Into the Unknown
Moving Images from the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
Salt Beyoğlu, Salt Galata
May 28 – August 14, 2022
![Intotheunknown Main 03 Deimantas Narkevičius, <i>Into the Unknown</i> [Bilinmeyene Doğru] (2009) filminden bir kare Varşova Modern Sanat Müzesi izniyle](/directus/media/thumbnails/intotheunknown_main_03-jpg-780-5000-false.jpg)
Still from Deimantas Narkevičius’s Into the Unknown (2009) Courtesy the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
In November 1989, the iconic Wall separating the ‘communist’ East from the ‘capitalist’ West fell. The demolition of the Wall created a threshold into a new world order and became a new milestone that shaped narratives of past and recent histories. Into the Unknown, organized by Salt in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, concentrates on art’s ability to disrupt the established historical and cultural narratives in a post-1989 world subsequent to the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc, and seeks alternative subjectivities that go beyond existing and known accounts. Into the Unknown spreads across Salt Beyoğlu and Salt Galata.
Shining a spotlight on a body of work from the 2000s to the present central to the Museum’s moving image collection, the exhibition features works by Diane Severin Nguyen, Nathalie Djurberg, Agnieszka Polska, Józef Robakowski, Duncan Campbell, Deimantas Narkevičius, Shana Moulton, Jananne Al-Ani, Oleksiy Radinsky, Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska. Borrowing its title from Deimantas Narkevičius’s work created for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Into the Unknown offers a social insight into the former Eastern Bloc as well as modern-day Eastern Europe.
The exhibition explores alternative perspectives, through genres of the experimental, found footage and fiction. Rather than accepting the documentary and the archive as fixed and objective representations of the truth, the exhibition utilizes such mediums to unravel the notion of the unknown. Underlining the living nature and altering use of the documentary and the archive within art, the exhibition traces the tensions and contradictions between mechanisms of social power and everyday life, established history and personal memory, and between regimes of truth and the unconscious.
Into the Unknown spreads across the Forum, Winter Garden, the third and second floors of Salt Beyoğlu with works by Diane Severin Nguyen, Nathalie Djurberg, Agnieszka Polska, Józef Robakowski, Duncan Campbell, Deimantas Narkevičius, Shana Moulton, Jananne Al-Ani and Oleksiy Radinsky. The exhibition continues at Salt Galata with an extensive archive project, Enthusiasts Archive by Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, celebrating the amateur underground film clubs in Poland before 1989. With a selection of 10 short and experimental films highlighting everyday life from the early 1970s until late 1980s, the archive project poses a critical perspective on idealized notions of society and art, and it expands on the archive’s public function and the question of ownership in art.
The exhibition Into the Unknown is on view between May 28 - August 14 and is programmed by Fatma Çolakoğlu (Salt Research and Programs Director) and Sebastian Cichocki (Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Chief Curator) in collaboration with writer and editor Eda Sezgin. The exhibition’s accompanying public program will be announced at saltonline.org and Salt’s social media channels.
Salt Beyoğlu
Diane Severin Nguyen
IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS, 2021, 18’53”
Nathalie Djurberg
Monster, 2011, 5’01”
Agnieszka Polska
The Thousand-Year Plan, 2020, 27’54”
Józef Robakowski
Impulsator, 2000, 2’33”
Duncan Campbell
Arbeit, 2011, 41’
Deimantas Narkevičius
Into the Unknown, 2009, 17’01”
Shana Moulton
MindPlace ThoughtStream, 2014, 11’57”
Jananne Al-Ani
Shadow Sites I, 2010, 14’22”
Oleksiy Radinsky
Circulation, 2020, 11’30”
Salt Galata
Neil Cummings, Marysia Lewandowska
Enthusiasts Archive, 2002
* * *
Program
Fatma Çolakoğlu
Sebastian Cichocki (Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw)
Consultant
Łukasz Ronduda (Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw)
Exhibition Texts and Editing
Eda Sezgin
Design and Production
Emirhan Altuner
Project Assistant
Gül İçel
English Translation
Oğul Girgin
Subtitles
Eceworx
Installation
Eray Özcan, Mustafa Hazneci, Fiksatif, 3T Reklam
Acknowledgements
Joanna Mytkowska, Sebastian Cichocki, Diane Severin Nguyen, Nathalie Djurberg, Agnieszka Polska, Józef Robakowski, Duncan Campbell, Deimantas Narkevičius, Shana Moulton, Jananne Al-Ani, Oleksiy Radinsky, Neil Cummings, Marysia Lewandowska, Adrian Antoniewicz, Łukasz Ronduda
In Collaboration
With the Contribution
JOTUN Boya and Petra The Flooring Co.
Shining a spotlight on a body of work from the 2000s to the present central to the Museum’s moving image collection, the exhibition features works by Diane Severin Nguyen, Nathalie Djurberg, Agnieszka Polska, Józef Robakowski, Duncan Campbell, Deimantas Narkevičius, Shana Moulton, Jananne Al-Ani, Oleksiy Radinsky, Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska. Borrowing its title from Deimantas Narkevičius’s work created for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Into the Unknown offers a social insight into the former Eastern Bloc as well as modern-day Eastern Europe.
The exhibition explores alternative perspectives, through genres of the experimental, found footage and fiction. Rather than accepting the documentary and the archive as fixed and objective representations of the truth, the exhibition utilizes such mediums to unravel the notion of the unknown. Underlining the living nature and altering use of the documentary and the archive within art, the exhibition traces the tensions and contradictions between mechanisms of social power and everyday life, established history and personal memory, and between regimes of truth and the unconscious.
Into the Unknown spreads across the Forum, Winter Garden, the third and second floors of Salt Beyoğlu with works by Diane Severin Nguyen, Nathalie Djurberg, Agnieszka Polska, Józef Robakowski, Duncan Campbell, Deimantas Narkevičius, Shana Moulton, Jananne Al-Ani and Oleksiy Radinsky. The exhibition continues at Salt Galata with an extensive archive project, Enthusiasts Archive by Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, celebrating the amateur underground film clubs in Poland before 1989. With a selection of 10 short and experimental films highlighting everyday life from the early 1970s until late 1980s, the archive project poses a critical perspective on idealized notions of society and art, and it expands on the archive’s public function and the question of ownership in art.
The exhibition Into the Unknown is on view between May 28 - August 14 and is programmed by Fatma Çolakoğlu (Salt Research and Programs Director) and Sebastian Cichocki (Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Chief Curator) in collaboration with writer and editor Eda Sezgin. The exhibition’s accompanying public program will be announced at saltonline.org and Salt’s social media channels.
Salt Beyoğlu
Diane Severin Nguyen
IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS, 2021, 18’53”
Nathalie Djurberg
Monster, 2011, 5’01”
Agnieszka Polska
The Thousand-Year Plan, 2020, 27’54”
Józef Robakowski
Impulsator, 2000, 2’33”
Duncan Campbell
Arbeit, 2011, 41’
Deimantas Narkevičius
Into the Unknown, 2009, 17’01”
Shana Moulton
MindPlace ThoughtStream, 2014, 11’57”
Jananne Al-Ani
Shadow Sites I, 2010, 14’22”
Oleksiy Radinsky
Circulation, 2020, 11’30”
Salt Galata
Neil Cummings, Marysia Lewandowska
Enthusiasts Archive, 2002
Program
Fatma Çolakoğlu
Sebastian Cichocki (Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw)
Consultant
Łukasz Ronduda (Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw)
Exhibition Texts and Editing
Eda Sezgin
Design and Production
Emirhan Altuner
Project Assistant
Gül İçel
English Translation
Oğul Girgin
Subtitles
Eceworx
Installation
Eray Özcan, Mustafa Hazneci, Fiksatif, 3T Reklam
Acknowledgements
Joanna Mytkowska, Sebastian Cichocki, Diane Severin Nguyen, Nathalie Djurberg, Agnieszka Polska, Józef Robakowski, Duncan Campbell, Deimantas Narkevičius, Shana Moulton, Jananne Al-Ani, Oleksiy Radinsky, Neil Cummings, Marysia Lewandowska, Adrian Antoniewicz, Łukasz Ronduda
In Collaboration
With the Contribution
JOTUN Boya and Petra The Flooring Co.
