SIlentium est memoria, memoria est silentium

SIlentium est memoria, memoria est silentium / 24.10.2024 - 20.11.2024

On 25 October, the visitors to the City Gallery will have the opportunity to see the interdisciplinary and multifaceted work of Silesium group. The exhibition features the work of eight artists associated with Wrocław: Maciej Albrzykowski, Grażyna Jaskierska-Albrzykowska, Małgorzata Kazimierczak, Anna Kołodziejczyk, Kamil Moskowczenko, Renata Pacyna, Anna Szewczyk and Igor Wójcik. They are showcasing their paintings, sculptures, multimedia works, as well as installations and glass objects in the premises of the Wrocław institution as part of the exhibition Silesium est memoria, memoria est silentium.

The idea behind Silesium group, established in 2011, is to make art that is directly connected to a specific area of Lower Silesia, and thus, also to its rich spectrum of diverse historical, social and cultural phenomena. In a text accompanying the exhibition at the City Gallery, the curator Mirosław Jasiński presents fundamental principles that underpin the collective’s activities, stating: There are few art groups in the history of art that have so broadly described their raison d’être – on the one hand they seek to establish a point of reference in an era and style, while simultaneously engaging in artistic experimentation and discourse on the boundaries and understanding of art in the present era.

For this reason, Silesium’s exhibition practice has been inextricably linked to symposium trips, as well as to meetings and discussions with historians, philosophers and local visual artists. These events enabled the artists of the collective to elucidate and accentuate the prominent themes related to the studied region in the cognitive process. Sometimes, these were specific events related to a given place or a sign literally taken from its aesthetics that triggered the creative process. At other times, the creative drive arose from a holistic reflection on a theme that spontaneously imposed itself in contact with the surrounding environment. In their activities, which are both intellectual and intuitive in nature, the group explores themes such as the accumulation of meanings and ideas embedded in local aesthetics, or the motifs of scarcity and fragmentation as visual attributes.

The exhibition Silesium est memoria, memoria est silentium represents a kind of summary point for the group’s activity, which has spanned more than 13 years. As Mirosław Jasiński also states: (…) it is a demanding exhibition for the viewer. It is demanding in that it appeals not only to aesthetic sensations, but also to a multi-layered empathy. This involves a search for references stemming from the works of collective message, from a journey into the future and the traces of a centuries-old past, the known and the nameless and forgotten ones, which we more or less brush against in our wanderings through the region.

The exhibition in on view until 20 November 2024.

Curators: Anna Szewczyk, Mirosław Jasiński