Raise the Curtain! (Kurtyna w górę!)
Artistic Stage of the 25th BNP Paribas New Horizons IFF
Studio BWA Wrocław, Ruska St. 46a/301
Opening: 18.07.2025, 7:00 PM
18.07–28.09.2025, opening hours during the festival: Mon–Fri, 12:00 PM–8:00 PM
FREE ADMISSION
For the 16th time, BWA Wrocław is partnering with the BNP Paribas New Horizons festival, expanding on themes explored on the big screen through a gallery exhibition. Raise the Curtain! (Kurtyna w górę!) continues the film section Creatures of the Night (Istoty Nocy), dedicated to the UK’s club scene. The exhibition captures fifty years of British nightlife in a collage of impulses – videos, music, performance documentation, personal manifestos, and records of communal experiences.
Masquerade, grotesque, audacious humor bordering on vulgarity, and bold eroticism are not just means of carefree entertainment – they are also tools for reclaiming agency and building a sense of belonging. As instruments of challenging the established order, they become part of the repertoire of subversive practices within emancipatory discourses. After dark, time flows differently, daytime norms are suspended, and the body becomes a medium for free expression. The night as a stage enables experimentation with identity, appearance, movement, behaviour – even gender.
The exhibited works explore various forms of nightlife within British culture – from burlesque to rave to the contemporary club scene. Through documentary footage, formal experiments, and found footage-style video clips, the artists portray nightlife as more than just an escape from reality – for generations of Britons, it has served as a catalyst for personal and social transformation.
The exhibition’s scenography is inspired by club architecture and atmosphere. As they wander through this dimly lit space, visitors encounter new story fragments – further acts of nocturnal dramaturgy captured in the works and films of participating artists.