The 1982 Cultural Exchange Between Łódź and Los Angeles (e-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.

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 artist Koji Kamoji and the 1982 engineer of the exchange, Anka Ptaszkowska, were extremely helpful in understanding the conditions of art production and exhibition-making at the project’s core. At the same time, their recollections included many anecdotes and testified to the congenial nature of the activities. We are genuinely grateful for their time and assistance. The following artists answered the questionnaire we sent to the exchange participants: Peter Downsbrough, Jud Fine, Barbara Kasten, Peter Shire, and Paul Vangelisti. Their recollections proved that artists were approached and asked to donate their work in many ways. The interviews conducted with Wiesław Borowski of Foksal Gallery, Lita Albuquerque, member of the MOCA’s Artist Advisory Council, and artist Liga Pang provided a better understanding of the 1982 exchange’s institutional context. It was supplemented by consultations with Sam Francis Papers and Count Giuseppe Panza Papers at the Getty Research Institute. This ambitious undertaking would not have been possible without the Getty Library Grant I received and the dedication of Rachel Longaker and Virginia Mokslaveskas who administered my inquiries. The archival research involved examining the historical records of Foksal Gallery and Muzeum Sztuki, as well as Anka Ptaszkowska’s papers, provided by Robert Jarosz and Magda Drągowska (MoMA Warsaw), with help of Maria Matuszkiewicz. Thanks to the tireless assistance of Maria Rubersz (Foksal Gallery), this publication illustrates well the artistic value of Polish contribution in 1982. The MOCA Archives, kindly made available by Chief Curator Clara Kim, were combined with records of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris to draft a detailed timeline of the Polish–American 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. 

Publisher: Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi
Authors: Christian Berger, David Crowley, Małgorzata Jędrzejczyk, Michael Leja, Filip Lipiński, Karolina Łabowicz-Dymanus, Agnieszka Pindera, Paweł Polit, Agnieszka Rejniak-Majewska, Wojciech Szymański, Patryk Tomaszewski
Editors: Agnieszka Pindera, Paweł Polit, Natalia Słaboń
Copy-editing and proofreading: Soren Gauger
Copyright handling: Zuzanna Andruszko, Małgorzata Chmiel, Marta Pierzchała
Cover design: Grafixpol Kasia Worpus-Wrońska and Jan Worpus-Budziejewski

ISBN  978-83-66696-44-0
Publication year: 2023
e-book file format: pdf
Pages: 150
Language: English edition

Project Échange entre artistes 1931–1982, Pologne-USA: the Polish-American Artistic Exchange. Subsidized from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland under the “Inspiring Culture” program.

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