Arsenal Municipal Gallery in Poznań has invited Marysia Lewandowska for a special project – The School of Law.
Marysia Lewandowska is a Polish-born artist based in London since 1985 who through her collaborative projects has explored the public function of archives, collections and exhibitions.\The project is a result of a long-term interest in questions of value and ownership of culture, both in economic and ethical terms.
The inspiration for developing these themes further in the context of Arsenal Gallery in Poznan is connected to the intellectual legacy of Czeslaw Znamierowski (1888 -1967), former professor of philosophy at the Department of Theory and Law at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (1945 – 1967).
Research into the family and the University archives will provide a starting point for ideas, with particular relevance evoked by the Doctorate dissertation, which explored questions of truth, and was completed at the University of Basel in 1912.
The city itself has in recent years become synonymous with the economic power of art market.
The theme of democratisation, theoretically constructed by Znamierowski for the first time in the publication Elite and Democracy (1928), will serve as the ideological grounding of the project, to be further activated by current interests and reflections on the mechanisms of public participation, as well as shaping awareness of self-organisation inside the artistic practices. Proposed by Znamierowski specific understanding of ethics as a collective responsibility based on kindness, will act as the key concept for the realisation of the project.
British Council is a partner of the project.