The 1982 Cultural Exchange Between Łódź and Los Angeles (book)

With this publication we wish to honor fifty artists who donated their artworks to foreign museums. What this book is calling “the Polish–American exchange” was an initiative of a group of Warsaw-based artists who wanted to establish contact with their colleagues abroad. The art scene in a Soviet satellite country had its limitations, to say the least, but there were still exceptional places and people who made their mark. During the directorship of Ryszard Stanisławski, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź was one of them. Its origins, dating back to the 1920s, intertwined with biographies of the most interesting postwar artists, and led to significant art donations. Polish artists offered their pieces to the newly established Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA), and those based in the United States contributed to the Muzeum Sztuki’s collection. Although 1982 marks the first public presentation of these donations, it was a year later that these pieces were processed and included in the inventory. With this publication we celebrate the anniversary of the formal gesture which sealed the exchange.

The concept of this publication has developed through meetings held in 2022 at the Muzeum Sztuki with financial support of the US Embassy in Warsaw. Barbara Kasten joined us then via Zoom, and the following scholars delivered their papers and contributed to discussions during a two-stage symposium: Dr. Christian Berger (Universität Siegen), Dr. Małgorzata Jędrzejczyk (Jagiellonian University in Krakow), Prof. Michael Leja (University of Pennsylvania), Prof. Filip Lipiński (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań), Dr. Paweł Polit (Muzeum Sztuki), Prof. Agnieszka Rejniak-Majewska (University of Łódź), and Dr. Wojciech Szymański (University of Warsaw). Edited versions of their papers are found in the section devoted to the practices of the Polish and American artists described through the lenses of their respectful disciplines.

Concluding in the publication, on the other hand, we have new texts expanding on the geopolitical contexts of the 1982 project, starting from the introductory chapter by Agnieszka Pindera (University of Warsaw) and continued in Dr. Karolina Łabowicz-Dymanus’s (Polish Academy of Sciences) meticulous study. David Crowley (National College of Art and Design), and Patryk Tomaszewski (City University of New York) reinterpreted the oeuvres of two of Poland’s most renowned postwar artists—Tadeusz Kantor and Henryk Stażewski.

This publication responds to a necessity: to study two sub-collections of major art museums in Łódź and Los Angeles, a task that required direct contact with artists, archival research, and a platform to discuss the broader contexts of these collections. Conversations with the artists were extremely helpful in understanding the conditions of art production and exhibition-making at the project’s core. Editors wish to thank the following artists for their support: Lita Albuquerque, Peter Downsbrough, Jud Fine, Barbara Kasten, Koji Kamoji, Tomasz Osiński, Liga Pang, Peter Shire, and Paul Vangelisti.

You can purchase this publication ONLINE.

Échange entre artistes 1931–1982, Pologne-USA: the Polish-American Artistic Exchange carried out in cooperation with The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and in cooperation with the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles

Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland under the Inspiring Culture program