Screenshot of a digital artwork, in the picture a pink sqaure space is depicted. In the middle it contains some kind of sculpture consisting of blue, long elements that are intertwined.
Dagmar Schürrer, Time Is Just a Memory, 2022, AR-Projekt (Fragment), © courtesy of the artist

Who is Janina Węgrzynowska?

16 Jan 2023
 - 
12 Mar 2023
Galeria Studio
Pałac Kultury i Nauki, Pac Defilad
00-901 Warsaw

Remarkable yet almost unknown women artists

This exhibition was born out of a need to tell the stories of artists whose lives and works are fascinating, but who have found themselves outside the 'art circuit', and thus remain unnoticed. The project began with "Grey-Orange Painting" (1979) by Janina Węgrzynowska (1930-2010), which is in the Galeria Studio Collection. During preparation for the Collection's exhibition in 2021, curator Paulina Olszewska became interested in the op-art composition and its author, about whom only scraps of information could be found. The figure of Janina Węgrzynowska, an artist associated with Warsaw, seems to duplicate the biographies of many women active in the field of art in the 20th century, in Poland and around the world.

Return into artistic circulation

They are often characterized by innovative and progressive thinking about art and an interdisciplinarity across many fields. They were, and in some cases still are, experimental and committed artists, working intensely for most of their lives. And yet they often exist outside of the mainstream, without sufficient support or adequate opportunity for their talent to be apparent. In turn, after death, their work, often left unattended, is condemned to dispersal or destruction, and thus to oblivion. The aim of the exhibition is to draw attention to the topicality of Węgrzynowska’s practice and put it back into artistic circulation.

Curator: Paulina Olszewska

Funded artists: Jenny Brockmann, Dagmar Schürrer

More on the exhibition on Galeria Studio's website

Exhibition Funding

The Exhibition Funding programme supports contemporary artists in implementing art projects abroad.

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