Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon in 1969 and his iconic words – ‘That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind’ still return with new discoveries, inventions, flashes of genius and courage which constitute our civilization and technological progress.

50 years later the organizers of Cracow art week decided it was time to make their own leap into the unknown. The change, which was the theme of last year’s edition of KRAKERS, inspired us to explore new grounds and transform Cracow Gallery Weekend KRAKERS into a Cracow Art Week – a week-long festival of art. ‘Leap’ had been chosen as the main subject, as it is a word which, in the Polish language, has a very broad meaning, containing a dynamic, a violent change of place and a jump.

Leap may describe technological breakthroughs, discoveries, revolutionary ideas, brilliant new things, innovative inventions, patents, and actualizations. Exploring cosmos, artificial intelligence, genetic modifications, cyber-reality, cyber-love, nanotechnology, biomedical engineering, social engineering, depth psychology, spatial economy, animal production, uncritical belief in progress. Discovering, conquering, expanding the borders of the impossible – all of those phenomena are reflected in modern art, is food for thought for the artist. They inspire, provide new possibilities, new tools, but at the same time they introduce new limits, eliminate the need to experience a unique work of art. As Stanisław Lem wrote: ‘the mankind went out to explore new worlds and new civilizations without knowing his own bystreets, dead ends, wells, and locked, dark doors’. Maybe this is the task awaiting artists?

We are interested in what the creators think about the future, which theories they find most convincing and what ways they see to develop. Which visions of the future, which utopias expressing the longing for a better world inspire them.
The future is without a doubt a limitless set of possibilities, fascinating and terrifying at the same time. When we’ve achieved a cosmic perspective we’ve opened many fields of interpretation for artists and curators of exhibitions and events taking place during Cracow Art Week Krakers 2019.
We’re curious about what reality awaits us in the next 50 years, and what place will art take in it.