In 1978 the multimedia artist Michael Snow, renowned for his experimental film and music, visited Poland with his band CCMC. In addition to his music, Michael Snow was encouraged by Anna Kutera to bring films to be screened at the Kutera co-founded and co-managed Gallery of Recent Art. One of the pieces shown in 1978 was One Second in Montreal a 16 mm film from 1969 featuring a selection of photographs depicting Montreal in the snow. Snow’s work, both haunting and mysterious, was a point of reference for this selection of 1970s films by the Polish experimental photographers and video-artists based in Wrocław: Janusz Hałas, Lech Mrożek and Romuald Kutera. All three, akin to Snow, contemplated the snowy landscape and the possibilities of experiment offered by camera based media within such a setting. This screening will also include work by Józef Robakowski. In Robakowski’s, I’m Going, the wintery background serves as a backdrop for a master shot that depicts the artist climbing a wooden watchtower. As the film progresses, the growing tiredness of the artist is transposed to the image captured on camera — as the artist’s arm shakes, so too does the camera — consequently merging the materiality of the artist’s body with that of the film itself.

Screening curated by Sylwia Serafinowicz, Collections Curator at the Wrocław Contemporary Museum.

 

Program:

Lech Mrożek, A Collection Two, 1975

Lech Mrożek, Projection, 1976

Lech Mrożek, My Point of View is Not Your Point of View, 1976

Józef Robakowski, I’m Going, 1973

Romuald Kutera, Blot, 1978

Józef Hałas, Painting on the Snow, 1971

 

Presented by Wrocław Contemporary Museum in association with Villa Toronto

 

Camera at Stephen Bulger Gallery

1026 Queen Street West, Toronto, M6J 1H6