Jasia Reichardt
Jasia Reichardt
Early CAS
Jasia Reichardt (b. 1933) is an exhibition organiser, writer and art critic whose work explores connections between art, science, technology and literature. Born in Warsaw in 1933, she has spent much of her life in London, developing exhibitions and publications that cross disciplinary boundaries. As Assistant Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts from 1963 to 1971, she organised Between Poetry and Painting in 1965 and the landmark Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition in 1968. Bringing together computer graphics, music, poetry and machines, Cybernetic Serendipity introduced audiences to emerging relationships between computing and creativity.
Reichardt subsequently directed the Whitechapel Gallery from 1974 to 1976 and taught at the Architectural Association. She wrote The Computer in Art (1971) and Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction (1978), and edited Cybernetics, Art and Ideas (1971). She also worked with Nick Wadley to organise the archive of her aunt Franciszka Themerson and Franciszka’s husband, Stefan, the experimental artists and publishers whose archive is now held by Poland’s National Library. Her later exhibitions include Electronically Yours (1998) and Nearly Human (2015). The Computer Arts Society’s Jasia Reichardt Annual Lecture was inaugurated on 16 January 2024 with her presentation, Five and a Half Exhibitions, in which she discussed exhibitions she organised at the ICA between 1963 and 1971.