Jerzy Wroński and Friends — the exhibition
We kindly invite you to the opening of the exhibition 26th April, 2018 at 6 pm. Free entry. Join us!
Artists: Jacek Balon, Janusz Baran, Jerzy Bereś, Sławomir Brzoska, Marek Chlanda, Przemysław Dominik, Oskar Folwarczny, Barbara Gawęda-Badera, Dariusz Gierdal, Witold Jacyków, Julian Jończyk, Jerzy Kałucki, Michael Kidner, Marek Kuś, Piotr Lutyński, Krzysztof Morcinek, Krystyna Pasterczyk, Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Royden Rabinowitch, Katarzyna Raczyńska-Targowska, Jarosław Rodycz, Waldemar Rudyk, Grzegorz Schmidt, Piotr „Smoła” Smołka, Jerzy Sojka, Jonasz Stern, Jarosław Stoch, Beata Studzińska, Andrzej Szewczyk, Janusz Tarabuła, Jan Tarasin, Tomasz Targowski, Danuta Urbanowicz, Witold Urbanowicz, Marian Warzecha, Tadeusz Gustaw Wiktor, Piotr Wisła, Jerzy Ziomber
Curator: Jan Trzupek
catalogue ‘Jerzy Wroński — pictures/reliefs, metamorphic watercolours and soot graphs’ The retrospective catalogue of a renowned Silesian artist. It is a compendious presentation of the artist's works completed within the last 30 years....
Wroński's importance for art in Silesia cannot be overstated, not only due to his artworks but also because of his active engagement — as a teacher and organizer — to promote artistic vitality in the region. This was all strongly evident in the last year's exhibition about the 20th century avant-garde art in Silesia, which was held in the BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice under the title 'Line and Chaos'.
Jerzy Wroński (1930—2016) was a co-founder of the independent Nowa Huta Group, which he set up with his artists friends in the 1950s, when he was still a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. In the early 1960s, he joined the Kraków Group, a community of the most renowned avant-garde and new art creators in Kraków and around Poland.
At the onset of his artistic journey, he turned to matter painting and created pictures-reliefs using fire flame. The next stage was 'metamorphic watercolours' and 'diffuse drawings'. In both genres, the author made use of natural resources, with water serving as an agent in the process. Wroński's wide measure of inventiveness and ingenuity led him to develop a new and unique technique of camera-free photography in the 1980s, in which negative pre-images came into being on soot-soiled (and previously moistened with water) pieces of glass — as a result of 'freeing' natural and not completely harnessed processes. Enlarged to large-scale dimensions on photographic paper, his works became known under the name 'kopciogramy' (sootgraphs).
In the 1970s, Jerzy Wroński began his teaching career at the artistic department of the Cieszyn branch of the University of Silesia in Katowice. Although he felt teaching to be his great passion and vocation, the artist did not limit his activity to pedagogical duties. In the 1980s, he founded Galeria Uniwersytecka (University Gallery), which hosted the most interesting exhibitions from the Kraków Group's Krzysztofory Gallery (and as a long-standing president of the group, he had influenced their form and programme). Owing to Wroński and these exhibitions, Cieszyn was visited by excellent creators, allowing students to meet them and participate in guest workshops.
The exhibition 'Jerzy Wroński and Friends' is meant to present these contexts and constellations, and how they sometimes intertwine. The friends' circle encompasses the Nowa Huta Group and some artists who were members of the Kraków Group and belonged to the same generation. It is the first exhibition to include a fair representation of Wroński's students — not only the ones who formed the Cieszyn Group and whose works had already appeared in exhibitions alongside Wroński's. The university context is complemented with Wroński's colleagues and some artists who have been invited to the University Gallery.
A wide selection of Jerzy Wroński's works is complemented with works created by his friends from the Nowa Huta Group: Julian Jończyk, Janusz Tarabuła, Danuta and Witold Urbanowiczowie and the Kraków Group: Jerzy Bereś, Jerzy Kałucki, Jan Tarasin (who have also had their own exhibitions in the University Gallery in Cieszyn), Maria Pinińska-Bereś and Marian Warzecha.
Memories of the University Gallery and artists that were invited to Cieszyn by Jerzy Wroński are brought up in works created by Jonasz Stern, whose exhibition inaugurated the gallery in 1985, Michael Kidner, who ran several workshops for students of the artistic department, and Royden Rabinowitch, who had visited Cieszyn on two occasions while his works were exhibited in Poland.
As for Jerzy Wroński's colleagues, teachers at the Cieszyn university, the exhibition includes works by Marek Chlanda (who has also had his works exhibited in the University Gallery and belonged to the independent Cieszyn Group), Wotold Jacyków, Tadeusz Gustaw Wiktor and Jerzy Ziomber.
The group of Wroński's students is represented by works created by members of the so called Cieszyn Group: Marek Kuś, Piotr Lutyński, Krzysztof Morcinek and Krystyna Pasterczyk, as well as the following artists: Barbara Badera, Janusz Baron, Sławomir Brzoska, Przemysław Dominik, Oskar Folwarczny, Dariusz Gierdal, Jarosław Rodycz (although he was not officially a student of the University of Silesia), Waldemar Rudyk, Piotr 'Smoła' Smołka, Jerzy Sojka, Jarosław Stoch, Andrzej Szewczyk (who also taught at the university and had his works exhibited alongside the Cieszyn Group artists), Katarzyna and Tomasz Targowscy and Piotr Wisła.
A separate element of the exhibition, yet equally noteworthy in terms of artistic value, is the most recent production created by collector and documentary filmmaker Grzegorz Schmidt — a film entitled 'Jerzy Wroński. Żywioły' (Jerzy Wroński. The Elements), which constitutes a unique homage to Jerzy Wroński, showing the artist 'from the perspective of his friends, students and colleagues'.
