IKONO THEKA 26 IKONO THEKA 26 tyt_Ikonotheka_26.indd 1 18/05/17 10:41 THE JOURNAL FOUNDED BY JAN BIAŁOSTOCKI (1921–1988) EDITED BY Gabriela Świtek EDITORIAL BOARD Barbara Arciszewska (University of Warsaw), Sergiusz Michalski (Universität Tübingen), Andrzej Pieńkos (University of Warsaw), Antoni Ziemba (University of Warsaw) EDITORIAL SECRETARY Dariusz Żyto PROOFREADING Marta Turek et al. Institute of Art History of University of Warsaw 00-927 Warszawa, Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28 phone: +48 (22) 55 20 406, fax: +48 (22) 55 20 407 e-mail: [email protected] www.ikonotheka.ihs.uw.edu.pl It is the authors’ responsibility to obtain appropriate permission for the reproduction of any copyrighted material, including images © Copyright by Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Warszawa 2016 Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 00-497 Warszawa, ul. Nowy Świat 4 www.wuw.pl; e-mail: [email protected] Dział Handlowy WUW: phone: +48 (22) 55 31 333 e-mail: [email protected] ISSN 0860-5769 Layout: Dariusz Górski Table of Contents GABRIELA ŚWITEK Introduction / 5 KATARZYNA ADAMSKA An Apartment as a National Issue: On the Exhibitions of the Polish Applied Art Society at the Zachęta Gallery in 1902 and 1908 / 7 MAREK CZAPELSKI Towards Socialist Architecture: Architectural Exhibitions at the Zachęta in the Years 1950–1955 / 31 KAROLINA ZYCHOWICZ The Exhibition-Organising Activity of the Committee for Cultural Cooperation with Foreign Countries (1950–1956) Based on the Example of Selected Exhibitions at the Zachęta Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions / 63 PETRA SKARUPSKY “The War Brought Us Close and the Peace Will Not Divide Us”: Exhibitions of Art from Czechoslovakia in Warsaw in the Late 1940s / 95 STANISŁAW WELBEL Käthe Kollwitz and Otto Nagel: Two Exhibitions of “Progressive Artists” at the Zachęta in the Framework of Cultural Cooperation with the German Democratic Republic / 111 IWONA LUBA Kobro and Strzemiński: Łódź – Warsaw – Paris (1956–1957) / 137 KONRAD NIEMIRA Much Ado About Nothing? Political Contexts of the 15 Polish Painters Exhibition (MoMA, 1961) / 167 WERONIKA KOBYLIŃSKA-BUNSCH The Post-War History of Pictorialism as Exemplifi ed by Exhibitions at the Zachęta and the Kordegarda (1953–1970) / 193 KAMILA LEŚNIAK The Family of Man in Poland: An Exhibition as a Democratic Space? / 213 KATARZYNA MATUL The Transition to Art: Poster Exhibitions at the Outset of the Poster’s Institutionalisation / 239 ANNA MARIA LEŚNIEWSKA Exhibitions of Sculpture as a Sign of the Spatial Shift: From Spring Salon to Sculpture in the Garden / 253 KRZYSZTOF KOŚCIUCZUK Looking Back at Looking Forward: Art Exhibitions in Poland for the 1975 AICA Congress / 277 AGATA JAKUBOWSKA Meetings: Exhibitions of Women’s Art Curated by Izabella Gustowska / 291 Introduction The history of art as a history of exhibitions is an already well-recognised research perspective which allows us to focus on the specifi city of artwork constellations as presented to the public in a given cultural situation. This research methodology draws on contemporary interest in galleries’ exhibition policies, curatorial strategies and exhibition design techniques. Simultaneously, questions posed as part of the exhibition history fall within the methods of researching the history of art criticism, or the history and aesthetics of recep- tion. The current issue of Ikonotheka is devoted to the history of exhibitions in Polish art institutions presenting the works of Polish artists abroad and those organised from the beginning of the 20th century until the fi rst decade of the 21st century. Inspiration for this theme came from the research proj- ect titled “The History of Exhibitions at Zachęta, the Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions, in the Period 1949–1970”, which was conducted by the Institute of Art History at the University of Warsaw, in the framework of the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities as instituted by the Min- istry of Science and Higher Education (no. 0086/NPRH3/H11/82/2014). The fi ve essays included in this volume were written by members of the research team: Marek Czapelski, Weronika Kobylińska-Bunsch, Iwona Luba, Stanisław Welbel and Karolina Zychowicz. One of the subjects of their analysis was the chronology of the Central Bureau’s exhibitions as a refl ection of the institu- tion’s policy. The history of exhibitions can also be considered as a point of departure for redefi ning the geography of Polish art history and the art geog- raphy of the whole region, taking into account its local signifi cance as well as the political circumstances of international cultural exchange. The volume opens with two essays on design and architecture exhibitions. Katarzyna Adamska discusses early 20th-century apartment interiors as pre- sented in two exhibitions of the Polish Applied Art Society (1902 and 1908) in the building of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts (currently known as the Zachęta – National Gallery of Art). Marek Czapelski’s essay brings us back to the same gallery but moves us in time. After World War II, the Zachęta building became the site of the Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions. One of its fi rst initiatives was to organise two celebrated exhibitions: the First National Exposition of Architectural Design (1951) and the First General 5 Introduction Exhibition of Architecture in the People’s Republic of Poland (1953). The next three essays reveal some institutional and political contexts of international exhibitions in late-1940s and 1950s Poland. Karolina Zychowicz summarises her research on the archives of the Committee for Cultural Cooperation with Foreign Countries, which was active in the years 1950–1956 and responsible for organising over one hundred presentations of international art in Poland. Petra Skarupsky focuses on the cultural consequences of the Treaty of Friend- ship and Mutual Assistance that was signed by Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1947, while Stanisław Welbel investigates the political aspects of Käthe Kollwitz’s and Otto Nagel’s exhibitions that were presented in Poland in the fi rst half of the 1950s. We would also like to present to our readers research studies on exhibitions of Polish art travelling abroad in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Iwona Luba discusses four presentations of avant-garde work by Władysław Strzemiński and Katarzyna Kobro which were organised in the years 1956–1957 in the Łódź Division of the Central Bureau of Art Exhibition, at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw, Galerie Raymond Creuze and the Denise René Gallery in Paris. Konrad Niemira reveals some of the political contexts of an unprecedented event in Polish post-war artistic life, i.e. of the 15 Polish Painters exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1961). The history of exhibition encompasses an interest in the strategies of presenting diverse art media. Two texts included in the current issue of Ikonotheka are devoted to the medium of photography. Weronika Kobylińska-Bunsch discovers the return of Pictorial- ism, which was a movement in fi ne-art photography of the late 19th century in Polish post-war exhibitions. Kamila Leśniak investigates some aspects of the celebrated photographic exhibition The Family of Man that was initially presented in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and travelling until the year 1962 to numerous countries in the West, the Far East and to the Eastern bloc. Katarzyna Matul’s essay examines the aesthetic and institutional status of the poster, which was originally an advertising medium that became a museum exhibit. Two Polish exhibitions – Spring Salon (1946) and Sculpture in the Garden (1957) – delineate the scope of Anna Maria Leśniewska’s research interest in the medium of sculpture and the strategies of its presentation. Sketched in the current volume of Ikonotheka, the history of exhibitions also addresses the issue of how the “canon” of post-war Polish (and world) art was shaped over time. Krzysztof Kościuczuk examines two exhibitions, Voir et Conçevoir and Critics’ Picks, which accompanied the 11th Congress of the Inter- national Association of Art Critics (AICA) that was organised in the People’s Republic of Poland in 1975. The volume closes with Agata Jakubowska’s view on the fi rst Polish exhibitions of women’s art that were organised in 1978 and the cycles curated by the contemporary Polish artist Izabella Gustowska which fall within the modern phenomenon of collective exhibitions embrac- ing works by female artists. Gabriela Świtek IKONOTHEKA 26, 2016 Katarzyna Adamska An Apartment as a National Issue: On the Exhibitions of the Polish Applied Art Society at the Zachęta Gallery in 1902 and 1908 The Polish Applied Art Society (Towarzystwo Polska Sztuka Stosowana; hence- forward: TPSS), founded in Cracow in 1901, began its activity by diagnosing a crisis in culture. We live in hideous boxes, our tastes have become preten- tious, we are enfeebled – they wrote. The lack of ease in expression, which is so characteristic of the modern human, testifi es to a debilitation of our will and our capability for self-determination. Since the greatest infl uence on per- sonal development may be attributed to everyday surroundings, any reform ought to begin with changes in the living space. One of the co-founders of the Society, Jerzy Warchałowski, offered the following advice: Let us burn or discard all the eyesores and the superfl uous, useless furnishings in which we live; all those tacky folding screens, stools, lampshades, coverings, shelves full of knick-knacks, fripperies, plush cords, undusted festoons, counterfeit Louis- and Empire- style pieces, made-up habits, silly fads and pretentious trinkets. Who cannot do otherwise should make do with pinewood furniture, but made according to personal needs and comforts, in line with personal thought and will. May people of moderate means no longer emulate lords of the land or clothe themselves in imitations of royal styles, but create an honest, artistic environment out of their own circumstances and preferences.1 How, then, should people shape the space around them and distinguish authen- tic needs from artifi cially imposed fashions? The solutions put forward by the TPSS were to justify consumer choices in the national vein.