The exhibition will present the achievements of the artists: Bogdan Chmielewski, Witold Chmielewski, Wiesław Smużny, whose actions consistently implemented since the 1970s have become a permanent part of the history of Polish art.
Honorary patronage: Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie District, Mr. Piotr Całbecki, and President of Bydgoszcz, Mr. Rafał Bruski.
The exhibition was inspired by the 40th anniversary of the beginning of “Action Lucim” last year. (Lucim ‒ a village in the Kujawsko-Pomorskie District, in the Bydgoszcz County). The action started on 26 September 1977, the finale took place on 20 August 1978, and it was created by the artists forming the Grupa Działania: Bogdan Chmielewski, Witold Chmielewski, Wiesław Smużny, Andrzej Maziec (1948–2015), Stanisław Wasilewski. It was their second cooperation. The first one was “Action Journey” from 1975, i.e. an action in one of the train carriages on the Bydgoszcz‒Kraków route, as well as at the railway stations in Kraków, Cieszyn and Bydgoszcz. In 1981 the Grupa Działania was formally dissolved ‒ Andrzej Maziec and Stanisław Wasilewski withdrew. The other three artists defined themselves as Grupa 111 in 1989. In 1997, Witold Chmielewski excluded himself from the Lucim activities Bogdan Chmielewski and Wiesław Smużny still link their artistic activities with Lucim.
“Grupa Działania, and later Grupa 111, undertook activities of a very complex nature with the inhabitants of Lucim: mystic-religious, artistic, animation and cultural-creative, social and research. Certainly, the active presence of artists in Lucim is part of the logic of bringing anthropology and art closer together at the end of the 20th century.” [Monika Weychert-Waluszko, 2016].
The archives, objects and film materials collected at the exhibition will come from the collection of the Leon Wyczółkowski Regional Museum in Bydgoszcz, from the Centre for Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń, and from the archives of the artists and the Polish Public Television (TVP).
Curators: Elżbieta Kantorek / Wojciech Luchowski (arrangement)
Beginning 11.09.2018 6pm
End 21.10.2018

ACCOMPANYING EVENTS:
12.09.2018 (Wednesday), from 10.30am till 5pm
conference presenting artistic activities of Bogdan Chmielewski, Witold Chmielewski, Wiesław Smużny.
Hall in the building of the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz, 20 Gdańska Street, 85-006 Bydgoszcz
opening of the conference ‒ Karolina Leśnik Director of the bwa City Gallery in Bydgoszcz (10.30am)
Presentations:
‒ Katarzyna Sędek (11am)
The Lucim year lasted almost two years
(screening of the “Polish Year” from 1993)
‒ Dr Olga Kwiatkowska (12pm)
Collage of memory – the image of artists from the perspective of the local community of Lucimi
‒ Prof. Wiesław Theiss (12.30pm)
Place– Memory – Education (Perspective of Lucim and Węgrów)
‒ Dr. Agnieszka Wołodźko (1pm)
Countercultural paradigm of participation and its current relevance
– Dr Katarzyna Niziołek (1.30pm)
Echoes of Lucim. The idea of social art and contemporary social and artistic practices
break: 2pm‒3pm
– Associate Professor Izabela Kowalczyk (3pm)
Grupa Działania and contextualism
– Hanna Strychalska (3.30pm)
Word on Bogdan Chmielewski’s Art
– Monika Weychert (4pm)
Grupa Działania / Grupa 111 in Lucim and Daniel Rycharski in Kurówek ‒ 1:1 actions?
‒ Associate Professor Zbigniew Benedyktowicz (4.30pm)
Lucim in “Konteksty”
Meetings with the authors in the building of the Municipal Gallery bwa:
18.09.2018, 6pm
Wiesław Smużny “Lucim Ecumenism – community of life and art”
25.09.2018, 6pm
Bogdan Chmielewski “Winter Sundial” and documentation
02.10.2018, 6pm
Witold Chmielewski „In Search of the Middle of the World”
Bogdan Chmielewski ‒ graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in 1970. Participant of 170 exhibitions and artistic events. Author of 230 interdisciplinary individual and team projects in Lucim between 1977 and 2018. He deals with actions, visual art activities, para-theatrical actions, happening, performance, installation, drawing, live images, text compositions. Member of Grupa 111-Lucim. Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.
Witold Chmielewski ‒ Visual artist and teacher, graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where, until 2018, he was a professor. He deals with artistic and social activities, inter-media and multimedia art, theatrical and television set design, and applied art. He is the author of the assumptions of ideological-artistic projects and artistic activities (such as Sub-Realism, New Folk Art, The Third Way, Sixth Dimension – sub-sacrum, In Search of the Middle of the World and New Icons). He writes critical texts about contemporary art and culture. He’s also an art curator and culture animator (among others, such exhibitions as Art of Fact in the bwa in Bydgoszcz and the project by the Foundation of Culture and Channel 2 of the Polish Public Television “Small Homelands – tradition for future”). He is an expert in art education and culture animation in local communities.
Wiesław Smużny ‒ Professor of the Visual Arts. Graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń ‒diploma in 1971. Work: 47 years of methodological and artistic teaching at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, and 7 years of drawing didactics in Kalisz (Faculty of Pedagogy and Arts of the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań). The author of 47 individual exhibitions and a participant of more than 171 group exhibitions in Poland and abroad. Since 1977, co-author and participant of 221 artistic actions and activities in Lucim. In his creative attitude open to experimenting in art and social and artistic life. Post-conceptual work in the programmed recording of “Magic of numbers” in 1972–1977. Creator of shaping artistic customs in the social space of Lucim and the urban environment ‒ a symbolic installation made of living flowers in rural and urban public spaces. Since 2001, he has been engaged as an author and within the community in the “Attachment to Lucim” activities.