Stanisław Fijałkowski “A Young Man Plans a Voyage”

Green Point Projects

poster for Stanisław Fijałkowski “A Young Man Plans a Voyage”

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Green Point Projects, a new cultural initiative in Brooklyn located in a repurposed warehouse in an industrial part of Greenpoint are pleased to announce “Stanisław Fijałkowski: A Young Man Plans a Voyage”, an exhibition curated by Marek Bartelik, President of AICA International, opening May 10, 2017 at GPP, on view till June 30. (27 Gem St. on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint in New York).

The inaugural exhibition examines the work of ninety-five years old Polish artist Stanislaw Fijalkowski.

As curator of the exhibition Marek Bartelik says: “I perceive Fijałkowski as one of the most ‘discrete’ and quiet Polish artists today. I know very few artists who have managed to retain such great calmness in art—and to express much with so little: a few lines and a few colors, an allusion to a theme or a motif, a trace, a void. As the artist, has said in an interview: his art is about a search for a minimum that is just enough to reveal the essential, in color, line, and in subject. Hence, no need for dramatic gestures in the name of supreme geometry, figuration, or any other form of ideology. No aggressive criticality, artistic or political. “Lyrical abstraction” has been a term often applied to this type of painting, and, indeed, Fijałkowski’s works possess artistic, and poetic, qualities that have been associated with that tendency in art. His lyricism is very personal though: always subtle, “fogged”, and yet direct. He puts his hand on the pulse of time and makes art that carries a metaphysical beat to nourish our daily existence.”

The artist was born in 1922 in Zdołbunów in the Volhynia region (present Ukraine) and currently lives and works in Łódź, Poland. Between 1947-51, Fijałkowski studied painting and graphic arts with the renowned Constructivist Władysław Strzemiński, among others, at the State Art College in Łódź. In around 1960, he began developing his personal approach to painting, a combination of lyrical abstraction and constructivism, which he has continuously been pursuing ever since. His works are included in the collections of: MoMA, New York; Tate Gallery, London; Trietriakov Gallery, Moscow, and the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź among others as well as in numerous private collections in Poland and abroad.

This exhibition, which spans the period between the early 1950s and 2017, is this artist’s first individual show in the United States and is accompanied by a full-size catalog.

Polish painter and printmaker, born in Zdołbunów (today Ukraine) in 1922. Between 1946 and 1951, Fijałkowski studied art at the State Art Academy (PWSSP) in Łódź, having the renowned Constructivist Władysław Strzemiński among his teachers. The artist taught at his alma matter until 1993.

During the early stages of his career, Fijałkowski was influenced by surrealism and constructivism. He was a great admirer of Wassily Kandinsly and Kazimir Malevich, and translated into Polish Kandinsky’s Punkt und Linie zu Fläche (Point and Line to Plane) and Űber das Geistige in der Kunst (On the Spiritual in Art), as well as Kazimir Malevich’s The World as Objectlessness. By the early 1960s he developed a highly unique painterly language based on an introspective approach to constructivism, minimalism, and lyrical abstraction, to which he has been loyal to these days.

The artist represented Poland at the biennales in São Paulo (1969) and Venice (1972). In 1977, he received the Cyprian Kamil Norwid Art Criticism Award; in 1990, he was awarded the prestigious Jan Cybis Prize for his art. He has also received awards at the Graphic Art Biennale in Kraków (1968 and 1970), the Mostra Internazionale di Bianco e Nero in Lugano (1972), and the Graphic Art Biennale in Lubliana (1977). To celebrate his 80th birthday, the National Museum in Poznań mounted his retrospective in 2003, which travelled to the Zachęta National Gallery in Warsaw and the National Museum in Wrocław.

Fijałkowski served as chairman of the Polish section of the XYLON International (Society of Wood-Engravers) and was its international vice-president. Between 1974 and 1979 he was the vice-president of the Polish section of AIAP (the International Association of Art). He has been a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences in Salzburg and the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Fine Arts of Belgium.

His works are included in the collections of: MoMA, New York; Albertina, Vienna; Tate Gallery, London; Trietriakov Gallery, Moscow; Kunstmuseum, Bochum; the national museums in Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, Wrocław, Gdańsk and Szczecin; and the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź; as well as numerous private collections in Poland and abroad.

The artist lives and works in Łódź, Poland.

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Schedule

from May 11, 2017 to June 30, 2017

Opening Reception on 2017-05-10 from 19:00 to 21:00

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