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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 incarcerated 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 fortnightly arts magazine, and wrote for it and catalogue introductions for various galleries of contemporary art. 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.[4] In 1968 she curated Fluorescent Chrysanthemum, an exhibition of contemporary experimental Japanese art.[5] That same year she curated the ground-breaking Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition, and edited Cybernetic serendipity: the computer and the arts, a special edition of Studio International magazine.[6][7][8]. 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 director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery.[4] 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 continuing 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, which was published by the MIT in 1920.[9]

She received several fellowships; served on numerous committees; belonged to a number of professional organisations; gave lectures at conferences; and received several distinctions.

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.[10]

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 written by:

  • Victor Pasmore. Art in Progress series. London: Methuen & Co 1962. ASIN: B0000CLE70
  • Yaacov Agam. Art in Progress series. London: Methuen. 1966. ASIN: B0006BSCLM
  • The Computer in Art. London: Studio Vista. 1971
  • Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction. Thames & Hudson. 1978 ISBN 978-0500271230


Books edited by:

  • Series of 13 monographs on living artists 'Art in Progress', Methuen, 1962-66
  • Cybernetics, art, and ideas. Studio Vista. 1971
  • Kurt Schwitters: Three Stories, Tate Publishing, 2010
  • Unposted Letters [of] Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, Gaberbocchus & De Harmonie, Amsterdam, 2013
  • The Themerson Archive Catalogue, MIT, 2020


Books contributed to:

  • "Multiples" in The Year’s Art, Penguin Books, 1974
  • "Op Art" in Concepts of Modern Art, Penguin Books, 1974
  • "Art and Cybernetics" in [[Le Temps et la Cybernetique[[, Micromégas, 1975
  • "After Malraux" in 360 degrees around Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, Rikuyo-sha Publishing Inc., 1981
  • "Die Paradoxe mechanijsche Lebens" in Wunschmaschine Welterfindung, Springer, Vienna, 1966
  • "In the beginning", White Heat Cold Logic, MIT, 2009
  • "Borges", with Borges, My life in Books, Obscure Publications, 2010


Texts in catalogues include:

  • Peter Schmidt - Autobiographical Mono Prints. London: Lisson Gallery. 1970. ASIN: B00C3YNUP8
  • Piero Fogliati - The Poet of Light. Lara, Maria-Vinca, Reichardt, Jasia. Hopefulmonster Editore Srl; Bilingual edition. 1 April 2004. ISBN 978-8877571786


Journals and magazines contributed to: AA files, Ambit, Architectural Review, Art Monthly, Art International, Art News, Arte Oggi, Arts, Arts Review, Artscribe, Arts Review, Billedkunst, Bonhams magazine,The British Journal of Aesthetics, Cambridge Opinion, Cimaise, Connoisseur, The Creative Holography Index, Domus, Eye, Image Roche, The Independent, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Konteksty, Das Kunstwerk, Kwartalnik Literacki, Leonardo, Marmo, Metro, Museumjournaal, Opus, Pagina, Pa`renthesis, Penrose Annual, Pix 1,Progressive Architecture, Quadrum, The Royal Academy Magazine, RSA Journal, Skira Annuel, Studio International, Sunday Times, Typographica, L'Uomo e l'Arte, Vytvarne Umeni, Zodiac, and others


Translation:

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

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. ^ a b Jasia Reichardt archive of concrete and sound poetry, 1959-1977. Getty Research Institute. Accessed January 2014.
  5. ^ https://archive.ica.art/bulletin/fluorescent-chrysanthemum-revisited 2016.
  6. ^ Manovich, Lev (2002). "Ten Key Texts on Digital Art: 1970-2000". Leonardo. 35 (5): 567–569+571–575. doi:10.1162/002409402320774385. S2CID 57566892.
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ Jasia Reichardt (ed) (November 1968). Cybernetic Serendipity, the computer and the arts. Studio International Special Issue 905.London, Studio International
  9. ^ "15 Journeys from Warsaw to London - Jasia Reichardt's memoir". polishculture.org.uk. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  10. ^ Reichardt, Jasia (29 November 2017). "Nick Wadley obituary". The Guardian.


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