Janek Simon is not only an artist, and sometimes a curator, but also an anar­chist, program­mer, craft­sman, intel­lec­tual, social organizer, traveler, former junior cham­pion in the card game bridge. He says he is interested in too many things: from globalization, political geo­graphy, artificial intel­ligence, digital materialism, algorith­mic gover­nance, finan­cial speculation, and DIY strategies to post­colonial theories within Eastern Europe and the per­manent, almost Gombrowicz-​like dilem­mas on what it means to be Polish. This publication presents Simon’s cap­tivating work, both visually and intel­lec­tually, driven by con­stant curiosity, erudition, and the quest for what he calls “syn­thetic folklore”—a balance between the par­ticular and the planetary with the possible use of new tech­nologies. Syn­thetic Folk­lore is published on the occasion of Simon’s eponymous exhibition, which was curated by Joanna Warsza, at Ujaz­dow­ski Castle Centre for Con­tem­porary Art, Warsaw.

 

Con­tributors: Inke Arns, Max Cegiel­ski, Ekaterina Degot, Łukasz Gor­czyca, Nav Haq, Vir­ginija Januškevičiūtė, Nina Kat­chadourian, Joanna Kor­djak, Pablo Larios, Małgorzata Ludwisiak, Lev Manovich, Daniel Muzyczuk, Sina Najafi, Lech Nowicki, Agnieszka Polska, Alek­san­dra Przegalińska, Moham­mad Salemy, Sumesh Sharma, Ana Teixeira Pinto, Janek Simon, Jan Sowa, and Joanna Warsza.


books

Janek Simon
Synthetic Folklore

Editor: Joanna Warsza
Graphic design: Jakub de Barbaro
Texts in English
Format 163 x 227 mm, 236 pages
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-83-65240-75-0
Published by the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art and Sternberg Press, Berlin
Warsaw 2020

 

80 PLN