Biennale of Spatial Forms in Elbląg
Biennale of Spatial Forms in Elbląg (Biennale Form Przestrzennych w Elblągu) was a bi-annual art exhibition organized by state-owned Zakłady Mechaniczne Zamech in Elbląg (Polish People's Republic) between 1965 and 1973. Described as the largest "experiment combining art and industry in Poland," the biennale had five editions, with only the first two dedicated primarily to sculpture and spatial forms.[1][2]
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History
Initiated by the artist Gerard Kwiatkowski, a founder of the EL Gallery, the premise of the biennale relied on close collaboration between local craftsmen and contemporary artists.[3] It its attempts to bring artists and workers together and to escape the confines of museum walls, the Elbląg Biennale has been described as an example of performed "collective labor" and compared to the activities of Polish Constructivist artists in Poland during the 1920s and 1930s.[4][5]
Throughout its history, the biennale showed work by numerous prominent Polish and international artists, including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jan Berdyszak, Henryk Berlewi, Marian Bogusz, Włodzimierz Borowski, Zbigniew Dłubak, Tihamér Gyarmathy, Oskar Hansen, Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz, Edward Krasiński, Jadwiga Maziarska, Ewa Partum, Henryk Stażewski and Magdalena Więcek-Wnuk.[2]
References
- Denisiuk, Jarosław (2001). Od laboratorium sztuki do centrum sztuki: galeria EL w latach 1961-2002 (in Polish). Zbyszek Opalewski, Sławomir Demkowicz-Dobrzański (contributors). Elbląg: Centrum Sztuki Galeria EL. ISBN 83-913474-5-1.
- Błotnicka-Mazur, Elżbieta (27 December 2019). "The Image of Art between Ideology and Modernity. Elblag Biennales of Spatial Forms in 1960s Poland". ARTis ON. Lisbon: University of Lisbon (9): 97–106. ISSN 2183-7082.
- Baraniewski, Waldemar (2017). "The Biennale of Spatial Forms in Elbląg. Between Form and Structure". The other Trans-Atlantic: Kinetic and Op art in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Marta Dziewańska, Abigail Winograd, Dieter Roelstraete (editors). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 199–222. ISBN 978-83-64177-42-2.
- Moskalewicz, Magdalena (2019). "Formula and Factory". In Berger, Christian (ed.). Conceptualism and Materiality: Matters of Art and Politics. Leiden: Brill. p. 110. ISBN 90-04-40464-3.
- "40-lecie 1. Biennale Form Przestrzennych w Elblągu". Culture.pl (in Polish). Warsaw: Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Retrieved 2023-02-20.
Further reading
- Błotnicka-Mazur, Elżbieta. "The Taming of Space in Recovered Territories. The Participatory Aspects of Biennale of Spatial Forms in Elbląg and Visual Arts Symposium Wrocław ’70." Art Inquiry, [s. l.], v. 20, p. 133–157, 2018. DOI 10.26485/AI/2018/20/9.