The Art of observing Art
The Józef Chełmoński State High School of Fine Arts in Nałęczów
The aim of the project was to confront young creators with experienced artists. The implementation began in September 2023. Lead teacher Paweł Pomorski, a teacher of artistic furniture and wood toy design, invited a team of eight people from grades 3, 4 and 5 to search for the CREDO of artists working in Nałęczów in the 1970s.
The young artists had a unique opportunity to visit the studios of their masters, where they could hold and record conversations. The students were introduced to the works of Piotr Kmieć, a multidisciplinary artist, Henryk Sapko, a designer and maker of applied art, Stanisław Strzyżyński, a late sculptor, and his son Zbigniew Strzyżyński, a painter, and Łukasz Głowacki, a painter and performer. Prior to each visit, the project participants would learn about the respective artist’s biography and achievements. Then, after the visits, they exchanged observations, shared impressions and drew conclusions, thus developing their perceptions and expanding their knowledge about contemporary art. They also identified common themes that had inspired the artists’ work.
Once the visits were completed, the project team began the conceptual work phase – sketching out ideas and forms that the students would like to put into shape. Each participant will be the creator of an individual object, made of wicker on a metal frame. Ultimately, the individual objects will be arranged into a single installation, to be presented in the space of the Nałęczów Park, while the projects documenting the stages of the work’s creation – in the Small Gallery of the State Secondary School of Fine Arts (SSSFA).
We present a report on the Nałęczów SSSFA students’ visits to Nałęczów artists: Piotr Kmieć, Henryk Sapko, Zbigniew Strzyżyński and Łukasz Głowacki. The meetings were held as part of the project implementation. The students learnt from their masters about the tendencies that had prevailed in the art of the Nałęczów artists and, in response, gave an outlook on the art of today’s youth.
Operating in their “own backyard”, the young people analysed and reported on the motifs that permeated the creative process of artists from the 1970s and 1990s and expressed a common motif in their own creative process. They became acquainted with the Nałęczów artistic community and its history, and made visits to artists’ studios. The students learnt about the artistic means that had been employed by the Masters and created pubic space objects using traditional methods.
Photo: 1976 sculpture titled “Virgins of Nałęczów” located in the Nałęczów Park.
On 30 September, we had the honour of visiting the Small Gallery of the State Secondary School of Fine Arts to see the project finale. The young people of the Nałęczów SSSFA, led by Paweł Pomorski, a teacher from the artistic furniture and wood toy design studio, answered the competition question by delivering an artistic installation consisting of monumental spatial objects made of wicker.
Young artists: Marlena Baca, Agata Gąska, Agata Gutek, Natalia Kamaszewska, Patryk Kwapiński, Zosia Mikowska, Zosia Prokopowicz, Magdalena Szkutnik, through project-based teamwork, came up with a common creative motif and made their own, formally-distinctive, sculptures.
In this way, the students accomplished the goal set at the beginning of their journey, i.e. to have the objects – whose ultimate display location is the Spa Park in Nałęczów – appear as a dialogue with the sculptures created during the 1976 national sculpture plein-air workshop by recognised artists from the Nałęczów artistic circle. Through this juxtaposition, the young people answer the competition question of what used to be new in the art of the past and what is new now, in their art!
In developing their own creative motif as the project progressed, the young people drew on the artistic achievements of their mentors. They met in the artists’ studios, talked, learnt about their inspirations and passion, and looked at and analysed their works in depth. The project enriched the young people with knowledge and experience and gave them an opportunity to experiment. For some of them it was an encounter with completely new material, for some – a shift from a different path they had intended to follow, and for others – a discovery of themselves in a new situation and creative relationship. Each of them individually took out from the project something different for themselves.
As the Foundation, we are proud to have been able to help you through the “Wena” Grant Program.
From 28 October to 28 November, the “Art of observing art” exhibition was presented at the Starak Family Foundation’s "Wena" Gallery in Warsaw.
We present a spot from the exhibition opening, directed by Magda Matwijow.
Works by students of the Józef Chełmoński State High School of Fine Arts in Nałęczów: Marlena Baca, Agata Gąska, Agata Gutek, Natalia Kamaszewska, Patryk Kwapiński, Zosia Mikowska, Zosa Prokopowicz, Magdalena Szkutnik - were displayed in a dialogue with the works of the masters, the artists of Nałewczów: Stanisław and Zbigniew Strzyżyński, Henryk Sapko, Piotr Kmieć and Łukasz Głowacki.
The exhibition was very popular with the public.
While dismantling the exhibition, we set up a display in the patio spaces. In this way, a semblance of the target display of the works in the Spa Park in Nałęczów was created, which will symbolically embrace the tradition of the 1970s national plein-air events with the participation of renowned Nałęczów artists. See how the objects beautifully correspond with nature and contemporary architecture.
LEAD TEACHER
Paweł Pomorski – teacher in charge of the school’s artistic furniture and wood toy design studios, active artist, industrial design creator, founder of Studio MALAFOR http://malafor.co, curator of exhibitions.
