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The Collection of Gallery Arsenal – Marek Wasilewski

In spite of the fact that we hear more and more about individuals and institutions collecting works of contemporary art, the phenomenon as such is relatively new in Poland. In the post-war period no new museum exhibition space has been built except for the new wing of the National Museum in Poznan. The custom of purchasing artworks followed by cultural institutions in the times of the Polish People's Republic was a way of supporting the artists by the government and had nothing to do with the actual quality of the works.

This is the reason why collections built up in that period include both extraordinary and apparently poor works. But the crisis that arose in the 80’ hindered the purchases so seriously, that cultural institutions began being dependent on deposits and donations made by artists and individual collectors. This situation continues up to this day. Poland has no museum of contemporary art and the only major representative collection is being shown in the Ujazdowski Castle CCA, a space intended for exhibiting contemporary not museum works.

In such circumstances, the fact that a collection of contemporary art exists in Gallery Arsenal must seem somewhat surprising. Amassing interesting, valuable and carefully chosen collections is not a rule which all municipal galleries in Polish cities follow. Gallery Arsenal is currently in possession of an assortment of works divided into two separate collections: 'Three Trends. Realism – Metaphor – Geometry' (from the 1965-1985 period, including works by J.Berdyszak, E.Dwurnik, S.Gierowski, I.Gustowska, J.Kalucki, H.Stazewski, R.Winiarski) and ‘Kolekcja II’ (collection no. 2).

The latter deserves special attention, as within its scope of interest lies perhaps the worst and most neglected period in the history of Polish collections. Important value of those works comes from the fact that among them one can find several debut and early works of artists who, due to their age, experience complete ignorance on the part of museums. By acquiring in a suitable time the works of such artists as Robert Maciejuk, Wojciech Lazarczyk, Konrad Kuzyszyn, Katarzyna Kozyra, Dorota Nieznalska or Zbigniew Rogalski, the gallery acted like a serious and professional collector who invests in the future rise of value of young artists’ works. At the same time, the collection takes on a new significance as a dynamic initiative promoting and supporting new phenomena. It fosters interesting values in art, contrary to traditional collections aimed at representing and preserving the status quo. This situation is favoured by the fact that the Arsenal’s collection is promoted both at home and abroad.

The second collection, which comprises of paintings from the last decade of the 20th century, is just as diverse as the art of that time. Here, one encounters paintings (e.g. Tarasewicz, Lazarczyk, Maciejuk, Modzelewski, Rogalski), sculptures (e.g. Kijewski, Klaman, Niedzielko, Bednarski) and photographs (e.g. Kulik, Truszkowski, Mikolajczyk, Robakowski, Magisters). Those works are seemingly not linked with each other, except for the time they were created. Coming from different generations, their authors include both distinguished artists as well as those at the beginning of their artistic career. The collec-tion reflects various tendencies and strategies present in Polish art of that period, all of which can be seen as artists’ response to the unique situation in their country. We can look for both traces of transformation which, during the last twenty years, brought about radical changes in everyday life in Poland, as well as for evidence of the artists’ individual exploration in this context, derived from distinctive personal experience of their own. One thing is certain however, the collection brilliantly captures all that constitutes the original character of Polish art. We can observe a trend being actually a peculiar ironical play – such is the case with paintings by Robert Maciejuk, sculptures by Marek Kijewski, Jozef Robakowski’s photography and video as well as with the works made by the Magisters, a group belonging to the younger generation of artists. Critical art is represented by the works of Zofia Kulik, Jerzy Truszkowski, Katarzyna Kozyra, Dorota Nieznalska and Grzegorz Klaman. Finally, we can point to some manifestations of the analytical art, which engages in a discourse with the means it is employing. What I have in mind are Antoni Mikolajczyk’s photographs, Hanna Łuczak’s installations and paintings by Leon Tarasewicz and Wojciech Lazarczyk.

This is merely one of many possible classifications of the works, for any arbitrary attempt to define them is bound to fail. Every artist represented in the collection creates an own, unique world, and thus has to be taken into considerationas a discrete artistic phenomenon. All those works have been created, as Jean Francois Lyotard puts it, ‘in a world, where reality is so destabilized that it does not provide material for experience, but for testing and experimentation’. The art of this period, according to the author of 'The Postmodern Condition' does not point to an unbiased reality or to a credible transcendence; it also does not point to its specific addressees or authors. Such art should seek to find allusions to what is comprehensible but cannot be shown. As a result of further growth, the collection of artworks from the last decade of the 20th century is turning into a collection from the turn of the century. We do not know yet what its ultimate shape will be, it all depends on what the future will bring…

Marek Wasilewski

Arsenal Gallery's 35 th Anniversary - Łukasz Gorczyca

Celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok was accompanied by an exhibi-tion of works by Polish artists, chosen from a broad gallery collection . The exhibition, divided in two parts was presented in the Bialystok State Museum and the Arsenal Gallery. In the halls of the State Museum a collection of ‘1969-1985 Polish painters’ was shown, which was split into the ‘Three trends’. Realism – Metaphor – Geometry, whereas the Arsenal Gallery shown a collection of pictures, sculp-tures, videos and installations from the nineties – a result of activity of Monika Szewczyk, gallery’s director since the 1990, and a curator, Magdalena Godlewska-Siwerska. The exhibition will be open till the 14th of May.
The story of the Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok is a rather typical one for a Polish art institution. It was created in 1965 as one of the many Art Exhibition Halls (Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych), and after 1989 transformed into a municipal gallery financed by the Local Government of Bialystok However, it should be said, that not many of the former Art Exhibition Halls (which under the martial law, became deeply unpopular due to an official boycott announced by the artists) managed to gain such an important position on the map of contemporary art in Poland as the Arsenal did. During the last 10 years just about every important Polish contemporary artist of the nineties has had his exhibition there. The gallery also succeeded in presenting a majority of new, significant trends in art, as well as in hosting a number of foreign artists. The names from the region were likewise present on gallery’s exhibition schedule – those were Malgorzata Niedzielko, Miroslaw Filonik, Konrad Kuzyszyn, Wojciech Lazarczyk or Leon Tarasewicz. This is how the gallery has been trying to reshape the artistic traditions of Bialystok - by focusing on truly interesting artists instead of groups of ‘union activists’ (this often happens in small centres where one municipal gallery is expected to satisfy the needs of all). It is obvious that creating and running an institution with an ambitious offer of contemporary art events, is a lot harder in Bialystok than in Warsaw, Krakow or Poznan, as the relations between the Local Government, the artists and the gallery tend to be more personal and harsh. This provokes a constant need for reassuring the rightfulness of the artistic programme proposed. The responsibility taken by the curators in the smaller cities is actually greater, and winning over a large public more difficult, taking those into account makes us consider the employees of the Arsenal Gallery even more praiseworthy – for they have succeeded in creating an institution friendly towards art, even this in its most extreme manifestations.
In this context, the issue of building up a collection of artworks is likewise significant. Recently more and more Polish museums are considered to have a tight budget, which results in halting the growth of contemporary art collections. Thankfully, such galleries as the Arsenal in Bialystok are exceptional – which fact is perhaps a little bit underestimated – as they gradually enlarge their collections basing on the presented exhibitions. For other museum workers this situation should be more shameful than consoling, as building up collections does not belong to the main duty of municipal galleries. The funds for the purchases come from savings in other areas – so if, thanks to the resourceful policy of the director, such purchases are possible in Bialystok, how come things are different in the biggest Polish museums? The Arsenal is unfortunately an extremely rare case. Its constantly enlarging, diverse collection of the contemporary art of the nineties, is one of the few in Poland. It also has an individual character – many works focus on the rawness and the truth of the material, like those of Krzysztof Bednarski, Grzegorz Klaman, Malgorzata Niedzielko or Mikolaj Smoczynski. There are also many accurately chosen items – this concerns Konrad Kuzyszyn, Robert Maciejuk and Agnieszka Tarasiuk.
The fact of combining together two collections - the old and the new one - is a separate topic. They are different not only due to the different labels on the institution which created them, but what’s more important, because of the strategy. The latter collection exposes to some point, the weaknesses of its predecessor, which in spite of representative names and few remarkably good items (eg. a painting by Jerzy Zielinski) appears somewhat schematic. The other thing is the fact that the earlier collection consists of paintings only, which becomes an undeniable drawback when contrasted with contemporary exhibits. When we think of such collections, from the times of socialism, stored in the museums and former Art Exhibition Halls up to this day, an idea of some missing link emerges. These are the art events of the sixties, the seventies and the eighties that cannot be easily classified as a category, yet they have actually formed the basis for the art of the nineties. The curators and the museum workers are now facing a task of closing the unnatural gap between what had happened during the socialism and the Third Republic of Poland. Between what is still associated with the Art Exhibition Halls (and not all of these memories are unpleasant), and this what makes the ‘arsenal of contemporariness’ – after all, all those objects and memories celebrate one anniversary.

Lukasz Gorczyca
published in the 5th issue of “Art & Business”, 2000