Panel discussion – Painting!

A discussion accompanying the „Malarstwo! Prąd zmienny” exhibition, concerning young Polish painters and young curators, with Prof. Grzegorz Dziamski, art historians Krzysztof Stanisławski and Sebastian Dudzik, and a representative of the curators who chose works for the exhibition, Monika Weychert Waluszko.
8th Eugeniusz Geppert Contest.
7th National Exhibition of Painting
April 11th, 2008 -Municipal Gallery in Bydgoszcz, ul. Gdańska 20, 6pm.

The participants are:
Prof. Grzegorz Dziamski -Poznań
Krzysztof Stanisławski -Warsaw
Monika Weychert Waluszko -Toruń (curator nominating for the contest in 2007)
Sebastian Dudzik -Toruń
Wacław Kuczma -director of the Municipal Gallery in Bydgoszcz

For the contest and the exhibition the artists were nominated by young curators active on the Polish art scene.
The exhibition is an excuse for starting a discussion on the condition of young Polish painting, and also on the potential of young Polish curators.
This exhibition takes place in Bydgoszcz in the context of the “New Tendencies in Polish Painting” project. Soon, the preparations for the second edition will start. Hence the necessity of tracking the achievements of the youngest generation of Polish artists and of analysing the values they present.
The current exhibition, prepared by Academy of Fine Arts and the BWA Gallery of Wrocław, needs asking several questions.
– Young curators -as the exhibition catalogue states -have fresh look, enthusiasm, but also youthful openness and the will to discover and explore new, different things. They were supposed to be (or maybe they are) the warrant of selecting interesting phenomena in Polish painting.
– Or maybe lack of distance to the emerging phenomena, the lack of experience, not quite conscious knowledge, superficiality and lack of reflection make it impossible to select the real art, for today, of course.
– Are they able to find, when it comes to painting, not only the technological solutions? Uniqueness, formal novelty, attempts to find it in the works of young artists should not be an indicator, a chance to rejuvenate an old medium. Maybe we keep forgetting about it? Maybe the young artists are forgetting about those possibilities. Are they, in turn, able to find their place in the space of rich achievements of their predecessors? Maybe the fear of lack of popularity, fame, attracts them towards safe, well-worn subjects and solutions. Using in relation to painting -or, actually, adjusting exhibitions of other media to the requirements of painting is the idea for artistic success. Oversimplifying of values, repetitions (conscious or not), unclear goals, maybe lack of knowledge and playing with old cards jazzed up with new media result in a boring, dull image. In spite of curators assurances of interesting phenomena. Maybe it glistens, but reminds of tombac! The artists lost in their form are saved, or maybe ruined, by the exquisite, oratorical works of curators.

Wacław Kuczma