Art from oppression
This year's World Press Photo Exhibition is visiting the Zacheta Gallery of Contemporary Art a few months earlier than usual.
Photo enthusiasts have usually had to wait almost a year to see the winners from the time they were selected by the World Press jurors. But this year, Zacheta has a specific reason for hosting the exhibition ahead of schedule. "This year is special because Zacheta celebrates its 100th anniversary," said Jaroslaw Swierszcz, the gallery's deputy director. "We are preparing numerous exhibitions."
In January, when the World Press photos are usually shown, those strolling through the gallery will be treated to a jubilee presentation of the most important currents of 20th century Polish Art. The exhibition will be held from Dec. 2000 to Feb. 2001. "Zacheta was always a very important place for artists and it was also a dream of each artist (to be featured at the gallery)," Swierszcz said. When he was a very young man, and didn't have an inkling that he'd attain his present post, he visited the gallery often. "Without a doubt, it is the most important gallery in Central and Eastern Europe," he said. Many of Poland's most prestigious painters, such as Jan Matejko, Jozef Chelmonski and Stanislaw Wyspianski have had their paintings hung on the gallery's walls. "If you look at an encyclopedia of 20th century art, you would find that all the great artists have had their exhibitions here," Swierszcz said.
The Zacheta building was designed by Polish architect Stefan Szyller and constructed in December 1900 as a result of an initiative by the Towarzystwo Zachety Sztuk Pieknych (The Zacheta Fine Art Society) established in 1860 to help individual artists and promote art in general. Szyller also designed the heritage buildings of the Warsaw Polytechnic and the Warsaw University Library on ulica Krakowskie Przedmiescie.
Even now, in these multi-media and often philistine times, Zacheta has a full program. In addition to promoting contemporary art, presenting its important achievements and educating the interested through lectures and workshops, the gallery also runs a bookstore featuring its own and others' art-related publications. Life at the state-owned gallery became easier once its employees learned to cultivate private sponsors rather than sit on their hands counting on ministerial donations.
Maria Rochowicz-Lewandowska, a retired art historian, visited Zacheta last Thursday. "I like coming here, even though Zacheta is sometimes attacked in the press," Rochowicz-Lewandowska said. "I like what is being presented and I have never seen such an exhibition before." Rochowicz-Lewandowska was referring to the "Gray in Color" display that opened last week as part of the gallery's 100th birthday celebrations. The exhibit examines Polish artistic culture between 1956-1970, and in the process reproduces an interior typical of the clubs, cafes and private spaces in which officially censored culture flourished at that time. Rochowicz-Lewandowska drank tea and ate cake in a room similar to the artistic basements of Krakow's Piwnica pod Baranami and Krzysztofory. The former served as a stage for the singer Ewa Demarczyk, while the latter was frequented by those artists who gravitated around Tadeusz Kantor, the founder of the Cricot II Theater. "This exhibition shows the culture of the 1960s in a variety of aspects," Rochowicz-Lewandowska said. "It shows the grayness of ordinary life and the sheer poetry of cabaret and film."
Zacheta is also a frequent haunt for Anna Leszczynska, a 25-year-old student who loves photography and comes to the gallery when the photo exhibits breeze into town. "I enjoy the World Press photos, and in all honesty can't resist returning to see the blood and the ghastliness (on display)," she said, looking at the pictures by John Stanmeyer, who won an award in the events category. Stanmeyer's series of pictures show Indonesian police killing a supporter of East Timor independence in Dili on Aug. 26, 1999. "How is it possible that the photographer watched the entire crime, from the very beginning when the man was running away, to the end when he lay on the street in a river of blood," Leszczynska said. "I prefer the pictures awarded in the sport category. It is easier to get an award for crime pictures, especially if they are as cruel as the ones of the Indonesian man."
