Jasia Reichardt

Jasia Reichardt was born to Maryla and Sewek 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 corralled with the capital's Jewish population in the Warsaw Ghetto. Jasia survived there for a while with her mother and grandmother who endeavoured to shield her from the unfolding horror. In 1942 she was smuggled out of there but lost her beloved parents in the Holocaust. She was subsequently hidden in war-torn Poland under an assumed identity by a series of Poles, including in a convent, until she was able to join relatives in London in 1946. In England she had to learn the language and attended Dartington Hall school.[1] She went on to train at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.[2]

In the 1950s she was assistant editor of Art News and Review, a weekly arts magazine. Throughout its existence, Reichardt curated and wrote exhibition notes for the Grabowski Gallery in Chelsea which promoted young artists between 1959 and 1975.[3][4] From 1963 to 1971 she was assistant director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.[5] In 1968 she curated the Fluorescent Chrysanthemum, a presentation of contemporary experimental Japanese art.[6] 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.[7][8][9] She also commissioned work from designers such as John Wood, who produced his 'Tune Doodler' (1972) - mass-produced electronic sculpture.[10]

From 1974 to 1976 Reichardt was a director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery.[5] Between 1989 and 1998 she was director of Artec biennale in Japan. In 1998 she curated Electronically Yours. an exposition of electronic portraiture at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum. Beside her collaborations with artists and continuous focus on the intersection of the arts and science, since 1990, 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 her aunt's Themerson Archive and that of her husband, Stefan Themerson.[11]

Jasia Reichardt was married firstly to Tony Richards and secondly, to art critic, illustrator and educationalist, Nick Wadley.[12]

Her written output includes:

• 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
• Jasia Reichardt. ed. (November 1968). "Cybernetic Serendipity, the computer and the arts". Studio International, Special Issue, 905.
• Play Orbit. Imprint unknown. 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
• Art at large New Scientist
• Paul Van Hoeydonck Space Sculpture. London: Annely Juda Fine Art. 1973. ASIN: B001E0DNUY
• Reichardt, Jasia (1974). "Twenty years of symbiosis between art and science". Art and Science. XXIV, (1): 41–53.
• Reichardt, Jasia (1978). Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140049381.
• Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction. Thames & Hudson Ltd. 1978 ISBN 978-0500271230
• Margaret Priest. Recent Drawings. London: Waddington Fine Art. 1980. ASIN: B002GE5TB8
• Magdalena Abakanowicz. New York: Abbeville Press. 1982. ISBN 0896593231.
• Reichardt, Jasia (1987). "Machines and Art". Leonardo Vol. 20, No. 4 Special Issue: Art of the Future: The Future of Art: 367–372. doi:10.2307/1578534.
• 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
• 'Gaberbocchus Publishers', in Parenthesis; 12 (2006 November), p. 35–36
• 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
• Reichardt, Jasia (ed.), Unposted Letters, 1940-1942; Franciszka & Stefan Themerson, Gaberbocchus & De harmonie, Amsterdam. 2013. ISBN 9789076168760
• Our Dreams change, We don't. Cherry, Laura. (ed.) (Reichardt) International Lecture Series. The Bartlett School of Architecture. 2019. ISBN 978-1999628536

Videos:

• Jasia Reichardt on "Home, Machines and the Future", Architectural Association, 11 February 2013
• After All Exhibition History Talks: Reichardt, 2014

Jointly:

• Houédard, Sylvester and Reichardt, Jasia (1965). Between Poetry and Painting. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts.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: 6–23. 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.
• 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.
• "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).

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

• 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
• , publication of Reichardt's memoir, "Fifteen Journeys from Warsaw to London". 2012
• Stefan and Franciszka Themerson archive
• Middlesex University Honorary Degree