THE OTHER FAIRY-TALES// Agata Biskup, Wojtek Bąkowski, Przemek Czepurko, Paweł Duczmal, Tomek Siwiński, Honza Zamojski
Opening: Wednesday, 7th January 2009, 7.00 pm
The exhibition is open from 8th January 2009 to 30th March 2009
Location: Pawilon Wyspiański 2000, pl. Wszystkich Świętych 2
Curators: Małgorzata Mleczko, Patrycja Musiał / No Local Foundation
Organized by: No Local Foundation, the City of Kraków, Kraków Festival Office
We would like to tell you about contemporary fairy-tales. Why? We formed this idea when we observed the growing infantilization of culture and the increased interest in fairy-tales and childhood both in the realm of so called 'high' and 'low' culture in the last two decades. This subject matter is popular in advertising, film, literature, and the media. This fascination with fairy-tales and childhood is also present in visual arts. THE OTHER FAIRLY-TALES will not present this phenomenon in its entirety. It is a subjective perspective on the ways in which this subject functions nowadays, the meanings it can suggest, forms in which it can be presented, and the reasons to refer to the aesthetics of a fairy-tale.
THE OTHER FAIRY-TALES can be referred to an interesting historical context. In the Enlightenment a child was recognized as a full member of society for the first time. In the 18th century J.J. Rousseau introduced an anti-rationalist notion of a pure child-genius who “sees with his own eyes” and “feels with his own heart”. In 1697 Charles Perrault published “Mother Goose”, in the second half of the 19th century brothers Grimm collected and published German folk tales, and in 1935 Andersen published “Eventyr fortalte for Børn «Fairy-tales for Children»”.
In the beginning of the 20th century Freud, Jung, and later the Dadaists, Expressionists, and Surrealists also tried to fathom the secret of childhood. In contrast to the Enlightenment and Romanticism a child, as an individual, wasn’t most important for them. What was crucial was a child that they discovered in themselves. Freud’s psychoanalysis and psychic automatism of Surrealists served as a means to discover the truth about adults. It helped them to find in the depth of their psyche a primitive, authentic, and primeval element of their personality. In the 1980s there appeared yet another interpretation and analysis of childhood. It was defined as the last safe place in the ruthless reality of the post-war world. Neoexpressionist, such as Immendorf and Peck, referred to children’s art in order to distance their works from the world of adults and to express the sense of helplessness this world caused.
Since the 1990s the subject of childhood and fairy-tales has changed again, also in art. It engages emotionally both the author and the viewer. Works are no longer objects of contemplation; they tend to influence the viewer’s personality. This change is related to the development of narrative psychology and script theory, which search for the source of problems of grown-ups in childhood. The source of our difficulties is said to be ingrained in our personality and private experiences.
Renata Bożek, a psychologist, states that social crises, unemployment and institutionally sanctioned violence are no longer the reasons of our problems on the job market, in private life, or of psychological disorders. This view can be seen in crime films. Until the 1980s crimes were associated with mafia, gangs, poverty, government ineptitude, and corruption. Since the 1990s cultural imagination has been dominated by psychopathic serial killers, ruthless rapists and paranoid avengers. Their crimes are shown as an individual psychic pathology resulting from a childhood trauma.
Fairy-tales and fables have an enormous influence on individual’s development. They use a language of symbols which has a strong impact on our subconsciousness. Andersen, the Grimms, or Charles Perrault presented them as symbolic narrations. They were meant to accustom children with things which evoked their fears and anxieties to lead them finally to a wise, however not always happy ending. In the 20th century mass culture produced fairy-tales which were superficially realistic, produced mainly by the leading Walt Disney Pictures. They were sweet safe stories devoid of realistically presented matters of life and death which psychology considers crucial for the development of personality in childhood. In the beginning of the 21st century serious difficult subjects, brutality of reality come back. Notions of good and evil are relativized. Heroes such as Batman or Joker become ambiguous, and characters from “Włatcy Móch”, although admired by the viewers, are rather shocking. At present we have to deal with THE OTHER FAIRY-TALES.
Sponsored by:
Likus Hotele i Restauracje, Bar Miejsce
(Likus Hotels and Restaurants, Miejsce Bar)
Media patronage:
Independent.pl, Obieg.pl, RMF Classic, Magiczny Kraków, Onet.pl