British Council and Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, present the exhibition: "Poza zasadą przyjemności. Afektywne operacje".
The exhibition takes its point of departure in the popular humanistic category of affects, which organise its emotional space. Affect is construed here as the body’s automatic reaction to external stimuli or internal processes. These reactions, pleasant or not, occur beyond consciousness and the rational mind, and are not immediately subject to cognitive reflection. Affect is commonly identified with emotions, but in the context of this exhibition it is a proto-emotion: an experience of ‘intensity’ (anxiety, tension, tremor, uncertainty, experienced in the body, under the skin) that – when cognitively worked through, made conscious – triggers off specific emotions such as joy, fear, disgust, shame, anger, and many other related emotional nuances.
The exhibition focuses on works that challenge the formal, emotional, cognitive, and ethical status quo. It is a kind of game played with the viewer, a field where the affective and psychoanalytical experience meets the artistic and the receptive one.
artists: Marina Abramović, Kader Attia, Monica Bonvicini, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Douglas Gordon, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Mona Hatoum, Jesse Kanda, Teresa Margolles, Petr Pavlensky, Aleksandra Ska, Taryn Simon, Andreas Sterzing, Mircea Suciu, Roman Stańczak, David Wojnarowicz, Artur Żmijewski
curator: Maria Brewińska
cooperation: Magdalena Komornicka