Exhibition: “Squirting and cracking but still banging. And the conscience bites”
Over 200 works by Tadeusz Brzozowski – one of the most important and most outstanding personalities of 20th-century Polish art
Over 200 works by Tadeusz Brzozowski – one of the most important and most outstanding Polish personalities of 20th-century Polish art – will be shown at an exhibition held on the occasion of this year’s 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth. Brzozowski’s works will be presented in the context of his inspirations, works by his friends, disciples and other artists who share a similar outlook on the world with him.
The exhibition will be an opportunity to trace, on the basis of selected examples, the evolution of Brzozowski’s creative process from his childhood years (the 1920s) to his last works made shortly before his death in 1987. First of all, it will be an attempt to present Brzozowski’s art through his drawings, which is still overshadowed by his paintings but plays a very important role in his artistic output.
Tadeusz Brzozowski’s art will be presented in three contexts. The first one refers to his inspirations: works by Tadeusz Makowski and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish and foreign modern art, including works by Albrecht Dürer, the dance of death (danse macabre), funerary portraits. The second context is the art of the artist’s outstanding friends: Alina Szapocznikow, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Tadeusz Kantor, Jerzy Tchórzewski, Władysław Hasior and Antoni Rząsa. The third context refers to works of his former students: Izabella Gustowska and Aldona Mickiewicz and includes also the artistic output of Dorota Kuczma, Wojciech Ćwiertniewicz, Piotr Janas and Jakub Julian Ziółkowski .They all share with Brzozowski a similar perception of the world and man, a sense of humour and sometimes formal connections that may seem non-obvious at first glance.
At the exhibition, you can see almost 300 works made by means of various techniques (painting, drawing, print, sculpture, assemblage, artistic textile craft) between the 16th and the 21st century. Some of them will be presented for the first time. The items are parts of collections of Polish museums and galleries, collections of the artist’s family and private collections. It will also be interesting to see other artists’ works that belonged to Brzozowski and surrounded him every day.
