Artists

Kuba Stępień, Nicolas Grospierre, Ant Łakomsk, Zuzanna Bartoszek, Marta Ejsmont, Mateusz Pawlukiewicz, Mariia Kolomiitseva, Wiktoria Kieniksman, Paweł Donhöffner Zięba

Press release

"An alarming number of castles are being built in Poland. Dozens are rising across the country. Existing monuments are being expanded. Reconstruction follows reconstruction. Castles that did not previously exist are also appearing. These investments are flourishing despite criticism and enormous costs. The exhibition examines the Polish love of the castle, and the castle itself as a distinct typology at the intersection of architecture and communication. The original functions of the castle — as fortress and residence — long ago ceased to exist; the symbolic layer has endured and, moreover, remains significant. A tension arises between the anachronism of the castle as an architectural object and its continued relevance as a means of communication. To explore this tension, the project introduces the concept of 'castle-ness': the cultural perception of an object as a castle, based on collective imagination rather than on its actual history or authenticity. Viewed from this perspective, Wawel, Tykocin, the Royal Castle, Stobnica, and other castle-like structures stand in a single row as equal manifestations of the same archetype. Deconstructing castle-ness helps us understand the relationship between the image of the castle consciously constructed by architects and the message conveyed by the castle as a symbol. The exhibition focuses on the newest castles, yet demonstrates that the roots of their contemporary perception lie in the nineteenth century. It was then that the language of castle-ness we use today emerged. This language encompasses scale, mode of display, type of architectural costume, and the decision whether to leave a castle in ruins or restore it to a state of newness. Since the contemporary image of Poland's most important national symbols — Wawel and the Royal Castle in Warsaw — was shaped relatively recently, in the twentieth century, they too employ this language. The exhibition explores castle-ness through photography and contemporary art. Modernist photographer Nicolas Grospierre portrayed Wawel and Stobnica, the Royal Castle and Bobolice on equal footing. His perspective situates the castle in the present. Marta Ejsmont, author of a comprehensive photographic documentation of the construction of the Museum of Modern Art building, focused on the materiality of castles. In her photographs, old, renovated and newly built castles alike gleam with the same sense of newness, as if freshly completed. Mateusz Pawlukiewicz presented a visual lexicon of vernacular fortified architecture. The context for their works is provided by models, infographics, fragments of architectural designs, and drawings made by children. The culmination of the exhibition is the installation The Last Castle. It was created by the artistic and curatorial collective Turnus and Mariia Kolomiitseva. They invited artists Zuzanna Bartoszek, Wiktoria Kieniksman, Ant Łakomsk, Kuba Stępień, and Paweł Donhöffner Zięba to collaborate on the project. The installation proposes a critical reworking of castle-ness. The artists reduce the castle to a recognisable archetype, yet strip it of all its castle-like attributes: monumentality, durability, and symbolic weight. They bring the castle down to a scale that can be confronted rather than admired from a distance." Curator: Kuba Snopek