Krakow in Art | Art in Krakow

Krakow in the art of contemporary Polish artists

By Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art

Agnieszka Mazoń - Collections Specialist

Krakow Main Square (2022) by Michał SiarekInternational Cultural Centre

Krakow –  the Former Seat of Kings

A well-known academic centre, city with rich history, which for centuries has been the cradle of Polish culture. Numerous museums, art galleries and universities thrive here to the present day – among them one of the oldest universities in the world – Jagiellonian University.

It was in Krakow that the first Academy of Fine Arts was opened. In 1879 the first national museum was founded here and 3 years later the first institute of art history.

Krakow is also the heritage of modernity – the place of birth of the first and second Kraków Groups, which were of key importance to the history of Polish contemporary art and the city in which after the Second World War an attempt was made to materialize the utopian idea of an ideal city (Nowa Huta). 

The Facade of the Municipal Exhibition Pavilion in Krakow in the 1970s. (1970s) by Daniel ZawadzkiBunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art

Modernity in Old Krakow

Modernization, though on a smaller scale, was achieved within the very historic city centre as well. One of its examples was the erection in 1965 of an unprecedented, thoroughly modern, modernist pavilion at 3a Szczepański Square.

The building, built specially for the needs of the Krakow BWA branch (currently Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art), had gigantic, as for those times, exhibition space of ca. 1000 m². The designer was Krystyna Tołłoczko-Różyska, while the distinctive facade made of concrete casts of wooden formwork was designed by Stefan Borzęcki and Antoni Hajdecki.

Re-creation Re-creation, Elektro Moon Vision (Elwira Wojtunik, Popesz Csaba Lang), 2013, From the collection of: Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art
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For centuries the cultural legacy as well as the prose of daily life, historic events alongside legends have been an important source of inspiration for artists affiliated with Krakow. Today's art often enters into dispute with tradition and heritage; it wants to be an impulse for a change for the better, to abolish fixed patterns, spark a revolution or alter the way of thinking. Often enough artistic activities have the form of pro-social or pro-ecological projects.

The Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art Collection includes many examples of works whose authors ingeniously draw on the culture-making and symbolic potential of the city they live and work in. Among them are Adam Rzepecki, Cecylia Malik or Małgorzata Markiewicz.

Self-portraits from Krakow (1979/2038) by Adam RzepeckiBunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art

Self-portraits from Krakow

Adam Rzepecki (b. 1950) pursues painting and photography, creates videos, performances and installations. For decades he has treated his home city as one of the most important points of reference, a source of artistic inspiration and even a full-fledged hero of his works.

 Graduate of art history at the Jagiellonian Univeristy in Krakow (1979), founder of the avant-garde art group Łódź Kaliska (1979), between the 1978 and 1981 ran Jaszczurowa Galeria Fotografii in Krakow. At that time, like many other artists in the 1970s and 80s. he willingly marked his presence within the work and in this way attempted to analyse the influence of media on the content of the message. The series Self-portraits from Krakow is one of the works that date back to that period. The home city became a background for the dominant figure of man. 

Self-portraits from Krakow, Adam Rzepecki, 1979/2027, From the collection of: Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art
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In his series Rzepecki employed a uniform composition. The artist poses with the same facial expression while the wide angle of the lens held straight ahead makes his arms and head appear out of proportion. Rzepecki's activities from the 1970s are pioneering in relation to the modern “era of the selfie”.

Self-portraits from Krakow, Adam Rzepecki, 1979/2044, From the collection of: Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art
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Interestingly, in 1978, a year prior to Rzepecki's project, the historic centre of Krakow was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The black and white 1970s photographs are today a testimony to a bygone era showing the city before the tourism boom, where today's crowded sights surprise with their emptiness.

Pradnik (I) from the series 6 Rivers (2012) by Cecylia MalikBunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art

Six Rivers

Over thirty years later Cecylia Malik (b. 1975) took quite a different journey around her home city. The artist's activities revolve around environmental and social issues. 

The 6 Rivers photographic series and the film of the same title are documentation of the project carried out on the premises of Krakow from early autumn 2011 to late summer 2012. Cecylia Malik decided to get to know the city in which she has lived since her birth from a new, totally unknown perspective. She set off on a lonely journey down the Krakow's 6 rivers in a handmade boat. 

Pradnik (IV) from the series "6 rivers", Cecylia Malik, 2012, From the collection of: Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art
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Rudawa, from the series "6 rivers", Cecylia Malik, 2012, From the collection of: Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art
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The cruise from the city's administrative boundaries to the mouths of the rivers in the Vistula river was documented by the cameraman Piotr Pawlus and photographer Potr Dziurdzia. The project's aim was to show the endangered beauty of the rivers, which have lost their utility value for the inhabitants: no longer do they power mills, provide food or water. Those forgotten waterways are often turned into sewers or rubbish dumps.

Pradnik (II) from the series 6 Rivers, Cecylia Malik, 2012, From the collection of: Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art
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from the series Pretty Lasses (2008) by Małgorzata MarkiewiczBunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art

Pretty Lasses

One of contemporary artists who while addressing current social issues play with tradition and draw on local folklore as well as historically fixed symbolism is Małgorzata Markiewicz (b. 1979). The Krakow artist uses textiles, yarn and ready-made garments in her objects and installations.

Her art is permanently characterised by interest in the fate of a contemporary woman in a “male” world, opposition to domination and fixed power relations.

Pretty Lasses is a series of photographs featuring models wearing floral skirts. Their pattern has been based on the shape of the Maltese cross, a motif taken from Caritas – a series of pastel drawings by the Young Poland artist and dramatist Stanisław Wyspiański.

from the series Pretty Lasses, Małgorzata Markiewicz, 2008, From the collection of: Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art
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from the series Pretty Lasses, Małgorzata Markiewicz, 2008, From the collection of: Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art
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Market Woman (2021/2022) by Małgorzata MarkiewiczBunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art

Krakow Street Vendor

Aiming to overcome the domination of male figures commemorated by numerous monuments she put on a symbolic pedestal a nameless heroine: a Krakow street vendor.

The original form of the monument, rejection of familiar conventions such as realistic portraits cast in bronze and placed on stone pedestals combine with an attempt to create a new language of sculpture in public space.

Rest by the Vistula River, Krakow (2022) by Michał SiarekInternational Cultural Centre

In the minds of its inhabitants the city functions primarily as a space for living, studying, spending free time...

Krakow - view by the river (2022) by Michał SiarekInternational Cultural Centre

In the case of places like Krakow, however, one can hardly forget that this complex economic and social organism, a self-sustaining ecosystem, is at the same time a historical and cultural phenomenon on a global scale.

Krakow (2022) by Michał SiarekInternational Cultural Centre

The city's history, legends, iconography and symbolism created in the course of centuries alongside the contemporary experience of living in the capital of Małopolska seem to provide an inexhaustible source of inspiration for artists.

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The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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