18.11-12. 01. 2013
Eric Andersen, Carl Andre, Angelo de Aquino, Art & Language, Gabor Attalai, Imre Bak, Philippa Beale, Andrzej Bereziański, Christian Boltanski, Włodzimierz Borowski, Paul Brandt, Guglielmo Achille Cavellini, Giuseppe Chiari, Henri Chopin, Guillermo Deisler, Hanne Darboven, Srečo Dragan, William Farley, Joel Fisher, Ken Friedman, Patrick Gendrot, Klaus Groh, Maciej Haufa, Geoffrey Hendricks, Douglas Heubler, Dick Higgins, Image Bank, Jerzy Kałucki, On Kawara, Pierre Keller, Robin Klassnik, J. H. Kocman, László Lakner, Richard Long, Jerzy Ludwiński, George Maciunas, J. O. Malander, Andrzej Matuszewski, Jun Mizukami, Helmut Nickels, Nam June Paik, Andrzej Partum, Géza Pernecky, Bogdanka Poznanović, Maurice Roquet, Jerzy Rosołowicz, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Ralf Samens, Mieko Shiomi, Henryk Stażewski, Petr Štembera, Endre Tót, David Troostwyck, Timm Ulrichs, Janos Urban, Jiří Valoch, Ben Vautier, Lawrence Weiner, Emmet Williams, Krzysztof Wodiczko.
The project presents a key 1970s avant-garde art initiative, which brought together artists from many countries. The NET idea was formulated in 1971 by artist Jarosław Kozłowski and art historian and critic Andrzej Kostołowski. In a manifesto mailed to some 350 artists and art critics in Poland and abroad, they encouraged collaboration and a free exchange of artistic facts. A network of contacts developed between artists independently of institutional structures and political barriers, a phenomenon driven by the conceptualization of art, fascination with mail art, and the popularity of subversive attitudes. The idea of a free exchange, dialogue and decentralization constituted an artistic alternative to the political and ideological confinement of Polish culture at the turn of the 1960s/1970s. Despite the geopolitical East-West divide, the NET grew as exchange progressed between artists from Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, North and South America. The anarchistic idea of the NET represented a challenge to both the Eastern European political status quo and to the free-market mechanisms of the Western art scene. The NET’s first presentation in 1971 at Jarosław Kozłowski’s private apartment in Poznań was interrupted by the security police; the second one took place later that year at Poznań’s ZPAP club. Despite official reprisals, the development of an anti-institutional, control-eluding NET progressed in the subsequent years and had a continuation in the Poznań-based Akumulatory 2 Gallery, founded by Jarosław Kozłowski in 1972. The Profile Foundation exhibition is the first presentation of the NET in 40 years, featuring artists’ works and documentation of the two historical 1972 shows.
Exhibition Curators: Bożena Czubak, Jarsław Kozłowski
