The beginnings of modern art collections in Poland - subjective and regional views with a tinge of pessimism

Over two years ago, the then Minister of Culture Waldemar Dąbrowski attempted to initiate the French model of regional art collections, commonly referred to by Poles as Zachęty. The idea was to create art collections outside Warsaw. However, recreating complete collections proved impossible due to enormous gaps in collections created in the mid '80s. Anyway, it seems pointless to engage all the art institutions in the process of recreating historic collections. What makes more sense is a search for uniqueness. But at the moment, all such efforts focus only on the quest for the earliest beginnings of collections. It is obvious that Poland should adopt the EU system. The question is why so late, and why in such a way? This democratic idealism targeted at local communities proved perverse as it revealed mental conservatism of certain government groups. It is well known who is responsible for art in Poland, and where the essential artistic values are created. Social interest in art is close to naught, and so, any attempt to popularize it ends in its degradation. To give an example, the efforts to attract the local government in Lublin to this project proved futile. And it was only thanks to a businessman turned politician who donated his own funds that the ministerial subsidy was not lost.
The most important idea was to include the latest artwork in the newly created collections. However, as it turned out, the movement itself is mostly interested in the so-called art created by so-called well-established artists; and fossilized administrating systems try to control newly appointed associations and foundations which they see as sources of profit that might be used to help cronies.
We feel that the anxiety or even fear of purchasing artwork by young artists or enabling them to fulfill their artistic aspirations is a terrible thing. Lack of support by the state makes many gifted artists abandon art for financial reasons. Of course, we're taking about the so-called provinces.  
Warsaw has a number of private galleries, opened a few years ago, which focus on the "young art", most notably Galeria Raster and Fundacja Galerii Foksal. They're doing fine, but it's not the point. Without the contribution of young artists from the so-called provinces, i.e. Kraków, Gdańsk, Poznań or Lublin, the above-mentioned institutions would not be what they are. One classic example is Kuśmirowski who moved the Foksal and helped it survive on the European market. In other words, an artwork must come from the capital or otherwise it passes unnoticed.
Although this functional paradigm is obvious for Galeria Biała in Lublin, it is usually ignored. We established the institution in 1985 as a non-commercial gallery, and it still remains non-commercial today. We are engaged in creating art rather than a sales system. It is impossible in Lublin at the moment anyway.
Galeria Biała doesn't have its own collection, but over its 20 years of operation it has received a number of works as gifts or deposits. Perhaps the most important examples are two monumental painting installations by Leon Tarasewicz, and work by Henk Visch, Sigrun Jakubaschke, Robert Maciejuk, Andrzej Partum, Katarzyna Korzeniecka and many other artists. This collection was created thanks to exhibitions in the gallery and contacts with the artists exhibiting their work.
The gallery has never had a written schedule of operations. From one year to another we start from scratch, making an annual schedule based on what's going on around us. We stress the regional character as an essential value, and therefore, create our own unique artistic space outside the current canons. We want to build a local art scene which is closely linked with the present time and place, as well as the latest trends in art in general.
At the moment, this "idea" is strongly linked with the physical space of the gallery, its architecture, tradition marked with almost 300 exhibitions, and the surroundings, i.e. the public and its feedback. And then, quite unexpectedly, the future becomes uncertain. The latest political events become binding and contribute to what might be called self-censure, as well as fear of creating certain types of artwork which, although a norm elsewhere, are unacceptable by Polish society, and consequently, become banned, whether by courts or the so-called authorities. We might say that there is a flicker of hope - after all, Berlin is near, and everybody has a passport. It is a solution of sorts, but the downside is that the most important pieces are exhibited in Berlin and not Lublin.  Robert Kuśmirowski, whose work reaches exorbitant prices in, say, Basel, is probably the best example. The gallery in Lublin decided that his work was too expensive, and expressed no interest. Even though there was a possibility of donating this work.

The existence of our gallery is a struggle for survival, defence of our message. We keep trying to build our own artistic identity, create the appropriate environment for local artists. We take efforts to make them "competitive" for artists from other places, and encourage them to contribute originality to art. That is why we strive not to succumb to the current fashions, practices or pressure from curators which, we think, is present all over Europe. Last but not least, we don't bow to the pressure of networked galleries propagating fashions that are supposed to spread all over the country.
On the other hand, we know that everybody bows to pressure from Warsaw, and therefore, we have to say that the twenty-year-old efforts to build our own artistic identity have been futile and miscalculated, to say the least. It is because our artists first of all have to appear in Warsaw's Modern Art Centre, and only after say twenty years, can they become Lublin artists. Otherwise, they will never get a chance to gain an artist status.
Galleries, such as ours, have a mission to fulfil. They are to become "breeding grounds" for artists, such as Leon Tarasewicz, who become classics 20 years later. This, as it might seem, should be the end of a gallery as such. However, due to specific conditions, including lack of support for development, we still make the conservative decision to keep going and once again build essential values that we can find in the work by Kuśmirowski, Galey, Tarkawian, Stachyra, Morozewicz, Stańczak, and the like.
The features of creating a place become a gallery schedule, which is a form of vigil over art and its arbitrary choice. Such choices have never resulted from national standards, but from a quest for uniqueness in art. Maszlanko, Sołowiej, Maciejuk, Kuśmirowski are among the very few artists who fulfil their own world of values, rather than respond to any external demand. And at the same time, their activity is an expression of contemporary art, which, in a way, fulfils our own expectations towards art in general, and art galleries in particular.
The greatest liability, or asset, of our gallery, is that it operates continuously, i.e. we have a new exhibition every month; no matter what.
The gallery itself, and its label as an "institution of sorts" endure. 
This endurance must suffice.
Especially that we are so persistent and stubborn in trying to keep the gallery in order. And we have something to boast about too - for a start, a telephone, an e-mail address, and a web site. We send out invitations, put up posters and offer leaflets to our guest, with information about the current exhibition. We keep records of them.
We have a dozen or so publications, some of them are quite decent.
The gallery motto is to provide any information about the work created by artists that we co-operate with. Information is everything.
In a way, the ideas for creating art collections suggested by the Minister of Culture reflect our own point of view. Nevertheless, we are under pressure from the so-called artistic community of Lublin with its strong interest in tradition, in artwork created more than fifty years ago.  We dream to create a collection representing more artistic bases than just pieces of art. A search for meaning in contemporary art may become the basis for building collections, and serve as an evaluative reference for the public. To make it possible, the collection should comprise a vast spectrum of media. It might be based on installations which are especially important in modern art, as they form a unique summary of artistic experience so far. Also, the building of collections might be accompanied by public exhibitions.
In such an approach, contexts and interactions between individual exhibitions become especially important. We think that even a small collection, at the beginning of the building process, should be fraught with meaning. And although our dream collection consists of work by artists from Galeria Biała, we realize that it should also comprise other ideas and artistic motivations.

We presented these ideas in the Lublin-based association "Signs of Time". The project, however, was rejected in favour of a more traditional concept, which became a source of many conflicts and divisions in artistic circles. And newspapers, accusing us of nepotism, etc., compelled us to leave the association. As a result, the association purchased a number of works, including the work by Leon Tarasewicz which the artist intended to donate to "Signs of Time" and become its honorary member. It never happened, and the work was purchased on commercial principles. It is probably the only "pearl" in this small collection. At this point, we must say that such associations and the system of purchases ruin rather than build the market. The Lublin association paid the same price for one small painting by Włodzimierz Borowski (incidently, the local museum has a number of works by this artist) as for the enormous work by Tarasewicz. And it was by no means a small amount. There are few Polish artists who can claim the appropriate price for their work, which is set by the European market. Such prices in Poland become unaffordable. At the moment, it is impossible to introduce market rules used elsewhere in the world. But it is certainly possible to build collections on the basis of artists operating in galleries dedicated to individual artists, or associations of artists. This makes the collection ten times cheaper. Other things that must be taken care of include exhibition room(s), maintenance costs, etc. Of course, they must be properly addressed by galleries in co-operation with the city and province authorities. The success, however, depends to a large extent on a good, and not just potentially good collection. It looks like we'll have to wait too long; we've been trying to "participate" in art for the last twenty years, but we have no commercial or any other successes. And the latest news: Galeria Biała proposed the candidature of Robert Kuśmirowski to the 2005 Artistic Award of the City of Lublin. and of course, he didn't get it.
Still, we keep smiling, as we know that the artists will keep doing their thing. And we'll keep doing ours.

Anna Nawrot i Jan Gryka