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.

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.

The National Gallery of Art in Lithuania holds a collection of artworks from the 20th century. The collection includes paintings, sculptures and prints by artists who worked in Soviet Lithuania, as well as by artists who lived abroad. During the postwar period, the style of Socialist Realism was imposed on artists who remained in Lithuania. From the 1960s onwards, the main goals of Lithuanian artists were to preserve the national identity and continue the modernist tradition. With no active or direct links with Western art, artists developed individual versions of Realism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Abstraction, and other tendencies in modern art. Some of these works can be ascribed to the cultural opposition.