The issues related to the studio/apartment of Henryk Stażewski and Edward Krasiński refer to “other spaces” of art and art history in Poland after 1945, which invalidate binary oppositions private/public, interior/exterior, history/memory. The aim of this conference is to reflect upon history, but also upon the artistic and social phenomenon of the studio, to discuss the contemporary potential of this place, and to present new research perspectives related to the work of Henryk Stażewski and Edward Krasiński. The apartment of Henryk Stażewski, situated on the XI floor of the block of flats at Al. Solidarności 64 (former Świerczewskiego), in Warsaw, which he shared from 1962 with Maria Ewa Łunkiewicz-Rogoyska and Jan Rogoyski, and from 1969 with Edward Krasiński, was an important point of reference for avant-garde and neo-avant-garde artists: a place for meetings, discussions and artistic interventions. The characteristic element of this apartment, filled with Henryk Stażewski's paintings, was Daniel Buren's work, taped for the first time on the studio's windows in 1974. After Henryk Stażewski's death in 1988, the apartment was taken over by Edward Krasiński. The studio became an important element of his artistic work. It was in its space that he begun an artistic contest with illusion, memory traces and reality by connecting places, objects and representations with blue Scotch tape. From the beginning of the 90s, apart from the work in the Foksal Gallery, visits to Edward Krasiński and meetings with him became a formative experience and an important point of reference for three critics: Joanna Mytkowska, Andrzej Przywara and Adam Szymczyk. After the artist's death in 2004, in accordance with the will of his daughter Paulina Krasińska and of his wife Anka Ptaszkowska, the studio was taken care of by the Foksal Gallery Foundation. The studio was left unchanged, and at the same time, the decision was made to build a pavilion on the block's terrace.The conference will inaugurate the activity of the studio under the name of Avant-garde Institute. The aim of this institution will be to run research experiments on the art after 1968. The project of the studio's extension was made possible owing to the Mondrian Foundation subsidy, in the framework of Thinking forward program, Paulina Krasińska's donation and Arnold Bode Prize handed over by Maurizio Cattelan.
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The conference Avant-garde in the Bloc is organized by the Foksal Gallery Foundation and supported by Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage founds, in the framework of the programme Cultural Education and Popularisation of Culture. Financial support for the extension of the studio was provided by the Mondriaan Foundation within the framework of the project Who if not we should at least try to imagine the future of all this? 7 episodes on (ex)changing Europe, the visual art component of the cultural program |