View, 2008
View
was collectively initiated by Anna Okrasko, Nicolas Sanchez and Kaja Pawełek
and took place in Witryna Gallery. This project was conceived as a civil
protest against the transformation of Warsaw’s urban public sphere by
commercial powers employing a common practice of covering windows of private
flats by advertising companies. The group exhibition created a platform for the
singular voices of each of the three participants.
For the exhibition I took
photographs of views from private flats’ windows covered with advertisements.
One of these photographs was reproduced on a banner and installed so that it
blocked the view of exhibition space of the gallery. “Witryna” is Polish for
“vitrine”; its programming is based on the idea of free accessibility and
participation. The photo reproduced on the banner shows the view of the
building where Witryna Gallery is located.
Nicolas
Sanchez contributed a short, semi-fictional story about his experience as a
resident of one of the flats covered with advertisement. The book he wrote and
illustrated was launched during View
opening. Art historian and curator, Kaja Pawełek, wrote a critical text about
outdoor advertisement, which was published in one of the main Polish newspapers
Gazeta Wyborcza. On the day of the
opening, this newspaper was distributed during the exhibition’s private view.
One of the photographs from View series, showing the perspective of Warsaw, obscured by the advertisement banner covering the window.
