Collection

Created in the late 1990s by a beginner photographer, the documentary series Suburbia is a record of the socio-economic transformation of Gdańsk and its working-class residents.

The first photographs in this series were taken on the day Lech Wałęsa lost the presidential election in 1995, and the last ones in the year of Poland's accession to the European Union. Wierzbicki became interested in the changing landscape of the marginal districts as a result of their economic exclusion from the organism of the almost thousand-year-old city that built its power on the access to the sea and the mouth of the largest Polish river. The author chose the most symbolic areas of the collapsing Gdańsk Shipyard and the vicinity of the Motława and Vistula rivers with harbours and fishing. These two distinctive areas today represent the global transformations that are now taking place.

Suburbia is an important document, a invaluable record of the decline of old Gdańsk, and simultaneously a contribution to a narrative about the presence and absence of man and the disappearing culture of labour as a value in the contemporary neoliberal world.

Today, the Friends from the Seaside neon sign is displayed in the main hall and common space of the newly opened NOMUS in Gdańsk, where it acts as a trademark, and simultaneously draws attention to a specific section of the Tri-City art scene and indicates the focus of the new institution. The overlapping and interlocking model of teamwork that led to the creation of this space – alongside the city’s history, the legacy of political and social events, the ideas of freedom, solidarity, equality, and openness – define NOMUS’s symbolic identity.

The Witkowski artistic duo create projects inspired by everyday family life and social life to an equal extent. In 2005–2006 the couple became interested in the symbolic dimension of architecture, which resulted in the creation of three video works addressing the individuality of urban spaces.

Remote Viewer is a collection of views of a modern, but impersonal city. Static shots and the graininess of the image, bring to mind documentary footage. The strange atmosphere is enhanced by the editing and ambient music. The piece tells a story about alienation in a metropolis and is a kind of warning against the discrepancy between modernity and the need to live within a community.

The Witkowski artistic duo create projects inspired by everyday family life and social life to an equal extent. In 2005–2006 the couple became interested in the symbolic dimension of architecture, which resulted in the creation of three video works addressing the individuality of urban spaces.

The first, only, best is a video focusing on a neglected park in Chorzów. It shows its lawns, elements of architecture and equipment, as well as monstrous figures of dinosaurs. The video is interspersed with archival photos from the publication documenting the park in Chorzów during its heyday in the 1960s. The narrative, in a dispassionate and monotonous tone, describes a landscape known from the past, humorously contrasted with the present state of the park.

The Witkowski artistic duo create projects inspired by everyday family life and social life to an equal extent. In 2005–2006 the couple became interested in the symbolic dimension of architecture, which resulted in the creation of three video works addressing the individuality of urban spaces.

The Past can be read as a symbolic depiction of two political systems and transformations that have occurred with the emergence of new opportunities and moods within Polish society. The work is an ironic take on the history of abandoned and forgotten spaces.

In the 1980s, Sławomir Witkowski’s work consisted of simple graphic depictions of questions related to violence and aggression. His works from this period are characterized by the use of strong outlines, intense colours and straight lines and right angles. Interrogation was created in 1986. The expressive form of the lithography is emphasised by the use of dynamic, black lines, a grotesque depiction of the protagonists, and intense red and yellow colours. Interrogation is extremely expressive, and its emotional load is additionally emphasised by the title. It refers to the atmosphere and the realities of Poland in the 1980s, illustrating the tension between society and the state.  

Witkowski’s work from this period fits into the trend of new expression, indicating social and political moods. The traditional graphic workshop was treated seriously, and almost every stage of the printing process had to be well-thought-out and more or less predictable. The artistic rebellion of the 1980s also brought about changes in this field. As a result, artists have departed from academic practices associated with the traditional approach to both the subject and technology in favour of innovative solutions that resulted in the introduction of colour and the unrestricted treatment of material in the graphic arts workshop. Witkowski’s work from that period was exhibited at national exhibitions presenting ‘new expression’ art.

Sławomir Witkowski created Liberators in 1988. It is a poster referring to the ‘new expression’ aesthetics characteristic of that time, which is distinguished by intense colours, expressive lines and contours as well as engagement and opposition to existing reality. The title refers to saviours and protectors, while the speeding car captured in a dynamic composition, similar in appearance to the American Cadillac, can be understood as a symbol of the success and prosperity that were unattainable in socialist Poland in the 1980s. The proverbial American dream — the national ethos of the United States, which refers on the one hand to the ideals of democracy, equality and freedom, and on the other indicates the idolizing of success and the possibility of rapid social and economic advancement – symbolizes the values that people fought for in Poland by opposing the then political system. The car is not only a reflection of the prevailing socio-political moods, but also an indication of the cultural aspects of the consumerist lifestyle, promoted, for example, by advertising.

The performance consists of choreography and sounds created by shipyard workers, directed by Wollny and Szwajgier. The authors of the compositions use similarities between the structure of the working day and the typical structure of a song. Fragments of free time are distinguished from parts of the work, just as verses can be separated from choruses. The free time (verses) is subtle, soothing and kind of disappears in space — with fragments of conversations, playing ping-pong, and opening beer cans. The refrains (work) are loud, with relentless sounds of metal objects, light and heavy-duty tools, sounds of grinding and welding (and the accompanying almost baroque sparks of light) that fill the entire hall. Through their performance, the men furnish the memory of the shipyard with a bodily dimension, in which sound becomes the carrier of memories.

Wollny, who typically incorporates the local context (both architecture and people) into her compositions, constructs an interesting tension between the labour of the workers that results in a material practical object (for example a ship), and an artistic work whose product is a work of art. In this case, both work and free time become activities that have succumbed equally to capitalist rule.

Kindergarten is part of the series of crochet works created in the years 2005–2007. Already at that time, Wójcik transferred her interest in ordinary life to the field of culture production, paying attention to the economic mechanisms of the art world, the precarious nature of artistic labour, and the conditions for its production and distribution. The artist’s attention was drawn to apartment blocks from the 1970s. We do not usually pay attention to these monuments of socialist everyday life. In common opinion, the grey, prefab architecture causes neither delight nor nostalgia, but it definitely continues to resist the destabilisation of the property market. The crocheted, miniature buildings are placed on laminated coffee tables similar to those from the bygone era and thus institutionalized to a format allowing to exhibit and present them in museum spaces.

Wróblewski’s painting addresses historical memory and how it is modified in social memory. It is based on photographic documentation, i.e., a realistic record of the places where the WWII began and where Solidarity was born. In the face of the redefinitions of historical policies, the artist arranged a kind of mosaic of symbols of the Gdańsk road to freedom, — once the common values shared by the Poles — including the monument to the defenders of Westerplatte, the uniform of their commander Major Sucharski, the gate of the Gdańsk Shipyard — the cradle of the Solidarity Trade Union, or Lech Wałęsa, the leader of the anti-communist opposition and the Nobel Prize winner, carried on the shoulders of the striking workers. The work is an investigation of the processes of constructing identities.

Beta Nassau is a video work by Piotr Wyrzykowski, in which the artist abandons traditional narrative and expression in favor of cool observation. In the nearly ten-minute-long recording, the artist showcases the texture of the hull of a ship entering the harbour, capturing it continuously, almost mechanically. The image evolves slowly, subjected to the play of light and movement, focusing the viewer’s attention on the material itself and time. Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, has played a key role for centuries as a seaport. Although Nassau is not traditionally associated as a destination for contemporary migration movements, its history as a place of refuge and transit for various groups – from pirates to British loyalists during the American War of Independence – speaks to its long-standing role in the region’s migration narratives.

In the context of Wyrzykowski’s work, Beta Nassau refers to the symbolism of the port as a place of encounters, transitions, and transformations, prompting reflection on contemporary issues of migration and identity. The word beta itself refers to the video recording format as a stage of testing or developing new technology. Music: Ziemia Mindel–Würm.