Museum Modern Art in Warsaw 
October 19 - November 22. 2008 

“Ain’t no sorry”

The “Ain’t no sorry” exhibition was conceived and prepared during a  seminar held at the Curatorial Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. The results of our extensive research and fieldwork at the Academies of Fine Arts and artist studio's will be presented at the temporary headquarters of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. 
Preparing this exhibition, we used the fieldwork method, searching directly through the sources of artistic production, which is the environment of the studio and the academy. By visiting these places directly, we bypassed  the  obvious channels of distribution and promotion, established by the galleries. 
We decided to unlearn the usually practiced methods and solutions usually employed so easily as curatorial tools. 
Guided by curiosity, we decided to enter  the space of the academic studio - a space that has not been fully recognized nor defined. In the month-long exploration, our group of five curators came  into direct contact with the works of nearly 300 artists. 
What interested us was the activity of Polish academies of art, the relationship between the students and their charismatic professors,  but also the dissonance between the institutionalized art world and its educational foundations. 
Artists are increasingly catching on to the ‘rules of the game’. The curatorial-artistic world, and the recipes for success are known to all.  However, the results of their common adaptation are not always satisfactory. Moreover, at the moment we witness a cheerful optimism which has greeted successive new phenomena in the Polish art starting to burn out. The most difficult challenges for a curator to face is to unlearn the acquired routine. 
By inviting the visitor through the backdoor, we are trying to demonstrate our curatorial method, which is the one of smuggling, sneaking in, finally skipping the alliance between the artistic reality and the art institutions. 
We are fully aware of the risk of working without a rigid proposals. The main point of this exhibition is not to present a clear narration, but rather the fluidity of meanings. All happens within progression. For its time of duration, the exhibition will be subject to corrections and changes in narration, even after the opening. The Museum, which is housed in a temporary headquarters and being in the process of defining its profile, program and image, provides an appropriate context for the fluidity of this project. 
The exhibition does not articulate an assumed theme and escapes any standardized thematic conventions. Still, in its heterogeneous structure we can recognize some keynotes: the relation between the student-artist and the academic tradition of the studio (the exercises and endless corrections), time manipulation, pastiche and embarrassment, the awareness of being involved in an institutional game. 
We are interested in the moment when the curator 'opens the door' for the artist. The former organizing an exhibition, the latter starting his or her career, accompanied by ambition, doubts, and intuitions. However, the reality of the art world is merciless. Artist will be always at the mercy of the artistic practice. In this reality, any fault or a wrong step can easily be met with ' ain’t no sorry” kind of reactions.  
Key words : unlearning, corrections, academy, museum, curatorial studies, authority, exercises, not knowing. 

AIN’T NO SORRY, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, October 19 -  November 22. 2008, opening 18th of October ( Saturday ) at 7pm.

Particpants: Wojciech Bąkowski, Paul Destieu, Wojciech Doroszuk, Fale Bałtyku, Łukasz Jastrubczak, Wojciech Kosma, Katarzyna Krakowiak, Mateusz Kula, Anna Molska, Marcin Nowicki, Franciszek Orłowski, Anna Panek, Sławomir Pawszak, Łukasz Pietrzak, Agnieszka Polska, Aneta Ptak, Paweł Sysiak, Aleksandra Winnicka, Marc Tobias Winterhagen, Marzena Zawojska, Julia Zborowska, Piotr Żyliński.

Curators : Klaudia Benjaszewicz, Aleksandra Jach, Kamila Jezierewska, Katarzyna Karwańska, Piotr Lisowski, Elżbieta Piotrowska, Anna Tomaszewska, Stanisław Welbel.