Poland looks to Silesia for energy diversification - Krakow Post

14 The Krakow Post
j o i e d e v i v r e
FEBRUARY 7-FEBRUARY 13
Modern art exhibit at Foto-Medium-Art
Malgorzata Mleczko
Staff Journalist
The Foto-Medium-Art Gallery is displaying
more than 100 photos of what
look like normal people of different
ages and genders doing normal things.
Viewers are in for a shock, however.
Some of the photos that Christian
Boltanski picked are portraits. Others
capture people in such everyday situations
such as conversations, playing
games or sunbathing.
At first viewers may get the impression
that the photographs are kind of a
family album. Then they realize they
are reproductions of prints in the same
magazine, in the same colors – and similar
sizes. That’s because Boltanski cut
them from the French magazine “Detective.”
He created his Accident Chronicle
exhibition in 1973.
The photos are all of people involved
in crimes – murders, assaults, robberies,
rapes, kidnappings and others. He created
the exhibition in 1973.
By cutting the pictures out of the
magazine, the artist deprives them of
context. We don’t know who is criminal
and who is victim.
The exhibition tells us something
about ourselves. Looking at the photos,
many viewers began trying to figure out
who is criminal and who is victim by
their looks. But some of the criminals
can be good-looking and some of the
victims homely.
Viewers also begin wondering what
kind of crime someone experienced, especially
when looking at the photos of
children.
The approach that Boltanski took
made his work a social and sociological
exercise. He forced the viewer to
become involved in the art. No one
who sees the exhibit can feel indifferent
about it.
The project comes from a phase of
Boltanski’s artistic activities when he
was starting to undermine the myth of
modernist originality by using stereotypical
pictures of mass culture – press
and promotional photos.
In this case he created a nostalgic but
disturbing world. At the same time he
cast a spotlight on photography as an
art medium. The work shows how an
artist can influence the structure of the
message by choosing this work strategically.
Boltanski was born in 1944 in Paris
to a Jewish father of Ukrainian heritage
and a Corsican mother. He spent his
early years hiding from the Nazis.
Boltanski started painting as a teenager
in 1958. His early paintings were
big. They depicted historical events or,
on occasion, lonely figures in macabre
settings, such as coffins.
In the 1960s he began moving from
painting to other art forms, including
film, photography and performance.
The line between his life and work
often blurs, but not in a romantic, selfsacrificing
way. Boltanski recasts incidents
from a life he has never lived,
using touched-up photographs or items
he has never possessed.
Several of Boltanski’s projects have
Anyone for anglii pogoda?
involved displays of lost luggage and
other items from public spaces, such as
railway stations. They memorialize the
unknown owners in a cacophony of personal
effects.
Boltanski lives in Paris. He has exhibited
internationally at such museums
venues as the Muse d’art modern de la
ville de Paris; Stedelijk van Abbemuseum,
Eindhoven, Germany; Whitechapel
Art Gallery, London; Museum of Contemporary
Art, Chicago; and Museum
of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Christian Boltanski,
Accident Chronicle (Jan. 30-Feb. 14).
Foto-Medium-Art Gallery,
ul. Karmelicka 28/12
Opening hours:
Tues-Fri 14-19, Sat 14-18.
John Marshall
Staff Journalist
You know those days when your
brain is five seconds behind the
rest of you and you never quite
catch up? Well, I’ve been having
a few of those lately. No, it’s not
what you’re thinking: “moderation”
(it says on my desk calendar)
is the bon motte, or word of
the day. No, the source of my being
“out-of-sorts” is, it seems, the
weather. You see, according to the
Poles, any untoward feeling you
may experience as you stumble,
walk or dance through your Krakowian
days can all be attributed
to “the weather.”
“Why do I feel so tired today?,”
you ask. Your Polish friend smiles
knowingly and looks up. “It’s
the weather,” she replies, with a
gentle nod of the head. And it’s
such a wonderful, forgiving idea
that I’ve started using it myself.
I mean, as an Englishman, I love
talking about the weather. I could
talk about it until the cows come
home. But to actually chart and
blame my emotions on the rise
and fall of the air pressure? Now,
that is good! How did we miss
that one? I mean, how can anybody
prove you wrong? Not even
“the weather” itself can discredit
such a theory.
What’s it going to do? Have
a hurricane hover over my flat,
block my driveway with snow,
blow away my Internet connection?
That would only upset me
more and prove my point. No,
in Poland, it’s safe to blame any
physical and spiritual malaise on
“the weather.”
Of course, informed reader
that you are, you know that the
British have a lot of weather of
our own - too much, some might
say. Greedy, even. Maybe so. But
here again, I prefer to divest my
countrymen of all culpability and,
instead, set the blame squarely
on mother nature and the British
maritime climate. Changeable,
unpredictable, awful: frankly,
you’re welcome to the “anglii
pogoda,” (English weather), as
the Poles call these wet and windy
days. But we”re all in Europe
together now, right? And, with
international borders falling
faster than the greenback, we can
expect even more anglii pogoda in
the future.
However, politics aside and excuse
me if this sounds like a complaint
(I think it’s the change of
air pressure) but I came to Poland
partly to escape all things British,
and that definitely includes the
weather. My first Krakowian
winter (2005) was a snowy winter
wonderland from November to
April, closely followed by a blistering,
broiling summer.
Like those long, sunny school
holidays of my youth, I want the
weather back. And I mean the
good stuff.
No medicocity; I want extremes.
In fact, I demand them!
But am I likely to get them? Not
with global warming, I’m not.
At this rate, we’ll have to go to
Norway for our skiing and the
Tatras will soon become a mountain
jungle.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
It has helped. I feel a little better
now. Hey, do you think “the
weather” works as an excuse
for hangovers and being late for
work? Minor criminal offenses?
You must excuse me: I’ve gotta go
call the editor and ask for some
more time to finish this article.
Apparently, there’s some
patchy rain on the way. That
should be good for a couple of
days.
Poland looks to diversify energy supplies
From ENERGY on Page 1
to lay a pipeline through Poland rather than
in the Baltic Sea. The main objective of the
Nord Stream project is to supply Russian
gas to Germany.
Nord Stream will transport up to 55 bln
cubic meters of gas a year, enough to supply
more than 20 mln households.
Polish leaders see a pipeline on their soil
as the best guarantee of their country being
able to continue obtaining Russian gas. If
the pipeline were under water, it would be
much easier for Russia to cut off supplies
to Poland and the Baltics – which is why all
four countries oppose a sea route.
Sweden is worried about what would
happen to the environment if the pipeline
ruptures. The current pipeline path comes
very close to the Swedish coast.
“This is turning out to be a huge project
that involves several countries, lots of nongovernmental
agencies and big environmental
issues,” said Swedish Environment
Minister Sten Jerdenius.
The Swedish Environmental Protection
Agency wants Russia to lay the pipeline
further south in the Baltic because of the
fragile ecology of the country’s southern
islands, which are internationally protected
areas.
Even if Russia agreed, it could run into
problems with seabed locations where
countries dumped munitions after World
War II.
The pipeline will be one of the issues
that Prime Minister Donald Tusk discusses
in a visit to Moscow on Friday.
Tusk will propose that Russia lay the
pipeline in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland
and Germany, according to the daily
Dziennik newspaper. His main argument
with Russian President Vladimir Putin will
be that a land route will be half the cost of
a sea route.
If Tusk fails to convince the Kremlin,
Poland will put even more effort into coal,
including finding cleaner ways to burn it.
Economy Minister Waldemar Pawlak
has said that coal is an opportunity for Poland,
not a problem.
The soaring price of oil means that even
if the coal industry spent a lot of money on
cleaner-burning technology, coal would
still be a bargain, he told the Polish Press
Agency (PAP). “It’s high time to find money
for modernizing” the industry, he said.
If we can “introduce cleaner technologies
– for example, gasified or liquefied
coal – we can create a great alternative to
other kinds of fuels,” he said.
The EU has a number of programs to encourage
member countries to come up with
cleaner energy sources. One, the Intelligent
Energy for Europe program, provides funds
to develop renewable energy.
The European Commission says renewable
energy sources – particularly wind,
water, solar power and biomass – are expected
to be economically competitive
with conventional energy sources in the
medium to long term.
In addition, it points out, renewable
sources contribute to sustainable development
and security of supply.