The Sainsbury Centre is an inspirational public art museum in a world-class Norman Foster building, housing a stunning permanent collection of world and modern European art.
The Centre also has a wide-ranging and exciting programme of special exhibitions.

 

Take a Look at Me Now: Contemporary Art from Poland

Tuesday 2 June – Sunday 30 August

 

Take a Look at Me Now features the work of 15 artists from Warsaw, Poznań, Wrocław, Kraków and Torun, who are making some of the most exciting work in Poland today.

Twenty years on from the collapse of the Iron Curtain across Eastern Europe, Polish artists are receiving a great deal of international attention. The exhibition looks at a number of ideas that artists in Poland are working with today, including the history of the urban landscape, the legacy of the 20th-century avant-garde, and the development of private art partnerships and practices.

Take a Look at Me Now features work that is beautiful, sometimes humorous, and often thought-provoking. On display you will find paintings, ceramic and sculptural work, photography and video. Olaf Brzeski creates bizarre sculptures which he has broken and pieced back together, Nicolas Grospierre’s beautiful architectural photographs deceive the eye, Anna Molska makes mesmerising video work, and Adam Adach is renowned for his haunting painted scenes.

Artists

Adam Adach, Paweł Althamer, Wojtek Bakowski, Olaf Brzeski, Rafał Bujnowski, Nicolas Grospierre, Katarzyna Kozyra, Anna Molska, Szymon Rogiński, Joanna Górska and Rafał Góralski from Galeria Rusz art group, Janek Simon, Zorka Wollny, Artur Żmijewski, Piotr Żyliński

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Impossible Journey: The Art and Theatre of Tadeusz Kantor

Tuesday 2 June – Sunday 30 August

 

Discover the work of Polish artist Tadeusz Kantor, one of the most extraordinary and versatile artists of the 20th century. An Impossible Journey presents the exceptional breadth of his work, recreating the most spectacular shows of Kantor’s theatre, Cricot 2: The Dead Class (1975) and Wielopole, Wielopole (1980).

Born in Galicia at the start of the First World War, Tadeusz Kantor worked in Kraków, where he died shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Painter, stage-designer and accomplished draftsman, as well as performer and poet, Kantor made his name as a man of the avant-garde theatre.

Combining virtually all art forms, he mesmerised audiences around the world, including in Edinburgh and London, with his dark performances of a rare emotional intensity, which mixed the traumatic with the absurd, the personal with the historical, the living with the dead, actors with mannequins.

An Impossible Journey features theatrical objects, mannequins and drawings, alongside archival films of Kantor’s productions, as well as stage designs and paintings.

Look out for special performance tours of the Kantor exhibition each week, staged in collaboration with the Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The original idea for An Impossible Journey came from Jonathan Holloway, Artistic Director, Norfolk & Norwich Festival. The exhibition is organised by Kasia Murawska-Muthesius and is a collaboration between the Sainsbury Centre, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, Cricoteka (Kraków) and Jo Melvin.

 

 

 

Celebrating POLSKA! YEAR is a joint initiative by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The cultural programme is coordinated by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, which is responsible for the promotion of Polish culture abroad. To find out more visit www.PolskaYear.pl

 

 

Other Events

Lunchtime talks
Thursdays
2, 9, 16, 23, 30 July
6, 13, 20, 27 August
1.15pm – 1.45pm
Meet at Gallery Reception
Free (but admission will be charged for talks that enter the special exhibition area)

Get a different perspective on the exhibitions – speakers include artists and contributors from a range of disciplines and backgrounds.

 

Kantor Encounters
Sundays
12, 19, 26 July
2, 9, 16 August
Short performances between 2.00pm and 5.00pm
Admission to the special exhibitions will be charged

A series of unique performances that bring the Impossible Journey exhibition to life. Directed by Jonathan Holloway, Artistic Director of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.

 

Exhibition study day

Take a Look at Me Now
Sunday 12 July, 10.30pm – 4.00pm
Cost: £15, £10 concessions, free to students; includes refreshments
Advance booking essential

Explore issues arising from Take a Look at Me Now in the company of artists whose work features in the exhibition. Introduced by Karol Sienkiewicz from Warsaw.

 

Films at Cinema City

A Wedding (15)
Monday 6 July, 8.30pm, Director: Wojciech Smarzowski

My Nikifor (12A)
Monday 20 July, 8.30pm, Director: Krzysztof Krauze

Films by female Polish artists
including Katarzyna Kozyra
Monday 3 August, 6.30pm

This special screening will be followed by a discussion of Polish contemporary art with a panel of artists and curators. (Films contain some scenes of an adult nature.)

Cost: £7.50, £5.50 Cinema City members
and SCVA Friends (show membership
card at box office), £5 concessions
(under-15s, full-time students, claimants, senior citizens) from Cinema City,
0871 7042053, www.picturehouses.co.uk;
no early-bird booking for SCVA Friends

 

Workshop

Performance and Drawing
Saturday 18 July
10.30am – 4.30pm
Cost: £25, £17 concessions; includes materials
Advance booking essential
Artist: Julia Parry-Jones

Using Kantor’s theatrical characters as inspiration, explore different figure-drawing techniques and then develop your drawings into three-dimensional forms.

 

Events for families and children

First Sundays
Flick-book Fun
Sunday 5 July
Midday – 4.00pm
Admission: free entry, £3 per child for activity session
Booking: drop in any time

Be inspired by the Kantor exhibition to create your own animated book – think of a story and let your imagination go wild.

 

Family Fun Day – Look at Me!
Sunday 26 July
Midday – 4.00pm
Free admission

Show off at the Sainsbury Centre’s annual fun day! Have family fun dressing up, join in the creative activities, and enjoy the live music and BBQ.

In association with Norwich Evening News

 

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