PHOTOMONTH IN KRAKOW 2011 ACCOMPANYING EVENTS

This year's accompanying events fill the Photomonth in Kraków programme to the brim. We focus on two concepts we think are worthy of ongoing promotion and discussion. The first is collecting. The market will not reach maturity without suitable stimulation, so we'll be attempting to popularise knowledge of collecting photography and promote best standards. The second block is devoted to the concept of self-publishing low print-runs of books and albums at the author's cost, popular elsewhere around the world yet relatively unknown in Poland. We hope that the series of meetings, lectures and workshops will convince participants that self-publishing is not only simple and cheap, but also that it is a great idea.

The erotic spell cast by collecting was mentioned by Sigmund Freud, also a private art collector. The fact that collecting begins with delight and ends with appropriation is heatedly discussed in Polish art circles. An excellent example of this was Toruń's Signs of the Times Contemporary Art Centre, which showed Kwiaty naszego życia [Flowers of Our Lives] in 2008 - an exhibition entirely devoted to the idea of collecting, where collections of buttons and triple line notebooks filled with writing were shown right next to comments on the collecting of works by Oskar Dawicki and Goska Macuga. A little quieter is the reflection on the collection of photos, although photo-collecting itself growing in strength.

As part of Photomonth in Krakow, we have decided to look at the collecting of prints under a magnifying glass and to offer a series of meetings, discussions and lectures that will broaden the field of knowledge. This series involves a variety of perspectives. Collectors will discuss their experience of photo-collection; the dynamics of joining the great collections and artists. There will also be a considerable number of collecting workshops - how to collect, what to look out for during the first shopping expeditions, and hints as to where collecting can lead. Finally, good news - we have treated the block of collecting events as an excuse to free the prints shown in the ShowOFF Section. Each of them may be taken home. Kraków is still not Switzerland, but we, too, like to rebel. Not just atoms.

Anna Theiss

COLLECTING BLOCK:

LECTURES

18.05.2011; 18:00

Wojciech Nowicki - The Sense in Collecting

Galeria Camelot & Fundacji Imago Mundi, ul. św. Tomasza 17

29.05.2011; 14:00

Jerzy Łapiński - Technical Aspects of Photography Collecting

Galeria Camelot & Fundacji Imago Mundi, ul. św. Tomasza 17

MEETINGS, PRESENTATIONS

20.05.2011; 19:00

A Meeting with Charlotte Cotton, Director of the National Media Museum

Led by Dominik Kuryłek

Galeria Camelot & Fundacji Imago Mundi, ul. św. Tomasza 17

28.05.2011; 14:00

Photography Collecting in Poland. Meeting with Cezary Pieczyński

Led by Marta Eloy-Cichocka

Galeria Camelot & Fundacji Imago Mundi, ul. św. Tomasza 17

EVENT

21.05.2011; 12:00-16:00

Archaeology of Photography Foundation Dusting Off Family Archives

12:00 Lecture by Karolina Lewandowska

12:45 collecting consultations

Galeria Camelot & Fundacja Imago Mundi, ul. św. Tomasza 17

SELF-PUBLISHING BLOCK:

Self-publishing does what it says on the tin, i.e. the artist and the publisher are one in the same person. Photography self-publishing has its origins in the counterculture movements of the mid-twentieth century, which were independent of official culture and the primacy of creativity, and the punk movement of the 70s and 80s, which spread a DIY ideology. Self-publishing in photography contains, therefore, the idea of rebelling against the system - the art market, publishers, and the common photographic language.

Today, photography self-publishing is mainly developing in the blogging and ex-blogging community, with the help of sites that show how to make photobooks and others that present and discuss them. The best of the virtual world - the unlimited artistic freedom - is transferred to the "real" and sublimated in the photobook, which, unlike a blog, requires a planned selection of material, composition, and above all returns materialness to photography. Photography once again gains physicality; it becomes a thing - a photo. Published at their own expense or through small publishers and foundations, in the most various ways, today's photobook is, 40 years on, a manifestation of another counter-cultural rebellion against mass culture, copy culture, and standardisation. The slogan of this rebellion is: not available from Amazon or other standard outlets.

Karolina Sulej

More about self-publishing www.selfpublishbehappy.com

the selfpublishing block:

LECTURES

16.05.2011; 18:00

Artur Wabik - What is Self-Publishing?

Galeria Camelot & Fundacji Imago Mundi, ul. św. Tomasza 17

MEETINGS, PRESENTATIONS

14.05.2011; 19:00

Bruno Ceschel - Self Publish, Be Happy in 35 contemporary photobooks

Galeria Camelot & Fundacji Imago Mundi, ul. św. Tomasza 17

11.06.2011; 18:00