1 August – 31 October 2024
The aim of the project is to promote knowledge about the Praga-based sculpture studio of Jan Bohdan Chmielewski and his wife Lidia, as well as about modern Polish sculpture and Warsaw’s local cultural heritage. As part of the project, the 1st “Chmielewscy and Modern Sculpture” Festival will be organized.
As part of the festival, the following events will take place:
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guided tours of the studio of the artists Jan and Lidia Chmielewski, including a presentation of their artistic biographies;
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a meeting devoted to sculpture in urban space with Dr Dorota Grubba-Thiede, author of the book “The Current of Figuration in Postwar Polish Sculpture”, organized in cooperation with the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko;
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a meeting on Warsaw mosaics, including those by Zbigniew Brodowski, prepared in cooperation with the Flaneur Association.
The festival is a recurring event that will take place annually in September/October, in the month of the birth of the artist Jan Bohdan Chmielewski.
Programme
3 October, 18:00
Dr Dorota Grubba-Thiede
“Intervals of Phenomena” – Contemporary Abstract and Figurative Sculpture in Open-Closed Spaces – lecture
The lecture will provide a synthetic overview of the major developments in contemporary sculpture, whose dynamic evolution was made possible by strong artistic personalities as well as by the support of theorists, critics, and curators, particularly active from the second half of the 1950s onward. The situation of Polish art and that of other countries “in the shadow of Yalta” (within a difficult geopolitical context) was characterized by a diversity of artistic attitudes, including clearly progressive and independent ones that remain original points of reference to this day. Richly illustrated, the presentation will take the form of an essay highlighting the multidimensional nature of artistic explorations in Poland in relation to the more widely publicized phenomena of so-called Western art.
Dr Dorota Grubba-Thiede – lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, art historian, art critic, and exhibition curator. A graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń: PhD in the humanities in the field of art studies (2009), Master of Arts in Sculpture (2005), and MA in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage (2000). She has organized numerous exhibitions of modern and contemporary art at the State Gallery of Art in Sopot as well as, among others, at the National Museum in Warsaw and the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko. She has presented works by outstanding contemporary artists, including Stanisław Horno-Popławski (1902–1997), Krzysztof Malec (1965–2002), and among others Jerzy Bereś, Zbigniew Warpechowski, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alina Szapocznikow, Zula Strzelecka, Katarzyna Józefowicz, Piotr Józefowicz, and Katarzyna Kobro, also within numerous interdisciplinary exhibitions of the latest art, giving even very young artists the opportunity to present their works in art institutions. She is affiliated with the Polish Institute of World Art Studies and with AICA International and AICA Poland. She was also the author of a series of lecture-meetings at the Institute of Urban Culture in Gdańsk entitled “Forms in Zones of Meaning – Social Contexts of Contemporary Sculpture” (2014–2015). Her research focuses on interdisciplinary studies of contemporary art and its dissemination through books (including The Current of Figuration in Postwar Polish Sculpture, 2016), exhibition catalogues, and publications in journals such as EXIT: Quarterly of New Art, Magazyn Sztuki, Pamiętnik Sztuk Pięknych, Konteksty – Anthropology of Culture – Ethnography – Art, Orońsko Sculpture Quarterly, Art and Documentation, Rocznik Sopocki, Art&Business, AtrLUK, Artmix – art, feminism, visual culture, SZUM, and The Yearbook of Polish Sculpture.
4 October, 18:00
Małgorzata Szelachowska
Mosaics – The Smiling Art of the PRL – presentation
The presentation will discuss the legacy of Zbigniew Brodowski in the context of Polish postwar public art, particularly art integrated with architecture. What historical, ideological, and economic conditions allowed public art to flourish in postwar Poland? Who was Zbigniew Brodowski, a resident of the Osiedle Młodych housing estate in Warsaw’s Grochów district? How did his monumental mosaics become part of the broader current of public art? The presentation will also address the current situation of the artistic legacy of the PRL in public space.
Małgorzata Szelachowska – cultural studies scholar, editor, journalist, and copywriter; a fellow of the Journalisten Kolleg at Freie Universität Berlin; MBA graduate of the Polish Academy of Sciences; and curator of the project “An Eye on Art” conducted by the Flaneur Research and Animation Association, in which she researches the local cultural heritage of Warsaw.
5 October, 13:00 and 16:00
Dr Magdalena Furmanik-Kowalska
The Chmielewski Studio and Its Residents – guided tour of the interiors
The events will be accompanied by a book fair featuring publications on modernist art.
As part of the project, a guided tour also took place on 7 September during the Plac Hallera Festival.
