Operated by the Calgary Contemporary Arts Society

September 4 – September 13, 2008

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Visions-Media-Metaphor:
Contemporary Artists from Poznań

Works by Wojciech Müller, Maciej Łubowski, Zbigniew Szot, Andrzej Bobrowski and Izabela Idzikowska

Presented in Calgary by the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań
in partnership with the Triangle Gallery of Visual Arts

2008 ArtCity – Calgary International Festival of Visual Arts, Architecture & Design

The city of Poznań has gained an international reputation as one of the most important centres of contemporary, conceptual, and experimental visual arts and avant-garde theatre in Poland. A number of the artists from Poznań - including the five artists in this exhibition—have received international recognition for their innovative, aesthetically challenging, and progressive works.

The exhibition Visions-Media-Metaphor: Contemporary Artists from Poznań showcases a diverse interpretation of reality, metaphor, and symbology. The philosophy presented in this exhibition is through a wide and impressive gamut of media, which includes painting, photography, printmaking, and multi-media installations and projections by five eminent artists from Poznań, Poland: Wojciech Müller, Andrzej Maciej Łubowski, Zbigniew Szot, Andrzej Bobrowski and Izabela Idzikowska. Four of the participating artists are the Professors of Visual Arts, New Media Arts and Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, while Andrzej Maciej Łubowski is a Professor of Visual Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts & Design of the Poznań School of Social Sciences. All of them—as visual artists—represent the different orientations, directions, and stylistic and formalistic approaches in the history of contemporary art in Poland.

This exhibition examines and discusses the various trends and directions in contemporary art in western Poland. Visions-Media-Metaphor also analyzes the works of these five notable artists in the broader context of contemporary international art.  Although the work in this exhibition is in the current, modern, and post-modern traditions, viewers are invited to instinctively anticipate something from contemporary art, rather than art that is simply contemporary to the viewer. The term contemporary art suggests that the works play off or respond to broader international issues. Themes such as body, gender, social product, spiritual vision, symbology, metaphor, and media exploration converge and diverge in this exhibition, revealing new perspectives of a society moving through socio-political, economic, and cultural changes, and altering human psyches in the process.

This art exhibition - a reciprocal project in partnership with the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań—stems directly from the successful presentation of the exhibition Images and Reflections: The Artists’ Circle of Calgary, which was organized by the Triangle Gallery of visual Arts and showcased in February/March of 2008 at “At the Jesuits” Gallery of Contemporary Art in Poznań, Poland. This hive of artistic activities, as reflected in the impressive body of works by both groups, provides tangible evidence of creative collaboration between the Artists’ Circle of Calgary and the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań. The artists’ dedication in these projects reflects their belief in the importance of formulating new approaches to international exhibitions and cultural exchanges. Fostering exploration and partnerships with local active communities has significant implications, which include the expansion of ideas and expectations of art, history, commerce, and culture.

“Visions-Media-Metaphor” embraces a rich conceptual and philosophical diversity in the collection of nearly 20 works by five renowned visual artists from Poznań, Poland. This exhibition presents a broad spectrum of contemporary art making that surfaced in this region of Poland in the late 1940s and which, over the period of six decades, has undergone radical changes. The artists - Wojciech Müller, Maciej Łubowski, Andrzej Bobrowski, Zbigniew Szot and Izabela Idzikowska - have distinctive and well-deserved positions in Poland’s artistic milieu as artists, as educators, and as mentors for younger artists, exhibitors, designers, and animators. Their exemplary works allude to basic truths, and draw from human experiences which are condensed into fundamental visual signs and metaphors. The works in this exhibition - in all their diversity and their broad use of media - serve not only to reflect formalistic and stylistic directions in the contemporary art of Western Poland, but also allow the artists the opportunity to add their voices to a larger, international discourse.

Jacek Malec
Exhibition Curator

List of Images (left to right, top to bottom):

1. Izabela Idzikowska – Stone IV, Metamorphosis Series, 2007; artist’s own technique. Image courtesy of the artist.
2. Izabela Idzikowska – Stone VII, Metamorphosis Series, 2007; artist’s own technique. Image courtesy of the artist.
3. Andrzej Maciej Łubowski – Pressure I, 2007/08; mixed media, oil and acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist.
4. Andrzej Maciej Łubowski – Pressure II, 2007/08; mixed media, oil and acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist.
5. Andrzej Maciej Łubowski – Panorama I, 2005; mixed media, oil, acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the artist.
6. Wojciech Müller – Rose XII, 2006; photography, mixed media, projections and performance. Image courtesy of the artist.
7. Zbigniew Szot – Sunset I, 2008; digital print on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.
8. Zbigniew Szot – Untitled, n.d.; digital print on fabric. Image courtesy of the artist.
9. Zbigniew Szot – Winter II, 2005/06; digital print on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.
10. Andrzej Bobrowski – Fields of Joy: Departure, 2003, woodcut on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.
11. Andrzej Bobrowski – Mirosławki, n.d.; linocut on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.
12. Andrzej Bobrowski – Samara, n.d. linocut on paper. Image courtesy of the artist.