"Patron of Culture 2006"
The Polish
Ministry of Culture Awards Deutsche Bank for its Commitment to Art
Tessen von Heydebreck and the Polish Minister
of Education Kazimierz Michał Ujazdowski at the award ceremony
Ever since
Elzbieta Jablonska was the first Polish artist to win the
"Deutsche Bank Foundation Award" in 2003, her life has become
considerably easier. "I can finally concentrate on my work", she says,
adding: "Many talented artists give up because of their financial
situation. There are hardly any art collectors in Poland, and only a few
large galleries." Now, Deutsche Bank's commitment to supporting
contemporary Polish artists has also convinced the
Ministry for Culture and National Heritage. In recognition of its
"extraordinary commitment to Polish culture", and particularly for its
sponsorship program "Views – Deutsche Bank Foundation Award", it has now
received the "Patron of Culture 2006" distinction in the category
"Promoter".
Elzbieta Jablonska, from the series "Supermother", 2003
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"Views" is a competition for young Polish artists that the
Deutsche Bank Foundation, Deutsche Bank Poland
, and the Zacheta National Gallery
in Warsaw puts on every two years; the winner receives a prize of 10,000
Euros. Artists are nominated whose work investigates social realities in
Poland and has already been present in galleries and exhibitions. They are
offered the opportunity to present their work to a larger public in the
most important Polish museum for modern and contemporary art, The Zacheta
Gallery. A seven-member jury selects the prizewinner. Three years ago,
Elzbieta Jablonska convinced the jurors with her work
Helping, in which she examined unemployment among women. The work
consists of a job-wanted ad hand-embroidered by an unemployed woman and
accompanied by 60,000 shredded 100-Zloty bills presented in a Plexiglas
case.
Maciej Kurak and Dr. Ariane Grigoteit,
Global Head of Deutsche Bank Art,
in
front of Kurak's work Parergon, 2005
In 2005,
33-year-old
Maciej Kurak won the award for his work Parergon (ornament or
decoration). In the historical rooms of the Zacheta, the Poznan-based
artist installed a pre-fabricated apartment made of plasterboard whose
furniture was partly sawn apart, creating a collision between the
philistine coziness of the small rooms and the monumental spaces of the
exhibition house. An antique picture frame served as a window through
which exhibition visitors could enter Kurak's environment and momentarily
become the main character in a living image. The second prize, a working
grant and six-month stipend to Berlin, went to
Anna Orlikowska for her video work Being, in which she delved into
the darker reaches of her existence by photographing herself with a
nighttime camera as a phantom vegetating in the dark.
Yet Deutsche
Bank's support of the Zacheta is not limited to the Prize for Young Polish
Art.
Black Alphabet can currently be seen there, a show that presents a
broad spectrum of African American art for the first time in Poland,
honoring the role it plays in American culture. Along with works by
Kara Walker,
Lorna Simpson, and
Carrie Mae Weems,
Ellen Gallagher's series De Luxe (2004) from the
Deutsche Bank Collection is also on show. The exhibition is another
example of the lively cooperation between Deutsche Bank and the Zacheta
that goes far beyond pure sponsorship.
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