Guy Goldstein -

The Artists is a festival dedicated to music and sound projects and the visual arts, but taken outside the gallery’s interior space. The title brings to mind popular band names such as The Cars, The Beatles and The Doors, evoking associations with the star-studded world of pop music and the mechanisms that govern it. The programme of this, the third international edition of the festival includes a wide array of on-stage expression, ranging from punk, pop and rock, through folk to electronic, experimental, and noise music. The artists invited all regularly give concerts, record music and videos, take part in important international festivals, and have their music played on the radio. This year, the Sowiński Park amphitheatre will see such personalities as Dick Verdult, known by his stage name Dick El Demasiado, who plays cumbia, a musical genre popular in South America; Reines Girls – an Israeli post-punk rock n’ roll guitar band; the all-girl band Rever Elbis, which is inspired by the music of the 1980s; Suzanne Walsh, a singer who combines elements of opera with traditional Irish singing, as well as Duane: The Brand New Dog from Detroit, self-appointed as the future of pop. This year’s programme also includes a performance by the precursors of Polish avant-garde and noise music – Szelest Spadających Papierków – a cult band associated with the Gdańsk Totart art group in the 1980s. Mikołaj Trzaska and Adam Witkowski will perform an electroacoustic improvisation as Langfurtka, and festival attendees will be in for an unpredictable, dynamic performance by the uncompromising Russian punk band I.H.N.A.B.T.B as well as pop music superstar incarnate ADU, or Ada Karczmarczyk. The Artists festival fixture is a performance by Igor Krenz and Macio Moretti, who will open this year’s festival with a special project and their usual wry sense of humour.