Zachęta National Gallery of Art

curator: Agnieszka Morawińska
collaboration: Elżbieta Sobiecka
assistant curator: Julia Leopold
exhibition design: Małgorzata Sadowska-Sobczyk, Marek Sobczyk

The exhibition gathered in a single exhibition space the selected works of over 60 artists of different generations and different backgrounds, bearing testimony to the potential, diversity and changes occurring in the field of this once most valued of arts. The situation of painting has changed in the era of the invasion of mechanically reproduced images. Some artists continue defending the modernism-derived status of painting, others – already a majority – treat the legacy of styles and conventions as conceptual tools, refer to kitsch and use the effect of technical ineptness. With the status of the work of art changed, artists are eager to use the form of the cycle or series, show a predilection for very large or very small formats, introduce text, make quotes, reject the rectangular canvas and take their painting directly to the wall, creating ephemeral works that die with the end of the exhibition. Besides painters, the exhibition showed also artists expanding the notion of painting: performers, sticker artists and video artists whose projects refer to the situation of painting and the position of the painter in the 21st century.

The participating artists: Basia Banda, Kuba Bąkowski, Andrzej Bielawski, Cezary Bodzianowski, Agata Bogacka, Rafał Bujnowski, Tomasz Ciecierski, Ignacy Czwartos, Oskar Dawicki, Jan Dobkowski, Edward Dwurnik, Pola Dwurnik, Wojciech Fangor, Stanisław Fijałkowski, Jarosław Fliciński, Stefan Gierowski, Bożena Grzyb-Jarodzka, Łukasz Huculak, Piotr Janas, Paweł Jarodzki, Maria Kiesner, Łukasz Korolkiewicz, Tomasz Kozak, Dominik Lejman, Robert B. Lisek, Wojciech Łazarczyk, Marcin Maciejowski, Robert Maciejuk, Bartek Materka, Anna Mierzejewska, Jarosław Modzelewski, Marzanna Morozewicz, Anna Myca, noBrain (Monika Waraxa, Jakub Budzyński), Paulina Ołowska, Roman Opałka, Anna Ostoya, Włodzimierz Pawlak, Dorota Podlaska, Zbigniew Rogalski, Agnieszka Rzepka, Wilhelm Sasnal, Jadwiga Sawicka, Jacek Sempoliński, Krzysztof Skarbek, Marek Sobczyk, Michał Stachyra, Kamil Stańczak, Paweł Susid, Marek Szczęsny, Grzegorz Sztwiertnia, Małgorzata Szymankiewicz, Leon Tarasewicz, Jan Tarasin, Aleksandra Waliszewska, Krzysztof Wałaszek, Julita Wójcik, Iwona Zając, Włodzimierz Jan Zakrzewski, Karolina Zdunek, Jakub Julian Ziółkowski, Maria Zuba.