ANNA BAUMGART
Born in 1966 in Wroclaw, Poland, Anna Baumgart is a multimedia artist who represents a feminism focused on personal, often hidden, problems and obsessions. She is also interested in the subject of "The Other" in culture. She works in video, installation, performance, sculpture, and artistic tattoo.
In 1994 Baumgart graduated from the department of sculpture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk. She had her first solo exhibitions in 1994, receiving in 1995 the Award of the City of Gdansk for the Most Interesting Debut. In the 1990s she collaborated with the most important centers of the Gdansk artistic scene: Wyspa Gallery, Spichz 7 Gallery, Baltic Cultural Center and CCA "Laznia". Very important at the beginning of her career was her participation in Status Quo at the Center of Polish Sculpture in Oronsko, 1996, where she showed sculptural objects that were close in character to Minimal Art.
She began with minimalist sculptures, such as Let Unrestrained Anger Be Eliminated (1996), using electric and optic devices as well as liquid substances such as honey (which can be related to the influence of Joseph Beuys). These juxtaposed the biological with the technological, revealing the artist's interests: it was apparent that in these works the biological (the "hidden femininity") "won out". In this first stage of her career, influences of ecological art are visible, but since she was looking for archetypes of femininity, she treated it from a feminist perspective.
Within a few years Baumgart resigned from sculptural objects in order to move to video, realizing Who Speaks? (1998), Mother (1999), Condoms, Money, Lady - No problem! (Prezerwatywy, pieniadze, money, lady - no problem, 1999), in which she undertook to deal with feminine emotionality, involvement in relationships, and patterns in education. Baumgart continues this themes employing pastiche in the video series True? (2001), where through digital editing she placed her own figure into fragments of feature films (Leca Zurawie by Michail Kalatozow and Mis by Stanislaw Bareja). In the project Ecstatics, Hysterics and Other Saintly Ladies (2004) using the aesthetics of a documentary, she analyzed the phenomenon of female auto-aggression and hysteria.
In retrospect, her early works certainly belong among the most significant in 1990s feminism, even though in this period she was not a participant in major exhibitions. It was only towards the end of the 1990s that her videos were featured in some important video and performance art exhibitions, among them WRO - Media Art Biennale in 1997 and 1999; as well as major group shows: At The Time of Writing, Centre for Contemporary Art "Zamek Ujazdowski" in Warsaw, 1998; and Public Relations, CCA "Laznia" in Gdansk, 1999. In 1999 she had a solo exhibition at the CCA "Zamek Ujazdowski" in Warsaw.
The third period in Baumgart's career started in 2000 when she moved to Warsaw and opened (initially leading it with Zbigniew Libera) Café Baumgart at the CCA Zamek Ujazdowski: a café of an anarchistic-feminist character, organizing meetings, performances, promotions, etc.
She has also tackled the themes of gender in realistic sculptures realized since 2002 such as I Got It From My Mom (2002), Bombowniczka (2004), or Warrior (2005). A stucco sculpture I Got It From My Mom - devoted to complicated mother-daughter relations (including her own) was shown at her 2002 exhibition at the XXI Gallery in Warsaw, together with a series of color photographs, Mothers and Daughters, based on newspapers' iconography. The artist took images of well-known women and their daughters and incorporated accessories from Christian symbolism, thus juxtaposing two artificial discourses and stylistics. The sculpture Bombowniczka (2004) depicts a young pregnant woman, whose attributes contradict the accepted vision of a mother, juxtaposing it with an independent, defiant woman conscious of her own power. The neological title provocatively refers to carrying bombs. In her most recent sculpture, Weronika AP (2006), Baumgart turns to the subject of the relationship between the media and the fate of an individual.
An important element of Baumgart's artistic biography has always been her social and organizational activities on the art scene. In 1994-1995 she co-created the program of Gdansk's "Delicatessen Avant-garde Gallery" and of the Forum of Contemporary Art at the "Gazownia Gallery", organizing the Salon of Video Art project. In 1998 Baumgart founded the Bureau for Creative Initiatives. She also organized projects of an artistic-didactic character, such as Multimedia and Improvisational Music Workshops, as well as Praga Fair - a socio-political project engaging young fashion designers. But the most important of them was Cafe Baumgart at the CCA "Zamek Ujazdowski", which soon became a veritable 'institution' - a popular, thriving catalyst for Warsaw's art world.
In this decade Anna Baumgart has become one of the most active and interesting women artists, skillfully employing various media and being consistent in addressing ever more profound problems. She has taken part in the most important shows of Polish art at home and abroad, and in 2004 Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw organized her exhibition in tandem with Birgit Brenner. She has received stipends from Fundacja Kultury (2001) and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2005). Baumgart's works are in the collections of Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Museum of Art in Frankfurt a/M, and in private collections.
Baumgart's video Ecstatics, Hysterics and Other Saintly Ladies, first shown in Collection of Shameful Gestures: Anna Baumgart/Birgit Brenner at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, uses documentary stylistics to address a problem of psychic destruction in women: the phenomenon of female auto-aggression and hysteria.
Baumgart's attempt to tackle this difficult phenomenon is a key aspect of her art. In an interview she explained: "I am tempted by the possibility of redefining the notion of 'hysteria': of transforming it from a verbal insult into a verbal compliment. The hysteric seems interesting to me, suggesting a creative approach by women to the world, a defiant and even revolutionary attitude. What feminism has already uncovered and investigated on the basis of 19th century hysteria - that it is a kind of auto-art - has never found acceptance in our collective thinking. (Kolekcja wstydliwych gestów, in: Czas Kultury, no. 1, 2004, www.culture.pl)
"Ecstatics, Hysterics and Other Saintly Ladies seems at first glance to be close in form to a documentary film. It presents a rich repertoire of women's self-destructive gestures drawn from reality, such as the ecstatic shattering of glass or the cutting of skin. The actresses playing out their rituals are young, cared-for women, while their "paratheatrical activities" take place in everyday domestic interiors: living rooms, bathrooms and halls. The collision of these gestures with the ordinary surroundings is unsettling and provokes questions. The film also makes subtle reference to mother-daughter relations, suggesting the hereditary nature of certain gestures". (Curator Joanna Turowicz, Collection of Shameful Gestures: Anna Baumgart/Birgit Brenner, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, 2004)
As suggested by curator and critic Joanna Zielinska, this destructive power directed inward, against one's body, does not affect only the ill: "Auto-destructive activities exist in our culture, after all, in the seemingly harmless, but merciless grooming of the body: dieting, tanning, tattooing, body-piercing, and depilation... Woman's body has been trapped between culture and nature for centuries: on the one hand disgusting for its menstruation and its ability to give birth, while at the same time being a fetish, an object of erotic desire. Auto-aggression also encompasses hysterical, mystic-religious behavior. The motif of 'flagellating' one's own body and its beauty is also present in women's performances in body art, [&] as a protest against the objectification of a woman's body. At the same time [such activities] constitute a search for a language or form of expression for emotions such as revulsion, fear, imprisonment. (Joanna Zielinska, Posluszne cialo?, www.bunkier.com.pl)
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS:2006 - Weronika. AP, Le Guern Gallery, Warsaw2005 - Sleepless in TR, TR Warszawa Theatre, Warsaw; Ecstatics, Hysterics, and Other Saintly Ladies, Potocka Gallery, Krakow2004 - Collection of Shameful Gestures. Anna Baumgart/Birgit Brenner, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (with Birgit Brenner); Ecstatics, Hysterics and Other Saintly Ladies, State Gallery of Art, Sopot2003 - Pretty Communications, Presstor Gallery, Bratislava (Slovakia); Project on clubbing with painter Agata Bogacka in an empty store space at 45/49 Maszalkowska Street, Warsaw2002 - Wreath of Thorns and a Rose, XXI Gallery, Warsaw (with Aleksandra Polisiewicz)2001 - True?, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw1999 - Anna Baumgart. Video, Centre for Contemporary Art "Zamek Ujazdowski", Warsaw1998 - Innocence of Interpretations, State Gallery of Art, Sopot1997 - The Safe Asylum of One's Own Helplessness, Spichz Gallery, Gdansk; Prowincjonalna Gallery, Slubice1996 - The Safe Asylum of One's Own Helplessness, Galeria ON, Poznan1995 - Timszel, Wyspa Gallery, Gdansk1994 - In Maja, Foyer Gallery, Wybrzeze Theater, Gdansk; Post Scriptum, Delicatessen Avant-garde Gallery, Gdansk
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:2007 - Global Feminisms, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY (USA)2006 - You Cannot Come Closer, Cell - Project Space, London (Great Britain); Mise en Scene, MAMAC - Musee d'Art Moderne et Contemporain Liege, Liège (France); Mise en Scene, MAMA showroom for media and moving art, Rotterdam (The Netherlands)2005 - Egocentric, Immoral, Outmoded, Zacheta, National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Boys, Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow; Polka - Medium - Shadow - Images, Centre for Contemporary Art "Zamek Ujazdowski", Warsaw; CLUB CUBE - Club Culture Festival, CCA "Zamek Ujazdowski", Warsaw; Madonna, Kunsthaus Dresden, Stadtische Galerie fur Gegenwartskuns, Dresden (Germany); Mother's Day, XXI Gallery, Warsaw2004 - Videozoom, Rome (Italy) Projected Visions - Video Art in Poland, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (International Fair grounds), Thessalonica (Greece); Beyond The Red Horizon. New Art from Poland and Russia, CCA "Zamek Ujazdowski", Warsaw; Nova Polska, Espace Croise, Roubaix (France); Under the White-and-Red Flag. New Art From Poland, Contemporary Art Center (CAC), Vilnius (Lithuania); Tallinn, Estonia; Moscow, Russia; Made in Poland, POLART, Strasburg; Terra Polska, Kulturbrauerei - Galerie Am Kino, Berlin (Germany)2003 - Free Style, Espace Croise, Roubaix (France); Integration, Program Gallery, Warsaw; Coop-Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest (Romania); Bialy Mazur/White Mazur, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (Germany); Videospriz, StudioTommasco, Triest Videozoom, Palazzo San Carluccio, Viterbo (Italy); Videoformes 2004, Clermont-Ferrand (France)2002 - A Way of Life, Centre for Contemporary Art "Laznia", Gdansk; Semiotic Landscape, Charim Galerie, Vienna (Austria); Dangerous Liasons, Arsenal Gallery, Poznan; The Young are Realists, Really, CCA Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw2001 - Woman About the Woman, Bielska BWA Gallery, Bielsko-Biala; Male, Gallery of Contemporary Art Celje, Slovenia; Scena 2000, CCA "Zamek Ujazdowski", Warsaw2000 - Eight, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw1999 - Public Relations, Centre for Contemporary Art "Laznia", Gdansk; 7 International Biennale of Media Art WRO'99, Wroclaw; In the Face of the Apocalypse. The Kiss of Death, Bielska BWA Gallery, Bielsko-Biala; World's Women On-Line, www.asu.edu/wwol; Talk. Berlin-Warsaw, CCA "Zamek Ujazdowski", Warsaw1998 - At The Time of Writing, CCA Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw; Festival of Video Art: North-South, Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow1997 - Video Art of 90s from Poland, Art in General, New York (screening); In the Face of the Apocalypse, Spichz 7 Gallery, Gdansk; Video Art Salon, BWA, Sopot1996 - Status Quo. Przestrzenie sztuki mlodych, Center of Polish Sculpture, Oronsko Biennial of New Art, BWA, Zielona Gora; Avant-garde Delicatessen, Kunstraum, Dusseldorf Status Quo, National Museum, Warsaw1995 - March Mating 3, Artists' Museum, Lodz; Status Quo, Centre for Polish Sculpture, Oronsko; Here Performance, Performance Festival, Torun; Focus, Spichrz 7 Gallery, Gdansk; Endlos/Endless, Former Municipal Bathhouse, Gdansk1994 - Protein, Artists' Museum, Lodz; Praxis, Open Atelier, Former Municipal Bathhouse, Gdansk; Centre for Polish Sculpture, Oronsko; Midnight Shakespeare, Avant-garde Delicatessen / Wyspa Gallery, Gdansk; Against Violence, Avant-garde Delicatessen, Gdansk; Heretics of Gdansk, Avant-garde Delicatessen, Gdansk
Sources: Krzysztof Jurecki, www.culture.pl, 2004;
http://www.lokal30.pl/baumgart.html, www.leguern.pl |
Anna Baumgart
Real?, 2001, still from a video
Bombowniczka, 2004, mixed materials
I Got It From My Mom, 2002, stucco
Mothers and Daughters, 2002, a series of photographs
Mothers and Daughters, 2002, a series of photographs
Mothers and Daughters, 2002, a series of photographs
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