Jasia Reichardt

Jasia Reichardt
Born	Janina Chaykin 1933 (age 90–91) Warsaw, Poland
Occupation	art critic, curator, teacher and writer
Nationality	Polish
Citizenship	British
Notable works	Cybernetic serendipity: the computer and the arts, director of the Themerson Archive

Jasia Reichardt (born 1933) is a British art critic, curator, art gallery director, teacher and prolific writer, specialist in the emergence of computer art. In 1968 she was curator of the landmark Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts. She is generally known for her work on experimental art. After the deaths of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson she catalogued their archive and looks after their legacy.

Her own self-description reads: Jasia Reichardt writes, lectures and organises events about subjects which deal with the relationship of art to other areas of human activity such as architecture, science, technology. She was assistant director of the ICA, director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, and tutor at the AA. She has written books on art, computers, robots and the future.

Childhood

Jasia Reichardt was born to Maryla and Seweryn Chaykin in Warsaw, Poland, in 1933. Her mother was an illustrator and pianist and her father an architect and engineer. An assimilated middle-class Jewish family, they were overwhelmed by the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and were imprisoned among the capital's Jewish population in the Warsaw Ghetto. Jasia survived there for a while with her mother and grandmother who tried to shield her from the unfolding horror. In 1942 she was smuggled out but lost her parents in the Holocaust. She was subsequently hidden under an assumed identity by a series of Poles, spending time in a convent, until she was able to join her mother's sister, Franciszka Themerson, and her husband, Stefan Themerson, in London in 1946. She attended Dartington Hall school. and then went to study production at the Old Vic Theatre School in London.

Career

In the 1950s she was assistant editor of Art News and Review, a fortnightly arts magazine, and wrote articles for it and wrote exhibition notes for various galleries which promoted young artists. In the early 1960s she was general editor of the "Art in Progress" series of books published by Methuen. From 1963 to 1971 she was assistant director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. In 1968 she curated Fluorescent Chrysanthemum, a presentation of contemporary experimental Japanese art. That same year she curated the ground-breaking Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition, and was editor of Cybernetic serendipity: the computer and the arts, a special edition of Studio International magazine, which was published at the same time. She also commissioned work from designers such as John Wood, who produced his 'Tune Doodler' (1972) - mass-produced electronic sculpture. Also at the ICA she organised an exhibition of objects to play with by British artists called Play Orbit.

From 1974 to 1976 Reichardt was a director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Between 1989 and 1998 she was director of Artec biennale in Japan. In 1998 she curated Electronically Yours, an exhibition of electronic portraiture at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. She broadcast regularly on the arts programme "Critics' Forum" for the BBC from 1965 to 1977. Besides her collaborations with artists and continuous focus on the intersection of the arts and science (on which she wrote a monthly column in the New Scientist), after 1990, she collaborated on various projects with Nick Wadley, until his death in 2017. She has taught at the Architectural Association and other colleges. She has organised and catalogued into eight volumes the archives of her aunt and uncle, Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, the founders of the Gaberbocchus Press.

Personal life

Jasia Reichardt was married first to Tony Richards (later Reichardt), art dealer and collector, and secondly to art historian and artist Nick Wadley.

Bibliography

Articles in regular magazine series:

• Monthly column. Architectural Design. 1963-79

• Column on modern art. Apollo, 1960-63

• 'Developments in Style.' The London Magazine, 1962-64

• Column on art in London. Art d'aujourd'hui, 1962-66

• 'Comment.' Studio International, 1965-69

• 'Art at large,' on the connections between art and science. New Scientist, 1971-74

• Monthly column. Building Design, 1982-88

• Contributor to Artefactum, 1984-86

• Contributor to Cedal, Puerto Rico, 1986

Books & catalogues  :

• Janina Baranowska. London: Grabowski Gallery. 1962. ASIN: B00MAPQH32

• Victor Pasmore. Art in Progress series. London: Methuen & Co 1962. ASIN: B0000CLE70

• Marc Vaux/Tess Jaray. London: Grabowski Gallery. 1963. ASIN: B0016702SG

• Yaacov Agam. Art in Progress series. London: Methuen. 1966. ASIN: B0006BSCLM

• Peter Schmidt - Autobiographical Mono Prints. London: Lisson Gallery. 1970. ASIN: B00C3YNUP8

• editor: "Cybernetic Serendipity, the computer and the arts". Studio International, Special Issue, 905 (November 1968).

• Play Orbit. Studio International. 1969. ISBN 978-0902063006

• The Computer in Art. London: Studio Vista. 1971

• Cybernetics, art, and ideas. New York Graphic Society. 1971

• Cybernetics, Intuitions and Art. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd. 1971. ISBN 978-0289701089

• Paul Van Hoeydonck Space Sculpture. London: Annely Juda Fine Art. 1973. ASIN: B001E0DNUY

• Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction. Penguin Books. 1978. ISBN 9780140049381.

• Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction. Thames & Hudson. 1978 ISBN 978-0500271230

• Margaret Priest. Recent Drawings. London: Waddington Fine Art. 1980. ASIN: B002GE5TB8

• Magdalena Abakanowicz. New York: Abbeville Press. 1982. ISBN 0896593231.

• Liliane Lijn: Imagine the Goddess. London: Fischer Fine Art exhibition catalogue. 1987

• "Artificial Life and the Myth of Frankenstein" in Frankenstein, Creation and Monstrosity. Stephen Bann (ed.) Reaktion Books. 1994. ISBN 9780948462603

• Karl Gerstner, First London Exhibition. Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd. 1999. ISBN 978-0900955785

• Andrew Logan, an Adventure in Art. Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. 1999. ISBN 978-0905836737

• Uncanny Valley: Recent Sculptures by Tim Lewis. Liverpool: National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside. 2004. ASIN: B00LXOO5V2

• Swinging London - The Grabowski Collection. Museum of Art in Łódź (Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki). 2007 ISBN 978-8387937485

• Fifteen Journeys from Warsaw to London. London: Dalkey Archive Press. 2012. ISBN 9781564787200

• (as editor), Unposted Letters, 1940-1942; Franciszka & Stefan Themerson, Gaberbocchus & De harmonie, Amsterdam. 2013. ISBN 9789076168760

Videos:

• Jasia Reichardt on "Home, Machines and the Future", Architectural Association, 11 February 2013

• After All Exhibition History Talks: Reichardt, 2014

In collaboration with others:

• Houédard, Sylvester and Reichardt, Jasia (1965). Between Poetry and Painting. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ASIN: B01N7CN9E1

• Folon, Jean-Michel; Reichardt, Jasia. FOLON "Catalogue of an exhibition organised by the Belgian Ministry of French Culture and held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Gallery 21 April - 29 May 1977". 1977. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts Gallery. 1977. ASIN: B0010LNM3A

• Hausmann, Raoul and Schwitters, Kurt; ed. Jasia Reichardt. PIN, Gaberbocchus Press (1962); Anabas-Verlag, Giessen. 1986

• Piero Fogliati - The Poet of Light. Lara, Maria-Vinca, Reichardt, Jasia. Hopefulmonster Editore Srl; Bilingual edition. 1 April 2004. ISBN 978-8877571786

• Schwitters, Kurt (2010). Reichardt, Jasia (ed.). Three Stories. Tate Publishing. ISBN 978-1854379092.

Translation:

• Czyżewski, Tytus (1992). Mechanical Garden. Translated by Reichardt, Jasia. Bernard Stone and Raymond Danowski, the Turret Bookshop.

About her work:

• Fernandez, Maria (2008). "Detached from history: Jasia Reichardt and Cybernetic Serendipity". Art Journal. 67 (3): 6–23. doi:10.1080/00043249.2008.10791311. S2CID 193026727. Archived from the original on 4 February 2009.
• Usselmann, Rainer (October 2003). "The Dilemma of Media Art: Cybernetic Serendipity at the ICA London" (PDF). Leonardo. 36 (5): 389–396. doi:10.1162/002409403771048191. S2CID 57564123.
• MacGregor, Brent (October 2002). Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Creativity & Cognition: Cybernetic Serendipity Revisited. pp. 11–13. doi:10.1145/581710.581713. ISBN 978-1581134650. S2CID 6322799.
• "Cybernetic Serendipity". Autonomous Mutations. 26 July 2006. Retrieved 8 October 2008.
• Jaskulska, Renata (7 November 2016). "Kiedy Myśl jest ponad Wiekiem" [When Thought trounces Age]. Dziennik Płocki (Płock Daily) (in Polish).

See also

• Algorithmic art
• Computer Art
• Electronic art
• Generative art
• New media art
• Virtual art
• Post-conceptual art

External links

• Jasia Reichardt archive of concrete and sound poetry, 1958–1975 at the Getty Research Institute
• Jasia Reichardt correspondence, 1956–1987 at the Getty Research Institute
• [1], publication of Reichardt's memoir, "Fifteen Journeys from Warsaw to London". 2012
• Stefan and Franciszka Themerson archive
• Middlesex University Honorary Degree