SCHEDULE OF EXBITIONS IN 2012

6 January – 12 February

Czesław Wieczorek – Painting  

curator: Grażyna Cybulska

vernissage: 6 pm, Thursday, 5 January

 

A retrospective exhibition of paintings by an artist whose work focuses on the aftermath of the Second World War, and Jewish martyrdom, religion and mores – all imbued with bitter irony and incisive comment about present-day events. The artist graduated from the Department of Graphic Arts of the Katowice-branch of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1958. He lives in Bystra Śląska near Bielsko-Biała.

 

6 – 29 January   

Hommage à Wiktor Górka (1922–2004)

Posters and other works from the collection of Henryk Górka and Dydo Poster Collection

curator: Krzysztof Dydo

vernissage: 6 pm, Thursday, 5 January

A meeting with Krzysztof Dydo: 5 pm, Thursday, 26 January.

Lecture: Wiktor Górka and the Polish school of poster design.

 

An exhibition of works by this outstanding graphic artist and poster designer (1922–2004), graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1952, one of the founding fathers of the Polish school of poster making. His posters were succinct and modest in form; they were characterized by refined wit and innovative letter design. Górka the poster designer is often described as a master of synthesis, or a “mood hunter” – an artist who adhered to strict rigours of composition, but at the same time created “light forms, filled with the beauty of life”. The artist was born and died in Bielsko-Biała, and pursued his creative activity in Kraków and Warsaw, as well as Cuba and Mexico.

 

 

4 February – 4 March

Katarzyna Kmita – Must Have It

curator: Joanna Stembalska

vernissage: 6 pm, Friday, 3 February

Paper cutting workshop with Kasia Kmita: 11 am, Saturday, 4 February 2012

 

The latest exhibition by the graduate of the Department of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (1996) defying the ubiquitous codes of visual identification. This is a bold juxtaposition of the world’s biggest trademarks and folk cut-outs which makes  use of various popular motifs shown in mass media and advertising. The exhibition serves as a derisive commentary on mental matrices in modern society, on the urge to own luxury goods, on the obsessive labelling of every-day life, and on the worship of the logotypes and icons of pop culture.

 

 

22 February – 25 March

Carole Benzaken – Saviv, saviv / Wokół, wokół

curator: Nathalie Hazan-Brunet

vernissage: Tuesday, 6 pm , 21 February

 

A multimedia project referring to the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel, which has been prepared especially for the city of Bielsko-Biała which this Paris-based artist visited in 2010 at the invitation of the Cultural Institution Ars Cameralis. The news that the art gallery was erected on the site of a synagogue destroyed by the Nazis in mid September 1939 became a challenge for Carole Benzaken. She held her first exhibition devoted to the Bielsko-Biała project at the Museum of Judaist Art and History in Paris in October 2011. Carole Benzaken is a graduate of Ecole Supérieur d’Arts Plastiques and  Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris (1990). The artist gained recognition soon after graduation, and in 1994 the Paris-based Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art held the first exhibition devoted to her works.    In 2004 she won the Marcel Duchamp Award, and the following year she held a solo exhibition at Musée National d’Art Moderne, and then another one in New York’s MoMa in 2006.

The exhibition Saviv saviv, is organized by the Institution of Culture Ars Cameralis in Katowice, in cooperation with Galeria Bielska BWA, the Museum of Judaist Art and History in Paris and Nathalie Obadia Gallery, Paris / Bruxelles . The exhibition is curated by Nathalie Hazan-Brunet.

 

 

9 – 29 March

Agata Zbylut – Nothing’s What It Seems  

Vernissage: 6 pm, Thursday, 8 March

 

The latest project by an artist dealing with feminist themes in the context of every-day life and mundane experience. This multimedia exhibition, combining objects and video projections, touches upon daydreams, hope ... and hopelessness. The works focus on dogs shown at decisive moments of their lives – including Laika, being prepared for her final journey, and Blondi – Hitler’s beloved Shepherd dog who died at his hands in a bunker, together with Eva Braun – and on people including the said Eva Braun, Larry Walters flying high in his lawn-chair airship, and ( the only person still alive)– Helenka, an elderly lady from the neighbourhood who spends her leisure time looking down through her window onto the narrow courtyard.  

Agata Zbylut is a graduate of the University of Zielona Góra. She received her Master’s Degree in Drawing and Intermedia in 1999, and a Doctoral Degree at the Department of Multimedia and Social Communications of the Art University in Poznań.

She has cooperated since 2010 with the Department of New Media of the Art Academy in Szczecin.

 

31 March – 22 April

Farewell – former students of Leon Tarasewicz and Paweł Susid

Vernissage: 6 pm, Friday, 30 March

This exhibition by a group of graduates of the Art Department led by Leon Tarasewicz and Paweł Susid of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw shows a varied approach to colour and form in painting. The artists exhibiting their works are Radosław Jastrzębski, Justyna Kisielewicz, Aleksandra Kowalczyk, Grzegorz Kozera, Elżbieta Król and Zuzanna Ziółkowska. Jakub Banasiak wrote:“Apart from formal experiments (Król, Kowalczyk) we will find examples of almost traditional realistic imagery (Jastrzębski), ironic playing with mass culture (Kisielewicz) and surrealistic compositions with intensive colours (Ziółkowska). What all of these works have in common is the precision of workmanship and a well-thought-out choice of formal means of expression. The painting cycles to be shown at the exhibition offer an insight into the most recent painting trends followed by young Polish artists.”

 

4 – 29 April

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011

curator: Jerzy Zegarliński

vernissage: 6 pm, Tuesday, 3 April

 

This exhibition shows the prize-winning works of the latest competition Wildlife Photographer of the Year organized  by  the BBC Wildlife Magazine and the Natural History Museum in London. Held annually since 1964, the event has become the world’s biggest and most prestigious competition of wildlife photography. Each year the exhibition is shown in a dozens of countries all over the world. This April it will be shown for the 10th time in Poland.

 

 

28 April – 10 June

Myth and Melancholy

curator: Jolanta Ciesielska

vernissage: 6 pm, Friday, 27 April

 

“This project aims to analyse the changes that have occurred in Polish art during the last twenty years as a result of the redefinition of cultural, social and political paradigms. The works by the invited artists deal with a series of profound universal themes, such as history and various myths permeating historical contexts, the definition of different areas of human life and death, the condition of an artist at the time of a transformation of values, crisis behaviours and generational changes” – writes the exhibition curator Jolanta Ciesielska.     

The three generations of artists showing their works at the exhibition represent different artistic attitudes. The artists are: Wojciech Bąkowski, Cezary Bodzianowski, Bogna Burska, Witosław Czerwonka, Krzysztof Gruse, Jakub Grzelak, Ryszard Grzyb, Jerzy Kosałka, Mariusz Kubielas, Kamil Kuskowski, Roman Lipski, Łódź Kaliska, Sławomir Marzec, Artur Malewski, Tomasz Mażewski, Andrzej Miastkowski, Agata Michowska, Marcin Mierzicki, Bartłomiej Otocki, Laura Pawela, Jadwiga Sawicka, Kamila Sokolnicka, Sędzia Główny, Grzegorz Sztwiertnia and Alicja Żebrowska. The exhibition will be prepared by the Centre of Culture and Art in Wrocław as part of the Lower Silesia Festival of Art, the Contemporary Museum in Wrocław and Galeria Bielska BWA.

 

 

1 – 20 May

Tadeusz Biernot – Faces

curator: Agata Smalcerz

meeting with the artist: 5 pm, Thursday, 10 May

 

Large-format portraits by an artist who gave up a very successful career as a commercial designer in favour of painting. The artist is a graduate of the Katowice Department of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (Honour’s Degree in 1976), where he used to lecture for many years.  In 1989 he left for Italy where he became the artistic director of the advertising agency Zeta 2 and created designs for such companies as Ariston, Guzzini, Teuco, SIDIS. In 1990 he moved to Toronto, Canada, where he continued to work for the world’s largest advertising agencies (incl. Globe and Mail, Hudson Bay Company, Cineplex Odeon, and Astral Communication). His designs brought him numerous awards. His project for TV Space – a Canadian science-fiction broadcasting network – won him the gold medal in the competition  PROMAX Broadcast Design Awards which was held in New York in 2003. In 2002 he became the creative director of a team that made a visual revolution of the renowned Fashion Magazine. He also co-established the magazine Fashion 18 targeted at teenage readerships. In 2002 he became the artistic director of Fashion Magazine in Toronto. Since 2005 he has devoted himself entirely to painting. His works can be seen in numerous private collections in the USA, Canada, the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Poland.

 

 

26 May – 17 June

Alexander Andrzej Łabiniec – Stage Designs

curator: Grażyna Cybulska

vernissage: 11 am, Friday, 25 May

 

Exhibition of works by the late artist who divided his creative activity between painting and stage design.  Alexander Andrzej Łabiniec (1930–2010) graduated from the Department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He also studied at the Centre de Recherches d’Ambiances in Paris. He spent his entire creative life in Bielsko-Biała where was an artist, and also held the position of the director of our gallery and of the Puppet Theatre Banialuka.  He assisted in the creation of the artistic format of Banialuka as a visual theatre and contributed to its successes in Poland and abroad. He also worked for many years for television, especially for the TVP Katowice for which he prepared the visual side of many shows covering such genres as culture, art, entertainment, documentary, news and drama.    He also worked as a lecturer at the University of Silesia in Katowice and Cieszyn, and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He received numerous prestigious awards and state decorations for his achievements in the areas of art and drama.  

The exhibition will be held as part of the 25th International Festival of Puppetry Art in Bielsko-Biała (25–30 May, 2012).

 

 

23 June – 26 August

Siggi Hofer & Marcin Maciejowski – FANTOM

curator: Goschka Gawlik

vernissage: 6 pm, Friday, 22 June

The exhibition is an attempt to find out both artistic and linguistic similarities between the works of the two already recognised artists, and cultural and political differences, or even contradictions. The two artists met ten years ago in Vienna. Hofer came to the capital of Austria from South Tyrol, which like Galicia, was a part of the Habsburg Empire - the former until 1919, and the latter until 1918. Maciejowski, too, after a few years of underground activity in the Kraków-based  artistic circle Grupa Ładnie, began his international career with a solo exhibition in Vienna (2003) which greatly enhanced his future prospects for artistic development. Once called "Little Vienna", Bielsko-Biała may also become a platform for searching out other relations between the two artists, which are more deeply hidden in history. 

 

 

1 – 30 September

Polish Biennial: Krystyna Pasterczyk – Alabaster

curator: Agata Smalcerz

vernissage: 6 pm, Friday, 31 August

 

An exhibition of sculptures by the graduate of the Institute of Art in the Cieszyn branch of the University of Silesia in Katowice (degree in 1986), currently a lecturer in her alma mater.  The artist thus wrote about the exhibition: “The idea of inter-permeation between the living and the dead. The idea of subtle endurance ... I know that I – here and now – am not even for a short while limited to the earthly world. I keep visiting those who lived before me, as well as those who will seemingly come after me ...(...). The exhibition is dedicated To all those departed – the Close Ones and Distant Ones.  To their “alabaster” presence – noble, subtle and lucid. To those silently enduring alongside us and sharing with us (with a smile) their long-gone thoughts. The past returns as if it were the future; that which has already been achieved returns as a thing which must be fulfilled”.

The exhibitions offered by Galeria Bielska BWA in September will be held as part of the national competition Polska Biennale.

 

 

6 October – 18 November

Bielska Jesień  – curated exhibition  

vernissage: 6 pm, Friday, 5 October

Every other year since 2000, alternating with the Painting Biennial “Bielska Jesień” , Galeria Bielska BWA has been organising a competition for curators for the best exhibition showing the most crucial developments in contemporary Polish painting . There have been six exhibitions so far, designed by different curators –  Between Aesthetic and Metaphysics(2000), curated by Bożena Czubak; Painting Competition (2001), by Adam Szymczyk; Beauty or Painting effects by the duo of “ex-girls”, i.e. Magdalena Ujma and Joanna Zielińska (2004); Pretty Paintings by Jarosław Lubiak and Kamil Kuskowski (2006); Illusion as a Source of Suffering by Agnieszka Żechowska (2008) and 50 Paintings held in 2010 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the gallery, which was prepared independently of the competition by Agata Smalcerz.

 

24 November – 30 December

Latvian Art

vernissae:  6 pm, Friday, 23 November

 

This exhibition of contemporary Latvian art has been prepared in cooperation with the Angija Suna Gallery in Tallinn.

 

24 November – 30 December

Project Arting

vernissage: 6 pm, Friday, 23 November

 

Held since 1994, the “Project Arting” Industrial Design Competition is becoming a large-scale project accompanied by training workshops and an exhibition of Polish design. Focusing primarily on regional products, the whole idea is based on the curricula of Poland’s leading academies of art in Warsaw, Kraków and Katowice.