This is probably the first time in history, such a large-scale project of photographic exhibitions and art, in general, took place in urban space.
The selected works were glued on posters in public places of four of the largest Polish cities: Warsaw, Krakow, Katowice and Poznan.
The assumption was simple – bringing art to the people. Moving away from the traditional ways of presenting works and to use empty urban space as a place for exhibitions. In a thicket of artists presenting their works in networks and on smaller or larger stationary exhibitions, each other attempt to present art in a similar way, is at the start doomed to pigeonhole, as one of many exhibitions presented in the same form, which may seem a bit hackneyed and boring for the average recipient. I believe that this street photography exhibition is an innovative use of the culture of street art combined with the primal desire to present one’s own artistic creation to a wider audience. Posters are an ordinary part of the urban scheme, so every pedestrian unwittingly becomes the attendee of an exhibition, without the need for any additional steps and without the need to plan a certain amount of time to visit the exhibition. Looking at the technical side, posters were glued under the cover of the night, using so-called “nobody places” against the law, which bans to put up posters in public under the penalty of a fine. Despite this, most of the posters persisted throughout the planned duration of the exhibition, and everything ended without any major legal problems.
Another very important (in fact the most important) element of the project is the topic of the exhibited works, which is closely related to this new way of showing work in the public sphere. Presented photos show street life in a wide variety. These photos provide a sociological look at modern man – his life, behavior, habits, place in the world, his actions and the results of those actions. No matter what the photo depicts, my photographs are mostly about the ordinary everyday situations shown in a unique way, without glitches, but only with a sense of time, which creates often a rather abstract dimension of everyday life. Considering this form of exhibiting photography, you can undoubtedly say that the photographs return to exactly where they came from – the street. [Official Website]
Exhibitions were widely covered in the Polish media and among Polish audience, but I know that this is a project whose idea has a much wider range than just one country.
