Galeria Zachęta

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National Art Gallery Zachęta
Zachęta - budynek z oddalenia.jpg

Zachęta Gallery building
Data
place Warsaw , Poland
Art
Museum of Contemporary Polish Art
architect Stefan Szyller
opening December 13, 1860
management
Hanna Wróblewska
Website

The National Art Gallery Zachęta , or Zachęta [zaˈxɛnta] for short (Polish Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki ), is one of the most important institutions for contemporary art in Poland . The main aim of the gallery, located in the center of Warsaw , is to present and promote contemporary Polish art. In addition, the gallery has established itself internationally with numerous temporary exhibitions by well-known foreign artists.

The Polish word Zachęta can with encouragement or incentive to be translated and goes back to the Towarzystwo Zachęty of Fine Pięknych w Królestwie polskim ( Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts ), which was founded in 1860 in Warsaw.

history

Since it was founded in 1860, the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts has tried to find a permanent location that should correspond to its own exhibition activities. As a result of skilful negotiations between the city's directors and sponsors, the company's headquarters, today's Zachęta, was finally built between 1898 and 1900, based on the plans of the Warsaw architect Stefan Szyller . Previously, the company was housed in various buildings for rent. Since the opening of the Zachęta on December 15, 1900, the building has been the seat of various institutions:

  • 1900–1939: Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts
  • 1939–1945: House of German Culture
  • 1949–1989: Central office for art exhibitions
  • 1989–2003: Zachęta State Art Gallery
  • since 2003: Zachęta National Art Gallery

In 1965 the building was added to the list of architectural monuments and, like many exhibition buildings in large cities in the 19th century , belongs to the category of European cultural palaces.

Construction of the Zachęta Gallery

As early as 1862 there was a first competition for the construction of a building. However, due to a lack of financial resources, the drafts could not initially be implemented. After building land was made available to the company by the city administration, there was finally another tender in 1894, which Stefan Szyller won with a design in the neo-renaissance style with classical elements. The decorative sculptures and allergorical figures on the portal were made by Zygmunt Otto. The Latin word Artibus (German: the arts ) is carved into the architrave of the building .

Construction work began in September 1898. On December 15, 1900, the front building was officially opened. On October 15, 1903, the south wing was opened. The opening and expansion of the building were enthusiastically welcomed by critics . The two further wings originally planned by Szyller could not be realized at first.

In 1958, the Ministry of Art and Culture decided to expand the building. The surrounding houses were destroyed during the war and involuntarily made space for the building to be expanded. The Warsaw architects Oskar Hansen, Lech Tomaszewski and Stanisław Zamecznikow were commissioned with the renovation, whose concept envisaged building the west side of the building entirely on a construction of lattice modules in order to allow a completely free design of the interior. In fact, the concept of a mobile interior, which preceded the architectural ideas for the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris by years, was not realized and the planned renovation was initially discontinued. Finally, the expansion plans were resumed in 1982 and initially the workshop for monument preservation was commissioned with the conversion according to plans by Feliks Dzierżanowski. From 1991 to 1993, Dom i Miasto (German: House and City ) supervised the renovation, which was also responsible for extending the stairs to the main hall. This created direct access to the exhibition halls in the new part of the building. The resulting monumental perspective ends with the sculpture of the gladiator by the Polish sculptor Pius Weloński from the former collection of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts . The result of the renovation and expansion is not only an enlarged exhibition area, but also a depot for storing the works of art, an unloading ramp and an office wing with a separate entrance. The largest exhibition hall was named after the Polish painter Jan Matejko . Another exhibition room is named after Gabriel Narutowicz , the first President of the Second Polish Republic , who was shot by the Polish painter and art critic Eligiusz Niewiadomski on December 16, 1922 during the opening of the room . Since the anniversary celebrations on December 14, 2000, plaques attached to the respective halls have commemorated the president and Wojciech Gerson , one of the co-founders of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts .

1939 to 1945

July 1944: German units loot the Zachęta

During the attack on Poland at the beginning of the Second World War , the surrounding buildings on Małachowski Square were badly damaged. The Zachęta building survived the attacks relatively undamaged. In the course of the Polish surrender, the building was occupied by the German occupiers and the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts was dissolved. The Society's collections and documents were either confiscated at the Muzeum Narodowe and brought to Germany. The transport took place on open trucks and was completely undocumented. The Zachęta building was renamed the House of German Culture and was mainly used for propaganda celebrations during the war.

During the Warsaw Uprising , the building was badly damaged by bomb explosions and artillery pieces and had to be completely renovated after the end of the war. With the removal of all German remains, the renovation work began in April 1945, during which electrical wiring and central heating were also installed.

Traces of a flammable substance were also found on the walls of the building at the end of the war, suggesting that the German units probably planned to set the building on fire shortly before their retreat.

1945 to 1989

After the war, the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts was not reactivated. In its place the stepped from the 1949 Department of Arts and Culture at the request of the Association of Fine Arts of Poland founded Centralne Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych (German: Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions ). In January 1951 the exhibition activities are finally resumed.

The task of the central office was to organize exhibitions and all artistic activities throughout Poland. In the year it was founded, branches were opened in Cracow , Katowice , Poznan and Bydgoszcz . In 1951 Łódź , Zakopane , Danzig , Stettin and Breslau followed, and in 1958, Olsztyn and Opole . In 1962 the central office was expanded to include a department for the International Poster Biennale, which took place in Warsaw in 1968.

The central office for art exhibitions eventually became the most important institution of state cultural policy . In the 1960s, the area of ​​art mediation and art education was expanded and further developed with the establishment of a separate department. In terms of ideological awareness raising, there was a particular focus on supporting teachers and students, as they would be the audience to which contemporary art would be directed.

The 1980s were mainly characterized by the imposition of martial law in Poland . The state of war was accompanied by a boycott of all official galleries, from whose failures the central office could hardly recover.

After 1989

The fall of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall brought about fundamental political changes that also affected the structure of the Central Office. The director at the time, Barbara Majewska, managed to break away from the old, centralized forms of consciousness of the institution. On May 30, 1994, the Central Art Exhibition Office was finally closed and the Zachęta State Art Gallery was appointed.

In 2003, the Zachęta was renamed by the Polish Minister of Culture Waldemar Dąbrowski from the State Art Gallery to the National Art Gallery (Polish Narodowa Galeria Sztuki ).

Exhibitions

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Zachęta Gallery , the exhibition Polonia - Polonia was opened in 2000 . It brought together over 100 exhibits from different epochs from the fields of painting, sculpture, graphics and drawing. The works mainly showed national subjects .

In the same year, the gallery presented Słońce i inne gwiazdy (German: The Sun and Other Stars ), an exhibition that was based on a survey from 1999 aimed at finding out the most important artists of the 20th century . The survey was aimed primarily at Polish art historians , critics and curators. The result of the survey was two lists - one with the most important Polish artists of the 20th century and one with the most important foreign artists of the 20th century. The exhibition Słońce i inne gwiazdy showed a total of ten of the selected artists: Magdalena Abakanowicz , Tadeusz Kantor , Katarzyna Kobro , Roman Opałka , Henryk Stażewski , Władysław Strzemiński , Alina Szapocznikow , Witkacy , Witwold Wojtkiewicble and Andrzejski . In the same year an exhibition of the chosen, most important foreign artists was held, at which Pablo Picasso , Francis Bacon , Joseph Beuys , Marcel Duchamp , Wassily Kandinsky , Andy Warhol , Kasimir Malewitsch , Salvador Dalí , Piet Mondrian and Constantin Brancusi were represented.

The renowned Swiss Harald Szeemann also curated an exhibition in 2000 that included the work La Nona Ora by Maurizio Cattelan . The work shows Pope John Paul II , who is hit by a meteorite and lies on the ground. The influence of the Catholic Church in Poland is still very strong and so the presentation of the work was accompanied by a public scandal.

collection

The Zachęta permanent collection now comprises a total of 3,600 works. Around 700 of these are paintings , 80 video works and 100 sculptures and installations . The collection also includes over 2,600 works on paper (graphics, drawings and photographs). Polish artists of the 20th century such as Tadeusz Kantor , Henryk Stażewski and Alina Szapocznikow are represented as well as internationally known contemporary artists such as Mirosław Bałka , Katarzyna Kozyra , Zbigniew Libera , Wilhelm Sasnal and Krzysztof Wodiczko . The works in the collection reflect not only the complicated past of the gallery, but also meanwhile the clearly defined focus of Zachęta. The collection mainly includes works by contemporary Polish artists that have already been shown in the gallery or produced in collaboration with the Zachęta. This also applies to projects that are not implemented on site, e.g. B. the design of the Polish pavilion at the Venice Biennale .

All decisions relating to either changing or expanding the collection are made by the Commission for New Acquisitions, Donations and Deposits , founded in 1990 . There is no permanent exhibition of the collection. The works are either integrated into current Zachęta exhibitions or are part of both national and international exhibitions as loans. The inventory and collection department, founded in 2008, is responsible for looking after the collection.

Library

An essential task of the Zachęta is also the collection of information about artists and works of art. The library includes:

  • Catalogs: catalogs on exhibitions by Polish artists working in Poland and abroad, by foreign artists working in Poland, and catalogs on specific exhibition cycles. The collection of exhibition catalogs is one of the largest in Poland.
  • Books: primarily publications on contemporary art, but also related subjects.
  • Magazines: Polish and foreign art magazines.

The documentation department archives the lives and works of contemporary Polish artists since 1945. Here you can find biographical notes, newspaper clippings, exhibition catalogs and a directory of exhibitions in which the artist has participated. The archive can only be viewed and used directly on site in the gallery's library.

There is also a bookstore on the ground floor of the Zachęta, which offers catalogs for the company's own exhibitions in the Zachęta and Kordegarda, as well as Polish and foreign books and magazines.

In addition, the Zachęta runs a department for pedagogy , which deals with the organization of lectures and artist talks, concerts and guided tours, as well as the dissemination of knowledge in the form of e.g. B. takes care of teaching units.

Kordegarda project

In 1956 the Galeria Kordegarda (literally: Guardroom ) was opened as a kind of branch of the Zachęta and was then located on the famous Krakowskie Przedmieście ( Krakauer-Vorstadt-Straße ). First and foremost, it was an additional exhibition space that was more integrated into the urban structure. Even if the organization and management were taken over by the Zachęta, the Kordegarda always remained somewhat independent, especially with regard to the exhibition program.

In 2010 the Kordegarda moved to Gałczyński Street, a side street of the historic Nowy Świat (German: New World Street ). Although the management of the gallery is still the responsibility of Zachęta, the Kordegarda program , which is aimed primarily at young Polish and foreign artists, now speaks in favor of a much more independent basic concept. In fact, the collaboration between the gallery and the artist as well as the individual handling of the exhibition space are the main focal points of the gallery concept. The idea here is for every artist to tailor their work directly to the space available.

Both the concept and the exhibition program of the Kordegarda are currently being revised.

Controversy

In the past, the influence of the Catholic Church in Poland was mainly expressed in the censorship of various exhibitions due to blasphemy .

In December 2000 Witold Tomczak , member of parliament of the Polish right-wing alliance , obtained the removal of the sculpture La Nona Ora by Maurizio Cattelan from an exhibition at Zachęta and the then director Anda Rottenberg dismissed. He also called for the violation of religious sentiments to be brought to justice. His letters to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Culture contained anti-Semitic accusations against Rottenberg. Tomczak suggested that she should organize exhibitions “better in Israel than in Poland” and then demanded that the “employees of Jewish descent” be dismissed from their post as director of the National Gallery. On December 21, 2000 Tomczak damaged Cattelan's sculpture in Zachęta.

literature

Web links

Commons : Zachęta National Gallery of Art  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Piotr Rypson: Art in court . Berliner Zeitung of August 2, 2003, p. 10.

See also

Coordinates: 52 ° 14 ′ 22 ″  N , 21 ° 0 ′ 41 ″  E