Art Exhibitions Office– BWA in Jelenia Góra also known as a Contemporary Art Gallery which was established in 1976. BWA in Jelenia Góra is one of the most important art galleries in the region and occupies a high position on the Polish art scene. At BWA, we popularize the latest art, conduct exhibitions as well as we are involved in publishing and educational activities. We organize art auctions, tours, and conduct performances and artistic actions. A gallery is a place of non-commercial approach to art, responsive to the current and most interesting phenomena of 20th and 21st-century art, promoting diversity in our current programs. Our program includes presentations of outstanding artists, presentations of young rising artists, presentations of the local community, supporting difficult subjects in our exhibitions, as well as delivering multi-level projects, running presentations of comic art and exhibition-related activities. Some of the activities are our workshops, artists meetings and discussion panels followed by artistic interventions.
Photo 2: Václav Jirásek, Tono Stano, František Drtikol, the exhibition „Sudek, Funke, Drtikol…”, BWA in Jelenia Gora 2019, curators: Joanna Mielech, Lucie Mlynářová, photos at the exhibition borrowed from the collection of PPF Art a. s. in Prague
Those multilevel approaches to the local receiver, create a strong message to the community of the region so no one interested in the art feels such a long distant from the biggest artistic and cultural centers. In our activities, we raise important social topics, including local ones, concerning for example; the role of art in shaping attitudes, respect for people, appreciation of cultural heritage in the aspects of creating openness and tolerance. We also provide an opportunity to encounter new forms and new ways of creativity in areas such as new media art, new technologies, computer games, social advertising. We are also interested in issues from the borderline of art, as well as ecology, advertising, sociology and many other aspects in order to shape social sensitivity in addition to aesthetic sensitivity.
Together with the Partners from the Rotary Club Karpacz-Karkonosze and Rotary Club Jelenia Gora, we organize Auctions of Works of Art Our goal is to support artists, create opportunities for two environments to meet: entrepreneurs and artists, and to revive the art market in our area, which during a pandemic may be particularly tempting as a secure investment and ennoblement. Collecting is an indicator of cultural maturity and awareness of the great value of art. Usually, it is thanks to private art connoisseurs that we know the works of most artists in the history of art. Almost all of Europe’s great museums developed from the collections of the ruling families of the time. The collectors were usually the wealthiest and most educated: kings, princes, politicians, wealthy townspeople and often artists.
The great patrons of art were powerful secular and clergy rulers, including; Pope Julius II in 16th-century Italy, probably all influential Italian princes were infected with a passion for collectors, including the Medici family in Florence, Gonzaga in Mantua, the d’Este family in Ferrara, Sforza in Milan or Montefeltro in Urbino. In France, the collection of King Louis XIV became the basis of the collections of the Louvre and the National Library. In Poland, the Jagiellonian’s should be mentioned: Zygmunt Stary and Zygmunt August. Stanisław August Poniatowski was also passionate about art. Unique art collections gathered the most influential families in Poland: Lubomirscy in Łańcut, Potocki in Krzeszowice, Radziwiłł in Nieborów and Warsaw, Czartoryscy in Kraków, Raczyński, Zamoyski, and Branicki. Collecting also plays a significant role in popularizing modern art. For example, the interest of an unknown artist was aroused by collectors unfettered in their choices. Thanks to collectors, art and artistic craftsmanship of the Art Nouveau period were discovered, and in the 19th century – Japanese art.
Milton Greene, Wojciech Plewinski, Tadeusz Rolke – Finding Marilyn BWA Jelenia Gora
BWA in Jelenia Góra cooperates with the most important galleries in Poland (e.g. in Warsaw, Gdańsk, Wrocław). The gallery also produced exhibitions that were presented abroad, incl. in Tokyo, Naples, Paris, Prague, Strasbourg, Bratislava and Gomel. www.galeria-bwa.karkonosze.com www.bwajg-aukcja.pl
Temporary exhibitions of outstanding Polish and foreign artists are permanent elements of BWA’s activity. We showed works by artists such as: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Urszula Broll, Bohdan Butenko, Edward Dwurnik, Milton Greene, Tadeusz Kantor, Katarzyna Kozyra, Andrzej Mleczko, Daniel Mróz, Józef Szajna, Josef Sudek, Waldemar Świerzy, Roland Topor and many others.
There are a few upcoming exhibitions this year: – Until 13th.of November there is an exhibition by Tomasz Michalowski – an excellent photographer, film operator, lecturer at The Leon Schiller National Film School in Łodz. At the exhibition “Logos and Myth in Photographs” we are showing his photographic landscapes, we present various worldviews and the unusualness of existence. – On November 21st, 2020, we are planning to organize the 4th Auction of Works of Art at BWA in Jelenia Góra – from November 27th, 2020 to January 2021: Tadeusz Baranowski and his comic book, painting. Tadeusz Baranowski – scriptwriter and cartoonist of comic books, illustrator, graphic artist, advertiser, and avant-garde painter – is one of the most outstanding comics creators of the Polish People’s Republic and later times.
EXISTENCE AT THE TIME OF PANDEMIC For a moment we were locked in houses, in „golden cages”, in uncertainty, the borders were closed… – which art cannot stand! The pandemic forced us and other institutions to analyze the activities and ways of their implementation. One thing is for sure: ART is tempting and we all need to care for it. We cannot allow our imagination to be paralyzed and to constantly push the limits of what we can agree to. It is, it will be different, but art, and with it galleries – will survive, because our driving force is a man and his story about himself or his relations with the world. Only this and so much! However, we must care for the contact with the original – because only then does the dialogue begin and the art begins to act. It is also the foundation of our and other institutions. All: small galleries and the biggest “giants” have lost.
The situation around the world has changed and what has always been a kind of barrier for us has become our salvation. It is about the state’s patronage over cultural activities – it gives not so big financial opportunities, does not ensure the organization of spectacular undertakings (for this we must obtain funds from other sources), but it provides stability – what is the most important. In Poland (similar as in many other countries), state cultural institutions operate based on the Act on organizing and conducting cultural activities (state subsidy at the level of 70-100%). Another model, that almost completely collapsed, is activities based on the mainly on donations from sponsors, profits from the sale of tickets and advertising. This is due to the system of managing culture as a business. Which model is better? The pandemic has shown definitely, how important is the state and local patronage over culture. This undefined future is our everyday life and it is difficult to navigate in it, but one thing is certain – you cannot get closed in fear and you have to trust the artists.
Story by Luiza Laskowska,
Director of BWA
www.galeria-bwa.karkonosze.com
email : [email protected]
www.bwajg-aukcja.pl
