COURAGE

connecting collections

“Kowalnia” is the popular name of professor Grzegorz Kowalski's Studio of Audiovisual Space at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Kowalski, a creator of installations and performer, has been its leader since 1984, drawing from the modernist tradition in which he was educated, and the communal, countercultural experiences of his own artistic activity. The studio gained popularity in the 1990s as a forge of the stars of the art world and of some of the most controversial figures in Polish “critical art”. The archive, maintained by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, includes photo and video documentation of the studio's activity, as well as its manifestos, exhibition catalogues and issues of a zine published by students.

Krzysztof Skiba's archive is a private collection of photos, movies, zines, books, articles, and leaflets documenting the alternative culture phenomena that Skiba participated in during the 1980s. The majority of the collection covers the street happenings created by the Gallery of Maniacal Activities in Łódź, the activities of anarchist Alternative Society Movement in Gdańsk, the very first years of the punk cabaret Big Cyc, and the first exhibition of the third circuit papers and magazines co-organized by Skiba in 1989.

The collection of 1,476 paintings in water-colours by Kurts Fridrihsons made during his imprisonment in the Gulag in 1951-1956 is only part of the 3,500 artworks he produced during his time in the Gulag. A part of works depict Gulag camp and its environments, but the most of them reflect associations with literature and drama, and are testimony of artist's effort to dissociate himself from atmosphere of the camp and to sustain his intellectual interests.