In Process
presents
SANATORIUM
30 November 2013 – 26 January 2014
Exhibition opening: 30 November at 18:00
SANATORIUM is the result of a Process-Based Residency during which Szczecin-based artist Natalia Szostak has been living and working in the MOMENTUM space in the Kunstquartier Bethanien. Working together with Polish curator Aurelia Nowak, Szostak creates new work in response to her immersion in this former church-run hospital. Surrounded by the family of Szostak’s earlier work brought into this new context, the artist and curator conceive of this Process-Based Residency in the tradition of the sanatorium – a retreat wherein they have time to focus and develop their work. Working across a variety of media, and drawing on autobiographical motifs of personal memory and family history, Szostak’s richly textured works give us an insight into a strong character sheltering a delicate sensibility. Szostak’s visual language expresses a soul well beyond her years, rooted in a cultural tradition somehow unchanged by her international education and work experience.
Featuring:
AURELIA NOWAK
Aurelia Nowak (1987, Poland) is an organizer of art events and independent curator of exhibitions based in Poznan (PL) and Berlin (DE). She has contributed to art magazines: Magazyn Sztuki and Magazyn Szum. She has also published in daily press Gazeta Wyborcza and other art magazines such as Exit, E-splot and Przeglad Anarchistyczny. From 2009 to 2010 she was a member of the curatorial team of Przychodnia Gallery (Poznań). In 2012 she received a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, as well as the Award for achievements in art field from Ministry of Culture and Heritage. She has also received the Artistic Scholarship from the President of Poznan. Recently she is a participant of the Gallerist Programme run by De Appel Arts Centre in Amsterdam. As Curator-In-Residence at MOMENTUM, Nowak will be responsible for developing the conceptual framework for the process-based residency, in addition to curating the residency exhibition at MOMENTUM, as well as organising related talks, workshops, and events for the public with all four artists. Nowak’s contribution to this process-based residency will ensure that it serves as an active exchange between two institutions and across several cultures, providing both the artists and their audiences with the opportunity to engage with and think through the processes of art practice, and the roles of the institutions which support it.
NATALIA SZOSTAK
Natalia Szostak was born in 1980 in Szczecin, Poland. At age 19 she left Poland and lived in Paris (1999-‐2001), San Francisco (2001-‐2007), and Brooklyn, New York (2007-‐2009). Currently she lives and works in Szczecin. Natalia Szostak is a visual artist working in both traditional and new media. The non-material dimension of art and its unique communicative impact are central areas of her interest. While most of her work happens in seclusion, she enjoys collaborating with other people often implicating social art practice techniques. She received a BA in painting from San Francisco State University and an MA in graphic arts from the Szczecin Academy of Art. Winner of the 2009 Emerging Artist Special Award at the International Art Competition held by X-‐Power Gallery in Los Angeles. Two-time recipient of the Artist Scholarship of the City of Szczecin. She is the founder of the independent project Platerøwka, whose main objective is to promote art outside the traditional gallery and museum structure. In collaboration with artists representing various fields of art, since spring 2011, the apartment blocks where Natalia resides have become the platform for public events with the active participation of her neighbors. Szostak bases her work primarily on painting. This combined with other techniques (photography, video, object) allows her to achieve a level of complexity that more closely matches her perceptions. The resulting visual statements serve not only as personal commentary but also mark the culmination of a thought process, which having failed at finding its verbal equivalent manifests itself as an image. The body, a source of feeling and information, is the center of her iconography. Relying on it, she creates a visual version of her experiences,communicating purely subjective ideas, which fill the troubling gap between religion, science and life. As Artist-In-Residence at MOMENTUM, Natalia Szostak will show her body of work HOLY!: a video, a book and prints documenting an action in public space (4-9/2012). In the site-specific context of MOMENTUM’s location in the Bethanian, which was originally built as a hospital administered by the church, Szostak will create new work, further developing HOLY! within and about this historic space, host to over a hundred years of faith, healing, and death.
MORE INFO ON MOMENTUM WEBSITE
