvas, 140x192cm.jpg, TV Stories (2006)
oil on canvas
''series'' File:Wasko, TV Stories (series), 2007, oil on canvas, 140x192cm.jpg, TV Stories (2006)
oil on canvas
''series''


References


Further reading

* ''Ryszard Wasko, Lodz – Berlin; works 1971-1996'', Museum of History of the City of Lodz, Lodz 2008 (catalogue) * ''1,2,3…Avant-Gardes Film / Art between experiment and archive'', edited by Ł. Ronduda, F. Zeyfang, CSW Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw 2007 * G. Dietmar: ''Concrete Art in Europe after 1945'', Ostfildern 2003 * ''Żywa Galeria. Łódzki Progresywny Ruch Artystyczny 1969-81'', edited by J. Robakowski, ŁDK - Galeria FF, Lodz 2000 * A. L. Rees: ''A History of Experimental Film and Video'', Bury St Edmunds 1999 * ''Ryszard Wasko'', Galeria FF, Lodz 1995 (catalogue) * Emmett Williams: ''My life in flux – and vice versa'', Stuttgart 1994 * ''History of The Artists' Museum'', edited by Muzeum Artystów - International Artists' Museum, Lodz 1998 * ''Ohne die Rose tun wir's nicht für Joseph Beuys'', edited by K. Staeck, Heidelberg 1986 * ''Ryszard Wasko: discontinuity'', edited by R. Block, I. Lindemann, Berlin 1986 (catalogue) * ''Construction in Process'', Thousand Secretaries Press, New York 1982 (catalogue) * ''Elementary Works by Wasko'', Folkwang Museum, Essen 1981 (catalogue)


External links

*
Ryszard Wasko, Lodz – Berlin; works 1971-1996
Retrospection at the ''Museum of History of the City of Lodz''
Ryszard Wasko: Bedtime Stories
article by Robert C. Morgan

critical text by Ryszard Kluszczyński
Constructing the Process: Ryszard Wasko Looks Back
interview for ''Art in America''

history of the exhibition-series


Ryszard Wasko at the Galerie m Bochum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wasko, Ryszard 20th-century Polish painters 20th-century Polish male artists 21st-century Polish painters 21st-century Polish male artists Polish contemporary artists Polish installation artists Polish conceptual artists Polish contemporary painters Photographers from Łódź Polish experimental filmmakers Living people Recipients of the Silver Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis 1947 births People from Nysa, Poland Photographers from Berlin Polish male painters