KEYNOTE: This generously illustrated book explores the best works of contemporary art from Poland by a generation of artists who have made their careers since the fall of communism in the country in 1989. Polish artists such as Monika Sosnowska, Wilhelm Sasnal, Piotr Uklanski, Katarzyna Kozyra, and Robert Kusmirowski, among many others, enjoy considerable international renown and their works feature in major galleries and collections of art around the world. This book demonstrates how the fantastic and the magical, the mad and the absurd have been powerful forces in contemporary Polish art. Often sharply critical of the changing world in which they live, these artists sustain a tradition of dissent and critical reflection which is deeply-rooted in Polish culture. For this generation of artists, like others before them, fantasy has not been a way of escaping reality but of challenging it. To trace these deep roots, the essays in this book examine contemporary Polish art in the context of masterpieces by figures like Tadeusz Kantor, Magdalena Abakanowicz, and Bruno Schulz. AUTHOR: David Crowley is a lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London. Zofia Machnicka is Deputy Director of the Polish Cultural Institute in Brussells. Andrzej Szczerski is a lecturer at the Institute of Art History of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. ILLUSTRATIONS: 170 colour
