Meeting with the creators of the exhibition “Hommage à Jan Buck (III): TAMED”

We invite you to watch a photo-report from the meeting with the creators of the exhibition "Hommage à Jan Buck (III): OSWOJENI" , which took place on 30 November 2023 at the Arsenal in Wrocław.

 It crowned the second day of the international research symposium "Sorbian painter Jan Buck – Wrocław contexts".

The event was organised under the scientific direction of Ph.D. Lidia Głuchowska from the Institute of Visual Arts, University of Zielona Góra in close cooperation with the Director of the Wrocław Saxon Office hosting the session, Ms Anna Leniart. Partners of the “Hommage à Jan Buck” project are further the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (Ph.D. Anita Wincencjusz-Patyna), the University of Wrocław (Ph.D. Sylwia Świsłocka-Karwot), and the City Museum of Wrocław, the Sorbian Museum in Budyšin/Bautzen, and the Contemporary Museum Wrocław.

The meeting was attended, among others, by numerous guests from Upper and Lower Lusatia, Saxony and other parts of Germany, including the German Viceconsul in Wrocław – Kerstin Nielsen – and the head of the Kunstfonds at the State Art Collections in Dresden – Silke Wagler, representatives of the Polish-Sorbian Society in Wrocław, as well as a large delegation of students from the Institute of Visual Arts at the University of Zielona Góra.

Those gathered were welcomed by the exhibition's curatorial team - the scientific director of the "Hommage à Jan Buck" project and substantive organiser of the symposium – Ph.D. Lidia Głuchowska, the curator of the City Museum of Wrocław – Magdalena Szmida-Półbratek, as well as Prof. Radosław Czarkowski – responsible for the concept and arrangement, and Patrycja Sikora, the manager of the Exhibition Production Department of the Wrocław Academy, who supported him in logistical tasks.

Prof. Czarkowski explained the meaning of the exhibition’s subtitle in the context of previous exhibitions in Lusatia, with other subtitles – at the museum Energiowa Fabrika Hórnikecy/Energiefabrik Knappenrode (7.10.2022–26.02.2023): WE LIVED TOMORROW and at the Old Sailing Linen Factory/Alte Segeltuchfabrik in Chóśebuz/Cottbus (2.06.–28.08.2023): WE HAVE SEEN THE PLACE. The following exhibition “Hommage à Jan Buck (IV): EVERYWHERE – NOWHERE – HOME”, currently in preparation, will open on 2.02.2024 at the Lubuskie Museum in Zielona Góra. Prof. Czarkowski drew attention to the fact that for each of the of these exhibitions, their participants specially prepare new works in response to the subtitle of each edition of the exhibition series. Patrycja Sikora emphasised that the current exhibition at the Arsenal for the first time on such a scale brings together two artistic communities from the Polish Western Territories. Magdalena Szmida-Półbratek admitted that as curator of the Museum of the City Museum of Wrocław in her many years of work, this is the first time she has experienced an exhibition created by an outside team with such a successful arrangement.

In conclusion, Dr. Lidia Głuchowska pointed out the relevance of including a series of exhibitions of contemporary artists from the Lubuskie and Lower Silesia regions – i.e. partly from the former Sorbian area – to the “Hommage à Jan Buck” project. The impulse for it was the preparation of a catalogue and the series of retrospective exhibitions of the most eminent reformer of Poland’s West Slavic neighbours living under the administration of Saxony and Brandenburg. While Polish Sorbian studies – in the fields of history, ethnology, ethnography or linguistics – are highly advanced, very little is known about the history of Polish-Sorbian artistic relationships. Hence they require special promotion and thus the activation of  various circles of public. The historical and contemporary perspectives, if only in relation to the history of the Wrocław Academy, complement each other, which demonstrates the strength of the of the current project. For this reason, its scientific director thanked the artists involved in the current exhibition at the Arsenal for including a very broad context of references to the issue ofTAMING – of the places, people, the past....Among other things, she found valuable the attempts to get to the heart of the project, i.e. the artistic investigations in the field of memory cultures or herstory, concerning the archaeology of the “Recovered Lands”, national minorities (more specifically, not only the Sorbs, for example, but also the Lemkos), as well as the history of Lusatia, and analogies between the issues of anthropogenic transformation/devastation of the landscape on both sides of the German-Polish border.

After a curatorial introduction in the lobby of the Arsenal, which is one of the branches of the City Museum of Wrocław, the meeting with the creators of the exhibition “Hommage à Jan Buck (III): TAMEDI” was crowned by a festive banquet in two exhibition halls. It provided an opportunity to talk to the artists about their works and to strengthen the inter-institutional contacts established during the “Hommage à Jan Buck” project as a basis for further cooperation.

You are cordially invited to visit the exhibition at the Arsenal, which is still open until 2023/2024, as well as the next exhibition in the series described – in Zielona Góra.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Saxon Office for its generous support, which provided our event with a dignified setting conducive to the exchange of ideas and impressions.