About the project

The aim of the project is to present, for the first time to an American and global audience, a complete collection of Polish artists' gifts to Los Angeles at the beginning of the 1980s as a coherent image of the art of the 1970s. The symposium and publication will present current attitudes and artistic trends in Poland before the transformation. The collection will also include a commentary on both the context of the donation and the intentions of the authors of the collection - the project will highlight the culture-creating efforts of artists and the common experiences of Polish and American artists involved in shaping museum collections. Thanks to the project, the contribution of Polish artists to the development of MOCA will also be shown. The Polish-American artistic exchange that took place in the 1980s is a starting point for raising several issues related to the dissemination of heritage, starting from recalling a special type of commemoration (the exchange honored the anniversary related to the activities of the a.r. group), through discussing the initiatives of Polish artists to create innovative art institutions to a comparison of work practiced on both continents (including activities integrating an artistic object with the space of its reception). A historical undertaking promoting solidarity and international cooperation as well as "living" commemorations - it will emphasize their importance today and indicate possible directions of development in the future.

The starting point for the project is a collection of works donated in 1983 by Polish artists to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The task of the inter-institutional team (MSŁ, GRI and MOCA) is to present both this collection and to familiarize foreign recipients with the characteristics of Polish art of that time and the circumstances of acquiring the collection by the American museum. We will undertake activities to develop the collection of Polish art at MOCA (objects will be digitized, archival documentation cataloged and scanned), as well as research and discursive activities regarding the broader relations between the communities participating in the exchange in the 1980s. The project will also include symposium, publication and documentary film. Thanks to these activities, it will be possible to popularize the Polish collection in the USA and around the world, and showing the contribution of Polish artists to the development of MOCA in the first key years of shaping the institution.

The collection consists of very diverse works, from paintings by Zbigniew Gostomski, Tadeusz Kantor, Maria Stangret, Ryszard Winiarski through spatial installations by Edward Krasiński and Koji Kamoji to works by conceptualist Zdzisław Jurkiewicz and photographer Zygmunt Targowski. The creator of concrete poetry, Stanisław Dróżdż, and Andrzej Łobodziński also donated their works. Such a diverse collection the donors intended it to reflect the artistic scene of the time. The initiator of the project was Henryk Stażewski (1894-1988), an artist associated with the a.r. group, which at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s obtained over a hundred works of art as a gift from representatives of the world avant-garde, thus establishing the first museum of modern art in the country. On the 50th anniversary of the first public presentation, Stażewski undertook another "collection" of works to donate them to the MSŁ. In this way, the Museum acquired works by renowned American artists, and Polish artists as a gesture of solidarity, they donated their works to MOCA, established just a few years earlier. The entire collection was presented only once, in 1982, at an exhibition in Paris, and then in two subsequent editions in Irish galleries.

On behalf of the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź responsible for the project are recognized curators and art theoreticians: Agnieszka Pindera, Paweł Polit and Natalia Słaboń. In Los Angeles, the project will be co-created by Andrew Perchuk - deputy director of the GRI (Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles) and Clara Kim - program curator of MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles).

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

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