Timeline PL

• The NET initiative by Jarosław Kozłowski (artist) and Andrzej Kostołowski (art critic) was founded. It based its operation on the mail-art method, i.e., sending, both in Poland and abroad, a letter-manifesto entitled NET. NET project integrated the ARI activity in Poland and transformed it into a movement (network), turning it into a recognised conceptual art practice.

• Galleries-art projects were founded: the Pi Gallery in Kraków (by Maria Anna Potocka in her private apartment), the Address Gallery in Łodź (by Ewa Partum, first in an artists’ club and next in her private apartment), the 80×140 Gallery in Łódź (by Jerzy Treliński together with Andrzej Pierzgalski in an artists’ club), which was the most radical one, operating on a board of the indicated size. Andrzej Pierzgalski’s A4 Gallery of the size of a sheet of paper was nested in it.

• Zbigniew Warpechowski created his first performance art pieces based on the principles of conceptualism.

Ewa Partum performed a piece entitled Zmiana (Change) in her Address Gallery in Łódź. It involved a professional make-up artist aging half of her face. The first artwork declared feminist in contemporary Polish art.

Jan Świdziński’s contextual art manifesto ‘Art as Contextual Art’ was published (in English) by the Remont Gallery which operated in the students’ club of the Warsaw University of Technology. An exhibition under the title Contextual Art was organized at the St. Petri Gallery run by Jean Sellem in Lund, Sweden. The follow-up was a conference on contextual art at the Centre for Experimental Art and Communication (CEAC) in Toronto where Świdziński met Joseph Kosuth, who presented the concept of ‘anthropologized art.’ Joseph Kosuth’s idea of conceptual art had a huge influence on the new definition of contemporary art in Poland.

• IAM (‘International Artists’ Meeting’ or ‘I am’), an international performance art festival and the first major presentation of this art in Poland was held at the Remont Gallery in Warsaw (forty-eight artists from abroad and twenty-six from Poland participated). The event demonstrated the establishment of the powerful unofficial art institution and performance art became a leading practice that defined contemporary art and was strongly linked to conceptual art.

• The Body and Performance international festival of performance art was held at the Labirynt Gallery in Lublin. The festival was smaller than IAM but confirmed the leading position of performance art on the Polish contemporary art scene.

• The Exchange Gallery was founded by Józef Robakowski and Małgorzata Potocka in their private apartment in Łódź. The gallery’s activity was based on extensive international contacts that enabled the co-creation of the Infermental project (works distributed on VHS videotapes). It also operated as an archive and library.

• The Dziekanka Gallery in Warsaw, located in a student dormitory, functioned within the ARI gallery movement from 1972. From 1979 to 1987, it was run jointly by Tomasz Sikorski and Jerzy Onuch. From 1983 onwards, the Dziekanka Gallery played a fundamental role in the key development period of a new expression trend in Poland that used post-conceptual art forms of installations, objects, and actions, both painterly and non-painterly ones.

• In June, the Strych Gallery (the Attic Gallery) was established in Łódź. It was the first artist-run place after the break caused by the imposition of martial law on December 13, 1981. It operated until 1985 during the most severe phase of the military rule in Poland as an art center of conceptual and new media art, and action art practices.

• The Black Market, an international performance art movement, was established. It was initially based on Tomáš Ruller’s (CZ) and Zygmunt Piotrowski’s (PL) idea of joining East and West (1983). Next, Boris Nieslony (DE) and Jurgen Fritz (DE) joined them at the Expanded Theatre symposium at the Maximal Art Gallery in Poznań, founded by Grzegorz Dziamski. The Black Market was a multi-national network of performers working together in the name of freedom of art that crossed the Iron Curtain, as well as state and cultural borders.

• 1st Biennial of New Art in Zielona Góra at the BWA Gallery. Over seventy artists from Poland participated. A new generation of artists appeared, merging a post-conceptual form with new expression painterly artworks. It was the first large-scale presentation of art in a public institution after the activity break caused by the imposition of martial law.

• In the aftermath of the Biennial, the po Gallery, nested in the BWA Gallery, was founded (Wojciech Kozłowski and Leszek Krutulski). The gallery programme was very mixed and mostly contained various installations and performances forms, painterly new expression style included.

• The Wyspa Gallery (the Island Gallery) was founded in Gdańsk by Grzegorz Klaman, an artist and academic professor. Initially, it was an affiliated gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk (until 2002), next it moved to other locations in the defunct Gdańsk Shipyard (until 2016), which then became a home for many artist-run initiatives.

Real Time – Story Telling curated by Jan Świdziński and Witosław Czerwonka was held in Sopot, at the BWA Gallery. Approximately fifty artists participated. It was the first large-scale international performance art festival in the post-1989 breakthrough Poland. It marked the beginning of the performance art festivals boom of the nineties.

• Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej (MOCAK) (The Museum of Contemporary Art) in Kraków was opened. Previously, contemporary art was collected by Muzeum Narodowe (the National Museum) in Kraków, and the collection is still there.

• Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław (MWW) (Wroclaw Contemporary Museum) was opened in Wrocław. Previously, contemporary art was collected by Muzeum Narodowe (the National Museum) in Wroclaw, and the collection is still there.

• Jan Świdziński died.

• Cricoteka, the museum and archive of Tadeusz Kantor, was opened in Kraków.

Nowe Muzeum Sztuki w Gdańsku (New Art Museum) (NOMUS) opened in Gdansk.