Collecting art in galleries and museums for its artistic, scientific, historical value is done according to an accepted key. This key for Zachęta’s collection has been contemporary since its inception in 1860. The objects of the collection were and are works relating to the present time. In a natural way, in the commonly accepted linear understanding of dates, what is contemporary at a given moment becomes past in a minute. The timeline of one human life may be too short to note the glaring difference between past and present. However, the time space of an Encouragement’s life already makes it possible, without much calculation, to place, for example, the Battle of Grunwald (in the Encouragement’s collection since 1902) in the present, which from the point of view of 2022 is history. How distant can be illustrated by this recollection of a student who, when asked at the entrance exam for the Academy of Fine Arts about the date of the painting’s creation, to the nearest 20 years, after a moment’s reflection, suggested the year 1430! Interestingly, on the one hand, he gave credit to the enormity of the work on the painting by assigning Matejko as many as twenty years after the battle to paint the work, on the other hand, he transposed the contemporary common image of the artist-publicist to the Cracow master….
Room No. 1 in Zachęta, with a magnificent skylight across the ceiling, where the painting was displayed, is called the Matejko Room. This and other paintings, created in the 19th century from the Zachęta collection by Chełmoński, Grottger, among others (these three names: Matejko, Chelmonski, Grottger, were engraved on the facade of the building) found their way to the National Museum in Warsaw during the war and can still be seen there today, they form the basis of a gallery of Polish painting: the most beautiful paintings by Jacek Malczewski, Jozef Mehoffer, Stanislaw Wyspianski, sculptures by Xawery Dunikowski and many other works.
The Central Bureau of Artistic Exhibitions, for this was the name of Zachęta since 1949, collected art in accordance with the state’s cultural policy. The collections were very diverse in nature, as purchases came from exhibitions, competitions and were made as support for artists. The bureau played the role of a mother being the organizer of exhibitions in Poland, in schools, in workplaces, aiming to revive the country’s artistic life. Despite restrictions, the CBWA organized art events of international stature, such as the International Poster Biennale in Warsaw. In addition, in 1956 the Kordegarda Project established an exhibition venue for Zachęta in the former guardhouse of the Potocki Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście Street.
Actually, in the 1970s, Zachęta started collecting in the way it does today; with educational and exhibition activities in mind. Since the early 1990s, Zachęta has been an independent gallery of contemporary art. To be precise, since 1989 it has been called the State Art Gallery. At that time, an ordering and selection was made, singling out the most interesting artistic phenomena after 45. Some of the works that were excluded from the collection were sold at auctions, allowing new acquisitions to be made. Currently, Zachęta’s acquisitions are related to Zachęta itself, they are works exhibited at the Gallery or co-produced by Zachęta. In 2003, Zacheta was transformed into Zacheta National Gallery of Art.
At the moment, the collection consists of more than three and a half thousand objects. The collection is also a library, documentation, archives, catalogs published every year (about 30 items per year).
Every year one work for the collection is purchased by the Association for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, which operates at the Zachęta National Art Gallery. The Association is engaged in art education and integrating the community of people who care about contemporary art, which continues the work of the Association’s founders from the mid-19th century. It should be noted that Zacheta is an example of the first civic initiative of this scale.
Connected to Zacheta is a great tradition of belief in the impossible – in art, in the fact that the creative activities of man have an indisputable value, that art is more valuable than gold. The Zacheta building itself was built with donations from Poles without their own state, who identified patriotism with Polish culture. The building takes the form of a palace built in a historical style specifically for art and artists. The project was selected through a competition, which was won by Stefan Szyller[1]. The building was constructed in 1898-1903, won the favor of critics and helped to establish the architect’s high professional standing. The building was opened to the public on December 15, 1900. Soon a permanent exhibition was open to the public, presenting, among other things, Matejko’s Battle of Grunwald. Until World War II, the building was the property and headquarters of the Society – a great patron of Polish artists. During the war, the Society was dissolved and the building was used as the House of German Culture, becoming a witness to Nazi propaganda events[2].
In addition to its tremendous contribution to Polish culture, the Zachęta has been fortunate to be the backdrop, cause and field for threshold events, provocations and scandals. The painting by Władysław Podkowiński, Frenzy of Exultation, exhibited at Zachęta in 1894, caused a great stir. The painting depicted a steed in a rush and a naked woman in ecstasy. The work was accused of workshop deficiencies. The artist cut his work, reportedly in an affront to the woman portrayed, whose red hair indicated a resemblance to Ewa Kotarbinska, with whom the painter was unhappily in love. After regaining independence on December 16, 1922, during the opening of the Autumn Salon, a tragedy occurred at the Zachęta, the painter Eligiusz Niewiadomski, shot the first President of Poland Gabriel Narutowicz.
In the not-so-distant past, the year 2000 seems to have been exceptional for Zachęta. On November 17, actor Daniel Olbrychski destroyed with a saber, a prop in the film The Deluge, several film stills showing famous actors (including his own image)
in costumes of soldiers and Gestapo men. The incident took place during the exhibition Nazis, by Piotr Uklański. This event describes a real post-89 problem, when art becomes very demanding in its reception, often operating in a language that is completely extra-aesthetic. At the time, the very notion of art broadened greatly, and the process of understanding this situation was often turbulent. This was also reflected in another event on December 21, 2000, when the art installation Nona Ora (Ninth Hour) by Italian sculptor Maurizio Cattelan was exhibited at the Gallery. The sculpture depicted a figure of John Paul II falling under the weight of a meteorite. The work “provoked” ZChN deputies Witold T. and Halina K., who burst into the Gallery and demonstratively damaged the sculpture.
Zachęta’s collection includes works that in themselves or through the person of the artist arouse great emotions. The peeling of potatoes by Julita Wójcik (February 12, 2001) caused a scandal. Works such as Kozyra’s Pyramid of Animals (1993) ( one of the first works of critical art in the Zachęta collection after 89) were emotionally received.
Zachęta’s collection includes works by classics of 20th century Polish art: Henryk Stażewski, Tadeusz Kantor, Edward Krasiński, Zbigniew Libera, or Wilhelm Sasnal, as well as artists of the younger generation: the aforementioned Julita Wójcik, Wojciech Bąkowski.
The collection also includes some works produced by Zacheta for the Polish Pavilion in Venice. The collection is able to grow thanks to funding obtained through ministerial programs, the ING Polish Art Foundation and artists’ donations.
Zachęta does not have a permanent exhibition of its own collection. The collection is exhibited systematically and in various contexts. The first exhibition was held in 1990: From the Zacheta Collection: Henryk Stażewski, Marian Bogusz, Stefan Gierowski, Ryszard Winiarski. Subsequent ones took place in 1994, 2006, or in 2008 a project entitled: This is not an exhibition about taking care of a collection. Subsequent shows were in the nature of original curatorial realizations such as Pee in a Cake, by Karol Radziszewski, presenting black and white reproductions of lesser-known works from the collection, joined figuratively and literally by the blue (pink) scotch used by Edward Krasinski. (The title of the exhibition itself is a line of a poem by
Krasinski: Something is tempting me to take a pee in the cake.)
In 2004, something quite extraordinary happened, which enormously expanded the Zachęta collection and offered a chance for its further development. An idealistic program initiated by the then Minister of Culture Waldemar Dabrowski, entitled Signs of the Times, came into effect. The idea was to fill the gap in the neglected sphere of contemporary art, focusing on collecting art that is a sign of its time, but above all on educating, taming the difficult to receive art and disenchanting the situation in which politicians’ interest in modern art is nonexistent, their awareness of the impact of contemporary culture on the growth of the regions’ potential is completely non-existent, and interest in currently emerging art is declared not by intellectual elites at all, but even by individuals.
The idea of the project seems to be as relevant today as it was in 2004. Zachęta’s channel on YouTube is watched by only a few hundred people, while brilliantly produced educational videos or interviews with outstanding art experts, directors of Zachęta: Anda Rottenberg, Hanna Wróblewska have been viewed about 200 times! Unfortunately, the truth is that in the thirty-eight-million-strong country of Poland, only a handful of people equal to the population of a small village are keenly interested in contemporary art. A global, cosmic embarrassment. And this does not mean that all cultured people are obliged to use the Internet, but nevertheless it can be presumed that a large proportion does, when we compare this appallingly low level of viewership of Zachęta’s channel with the popularity of the channels of most youtubers, or even the excellent sports programs from there. At this point, it should be added that Zachęta’s collection is entirely available online, and under licenses that allow the works to be freely copied and distributed. I wonder what the significance of this is? Does anyone take advantage of it?
The basic goals of the Signs of the Times Program were, among others: to create a network of regional Zachęta collections that would make up a representative national collection of contemporary art; to restore the tradition of artistic patronage; or to make art an important element in the development of civil society. The implementation of these assumptions was to be based on close cooperation with local governments, civic institutions: associations and foundations whose program is related to contemporary art, and whose activities refer to the tradition of the Societies for the Encouragement of Fine Arts run by Poles since the mid-19th century. In addition to the priority of creating a system of information about the culture currently being created and expanding the public stock of contemporary artworks, an important assumption was also the creation of museums of contemporary art, physically existing centers of new culture; innovative methods of its dissemination and financing. As part of the system, it was assumed that 50% of the funds earmarked for the purchase of works of art for the emerging regional collections, one in each province (16 in total) was to come from the budget of the Ministry of Culture, and the remaining 50% from local authorities and sponsors[3].
The slogan Signs of the times has become the key of regional collections across the country. Since 2004, new regional Associations of Inhabitants have been established successively, starting to create collections. In fact, most of these associations were set up by women curators, associated with existing cultural institutions: art galleries, museums. Is this a feminist phenomenon? Perhaps, but what is it supposed to be? Suddenly women became important in art, in literature, in music, and it turned out that they have a voice. In addition, they are hard-working, educated and able to love their work, even when it has a purely social dimension, like being the president of a cultural association dedicated to collecting contemporary art of interest to the residents of one Polish village… Only in Toruń was a building created for collecting new art under the titular name Signs of the Times. The director and creator of the Toruń art center was Marek Żydowicz, who oversaw the implementation of the ministerial idea. In the first years of the program’s operation, during the tenure of Minister Waldemar Dąbrowski, the Associations operated vigorously, the collections were alive, many purchases were made (several hundred in each region), local governments supported the financing. Over time, the situation changed to the detriment. In 2017, most of the collections were completely dead, as a result of which they were reincorporated into the institutions on which they were based. Some remain frozen, such as the Warmia-Mazury Zacheta, whose president is Grazyna Prusinska. The Podlasie collection of Monika Szewczyk is part of Collection II of Białystok’s Arsenal Gallery of Contemporary Art. Local governments are often reluctant to provide money even for the own contribution needed when applying for funding from the Ministry. Private sponsors have not yet revealed their presence. To date, for example, a thriving association is the Szczecin-based Zachęta, under the leadership of Agata Zbylut. The local authorities here are open to cooperation, thanks to which the collection still has a chance to develop.
With the end of director Hanna Wróblewska’s term and the beginning of the New Year 2022, Minister of Culture Piotr Glinski has named Janusz Janowski as the new director of Zachęta. The candidate is the President of the Board of Directors of the Association of Polish Artists, a jazz musician, painter and art historian…. The nomination is commented on by Anda Rotenberg Zachęta is in danger of moving to a program from the communist era, only without the avant-garde(…). Art will cope, it’s just a shame for Zachęta[4], she says.
Fortunately, the scale of the problem is small. Only the residents of one small village on the country’s periphery will suffer.
List of illustrations:
Edward Krasinski, Installation, 1997,
Julita Wójcik, Peeling potatoes, video, 2001
Tadeusz Kantor, Parasol and Woman, painting, 1967
Wilhelm Sasnal, painting, 2006
Zbigniew Libera, Lego. Concentration Camp, graphic design, 1999
Monika Sosnowska, T, sculpture, 2017-2020
Ryszard Winiarski, Drawing with two dice, painting, 1977
Karol Radziszewski, Scotch Pink (Pee in a Cake), photography, 2009-2015
Henryk Stażewski, 55-A, painting, 1975
Goshka Macuga, Julita Wojcik. Anti-collage, serigraph on photograph, 2011
All illustrations are from Zachęta’s online documentation of the collection, at www.zacheta.art.pl
[1] www.zabytek.pl
[3] M. Bakalarz, M. Winter, “Signs of the Times” – National Culture Program [in:] Part II: Cultural Life, NCK.pl.
[4] Vogue.pl