Exhibition

28 September–16 November 2008

The Social Studio

Artur Zmijewski, Them, 2007, film

The exhibition Artur Zmijewski: The Social Studio presents a selection of recent works by Artur Zmijewski, including videos Them (2007) and Repetition (2005) that could be described as “social studios,” social experiments of sorts documented on film in a provocative and openly confrontational way.

Zmijewski believes that in order for art to regain its value in society, it has to expose societal conflict and disclose the conditions in which social antagonisms are cultivated and maintained by the powers that be. Convinced that the hard-won autonomy of art—in which art is considered independent from the “real” world—has actually disempowered it from acting as an accountable public voice, Zmijewski insistently requires of art that it take responsibility and engage in a dialogue with the current social and political reality around us. In this way, art can contribute to shaping that reality by imagining the world otherwise than we know it.

Publications

Newsletter
Artur Żmijewski: The Social Studio

Acknowledgements

The architectural concept for the exhibition is developed by artist Josef Dabernig.

With thanks to Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw.

Suggestions from the archive

Sint Maarten Parade

22 October–10 November 2023

BAK at the Sint Maarten Parade 2023

For Sint Maarten Parade 2023, Tools for Action—a non-profit organization that develops artistic interventions for political actions—collaborates with Utrecht-based members of Filipino, Caribbean, and other communities to collectively dream a parade compartment.

Panel Discussion

30 September 2023, 16.30-18.30

To the Other Side of the Concrete Wall

A book launch and panel discussion reflecting on the Jina Uprising, one year after its beginning.

Saturday, 30 September, 2023, 16:30–18:30 hrs at BAK, basis actuele kunst, Utrecht Organized by Jina Collective, a Netherlands-based feminist, leftist, anti-capitalist, anti-sexist, and pro-LQBTQIA+ action group that emerged from the Jina Uprising. This event launches a book of translated essays, co-published with BAK, which include some of the first English translations of texts by journalists […]

Public Program

09 September–29 October 2023

To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023)/Public Program

To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023) involves a hybrid off- and online sequence of conversations and screenings around discursive and artistic interventions that reimagine the social implications of watching the war through ways that disrupt, subvert, resist the media’s incessant spectacularization of war.