“Just being there. Somewhere in Teksas-Land”

“Just being there. Somewhere in Teksas-Land”, the curatorial project of Gerda Kochanska and Luca Tronci, presents a hereto unpublished photographic archive by Jan Reutt, Polish born doctor and keen amateur photographer, who passed away in 2003.
Jan Reutt''s photographs, besides being a natural, constant and spontaneous ritual guided by his passion for photographing his wife, are a unique historical document of the phenomenon named Teksas-Land', conceived by Anna Pelka, specialist in the socio-political implications of fashion and design in the former 'eastern block'.

EXHIBITION
The archive is made up of over 100 slides spanning the 70s and 80s, for the most part in Poland, former Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy.The principal subject of the photos are Jan Reutts wife and her  individual style immortalized in a context where fashion was often perceived as a gesture of rebellion to the standardization of taste imposed in Poland by the socialist regime.

The exhibition includes the loop projection of 40 original slides and 9 prints on show for the first time. The 9 vertical photographic prints (50x80cm) will interact with some visual and intuitive associations between images and collective imaginery, illustrated by images extracted from the internet (A6-A5). The curatorial proposal pretends to elucidate the relationship between the social, political and artistic terms of the dichotomy ‘private/public’ in Jan Reutt’s photography.

With the intention of inspiring further critical interpretations, a meeting of discussions among experts from the world of art and history and the public, has been proposed. The three guests are going to be the historian Anna Pelka ,the Art director of Kowasa gallery Natasha Christià and the artist Joachim Schmid. The artist Antonio Ortega will be the moderator of the talk.

More info in our blog somewhereinteksasland

WHY?
“One day in 2008 I got a call from my auntie that asked me if I wanted my uncle's slides - as she was going to throw them away.
I was convinced she was talking about the typical pictures from their family album that I remembered from my childhood...
I said yes and she gave me plenty of little boxes full of slides.
It resulted that my expectations were completely wrong.
I immediately realized that I had never seen these pictures before.

I showed them to Luca, co-curator of the exhibition “Just being there. Somewhere in Teksas-land.”, and straight away we started to look carefully into the boxes.
What we experienced was an authentic epiphany!

The photographs were glamorous portraits of my aunt with fashionable and colourful clothes, in some apparently insignificant moments and in "typical" no-places.

Let's simply say that these images had absolutely nothing to do with the gray Poland of the 70's and 80's that I believed to remember.
These images gave us the sensation of a visual deception!

I would like to remark that we are talking about snaps from the 70's and 80's, taken in Poland and a few other countries during the socialist regime, that totally resembled western fashion photography!

This visual deception raised a lot of questions and curiosity in order to understand the original context of this surprising photographic archive.
We found a book titled "Teksas-Land. Youth fashion in the people's republic of Poland"written by Anna Pelka., polish historian specialized in the socio-political implications of fashion and design in the former eastern block.

The term 'teksas-land ' was created by Anna Pelka as a metaphor of the production of apparently western fashion in socialist Poland.

Jan Reutt's photographs, besides being a natural, constant and spontaneous ritual guided by his passion for photographing his wife, are a perfect document of that phenomenon named Teksas-Land.

After almost two years of research and work on this curatorial project now we have finaly the opportunity to exhibit for the first time this surprising archive and share this treasure with a wide public in Arts Santa Monica, centre of contemporary art in Barcelona.” Gerda
Arts Santa Mònica

WHAT DO WE NEED THE MONEY FOR?
The exhibition is scheduled to premiere at Arts Santa Mònica June 18th, 2013 and will run until  June 29th 2013. With just about 2 months of preparation time left for this project, myself and Luca are requesting your support with the production costs.
We have being struggling for nearly a year in order to find some sponsorship after the disappointment for a financial support promised and eventually denied because of the lack of funds.

We met a partner in Arts Santa Monica which, beside the space, will provide us all the necessary technical support.
In the meanwhile we are waiting the results of the Barcelona city hall grant for culture.

The funds from your generous acts of patronage will not only help us to meet the financial goals needed to produce the exhibition (scanning of about 40 slides, prints, marks, debate fees, travel and accommodation costs ect. ) but would afford visitors the opportunity to appreciate Jan Reutt‘s work in such a prestigious venue and, hopefully, in others in the future.
The money exceeding the goal will be used to compensate all the voluntary collaborators and pay all the costs for the professional scanning of the entire archive.

CALENDAR
The exhibition is scheduled to premiere at Arts Santa Monica June 18th, 2013 and will run until June 29th 2013.
We will be working on the expo production starting May the 1st.