NEW IS OLD, 2003

Like most buildings in Warsaw that look old, Ujadazdowski Castle (which houses the Center for Contemporary Art) is in fact recently rebuilt. The only original structure in the Center’s complex is the Laboratorium building which opposite the Castle looks much newer although somewhat dilapidated. New is Old take a disused storage space in Laboratorium and tries both to make it look its age and to raise it up to the castle’s aesthetic level. The walls of the space are painted with watercolors to simulate age. The outline of a neoclassical decorative architectural scheme is painted in white on the inside and exterior walls. The decoration is completed by a series of seven 6” x 7” oil paintings in faux old frames of polaroids of rooms in the castle to which the public has no access and where the modernity of the castle is evident.