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Jasia Reichardt

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Jasia Reichardt
BornJanina Chaykin
1933 (age 90–91)
Warsaw, Poland
Occupationart critic, curator, teacher and writer
NationalityPolish
CitizenshipBritish
Notable worksCybernetic 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[1] 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.[2] and then went to study production at the Old Vic Theatre School in London.[3]

Career

In the 1950s she was assistant editor of Art News and Review, a weekly arts magazine, and wrote articles under her own name and pseudonyms. Throughout its existence from 1959 to 1975 Reichardt curated and wrote exhibition notes for the Grabowski Gallery in Chelsea which promoted young artists.[4][5] 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.[6] In 1968 she curated Fluorescent Chrysanthemum, a presentation of contemporary experimental Japanese art.[7] 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.[8][9][10] She also commissioned work from designers such as John Wood, who produced his 'Tune Doodler' (1972) - mass-produced electronic sculpture.[11]

From 1974 to 1976 Reichardt was a director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery.[6] 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. She broadcast regularly on the arts programme "Critics' Forum" for the BBC from 1965 to 1977. As well as her collaborations with artists, especially with Nick Wadley, from 1990 until his death in 2017, and her continuing focus on the intersection of the arts and science (on which she wrote a monthly column in the New Scientist), 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.[12]

Personal life

Jasia Reichardt was married first to Tony Richards (later Reichardt), art dealer and collector, and second to art critic, illustrator and educationalist Nick Wadley.[13]

Bibliography

Articles in regular magazine series:

  • Column on modern art. Apollo, 1960-63
  • 'Art at large,' on the connections between art and science. New Scientist, 1971-74
  • Contributor to Cedal, Puerto Rico, 1986

Books & catalogues  :

  • Victor Pasmore. Art in Progress series. London: Methuen & Co 1962. ASIN: B0000CLE70
  • 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, Intuitions and Art. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd. 1971. ISBN 978-0289701089
  • Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction. Penguin Books. 1978. ISBN 9780140049381.
  • "Artificial Life and the Myth of Frankenstein" in Frankenstein, Creation and Monstrosity. Stephen Bann (ed.) Reaktion Books. 1994. ISBN 9780948462603
  • Fifteen Journeys from Warsaw to London. London: Dalkey Archive Press. 2012. ISBN 9781564787200

Videos:


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
  • 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


Translation:

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


About her work:

See also

References

  1. ^ The Themerson Archive Catalogue, 3-vol. Set: Three Volumes (Vol I, Letters and Documents; vol II, the Themersons, vol III, Gaberbocchus). MIT Press. 3 November 2020. ISBN 9781916247413.
  2. ^ Paskett, Zoe (9 March 2017). "Persecution and survival: One family, three cities, six years of war". Ham & High. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  3. ^ Reichardt, Jasia (1974). "Twenty years of symbiosis between art and science". Art and Science. 24 (1): 41.
  4. ^ Reichardt, Jasia. "Inner Image - Works by the Leicester Group". Grabowski Gallery. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  5. ^ "Exhibition Histories Talks: Jasia Reichardt". www.afterall.org. 2014. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  6. ^ a b Jasia Reichardt archive of concrete and sound poetry, 1959-1977. Getty Research Institute. Accessed January 2014.
  7. ^ https://archive.ica.art/bulletin/fluorescent-chrysanthemum-revisited 2016.
  8. ^ Manovich, Lev (2002). "Ten Key Texts on Digital Art: 1970-2000". Leonardo. 35 (5): 567–569+571–575. doi:10.1162/002409402320774385. S2CID 57566892.
  9. ^ Charlie Gere, ‘Minicomputer Experimentalism in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to 1980’ in Hannah Higgins, & Douglas Kahn (Eds.). Mainframe experimentalism: Early digital computing in the experimental arts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press (2012), p. 119
  10. ^ Jasia Reichardt (ed) (November 1968). Cybernetic Serendipity, the computer and the arts. Studio International Special Issue 905.London, Studio International
  11. ^ Reichardt, J., 'Twenty Years of Symbiosis between Art & Science', Impact of Science on Society, 24, 1, 41-51, Jan/Mar 74.
  12. ^ "15 Journeys from Warsaw to London - Jasia Reichardt's memoir". polishculture.org.uk. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  13. ^ Reichardt, Jasia (29 November 2017). "Nick Wadley obituary". The Guardian.
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