The Andrzej Wróblewski Foundation joins CIMAM as a Major Patron

The Andrzej Wróblewski Foundation has become a Major Patron of CIMAM in 2024.

The Andrzej Wróblewski Foundation (Fundacja Andrzeja Wróblewskiego), was registered on February 27, 2012.

Founders: Marta Wróblewska, Krystyna Łysik, dr Magdalena Ziółkowska, Wojciech Grzybała.
The Board: Wojciech Grzybała (President), dr Magdalena Ziółkowska (Vice-President)

What is the main mission of the Andrzej Wróblewski Foundation?

The foundation’s aim is to work with the artist’s oeuvre in the broadest sense. We understand our role as being research focused, gathering knowledge about Wróblewski’s life and practice in various fields. We also initiate and conduct conservation projects, disseminate the results of our work and share it with scholars, curators, critics, artists. It is similarly important to contextualize his exceptional work in different times and geographic perspectives.

What is the foundation’s role in the preservation and promotion of contemporary Polish art both in Poland and abroad?

As a foundation and the estate of a single artist—Andrzej Wróblewski (1927–57)—we concentrate on his oeuvre. Of course, in our curatorial practice we acknowledge his influence on later generations of Polish postwar artists.

The exhibition “Andrzej Wróblewski. In the First Person” is one of the Collateral Events of the 60th Venice Art Biennale. Can you tell us more about this exhibition and how it can be visited?

This exhibition, on display at the Procuratie Vecchia, San Marco Square in Venice, is curated by Ania Muszynska and her team, and is organized by the Starak Foundation. It presents the majority of Wróblewski’s work owned by Jerzy and Anna Starak, the most important private collection of the artist’s paintings and works on paper. For many years, we have collaborated closely with the Starak Foundation to ensure the best standards for making exhibitions. For this presentation we provided support in the form of loans and facilitating a conservation project for large works on paper, a very specific group of drawings and paintings made by the artist on large pieces of packaging paper. Within the exhibition itself we have welcomed many international guests such as critics and curators. The show is open according to the same schedule as all Collateral Events.

What future initiatives or projects does the foundation have to further promote and contextualize the knowledge of Andrzej Wróblewski’s life and work?

In April this year, during the preview of Venice Biennale, our newest monograph “Andrzej Wróblewski. Exhibiting” was released. It is dedicated to the history of Wróblewski’s exhibitions and curatorial strategies that defined the reception of his work for decades. In over 780-pages readers will find a range of essays—close-readings of individual works from Wróblewski’s oeuvre, selected by philosophers, writers, academics, and curators, including Noit Banai, Dieter Roelstraete, Martin Waldmeier, and Ruth Noack. Another section of the publication gives conservation analysis, a complete study and summary of many recently discovered large-format paper works. Moreover, we also include previously unknown archival material, as well as documentation from our twelve years of work as a foundation. Another current project for the foundation is the exhibition “The Tatras. Wróblewski, Karłowicz, Wyczółkowski,” which opened at the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu in Romania and continues until September 1, 2024. Our protagonists’ fates crossed on the mountain trails of the tallest peaks of the Carpathians. Wyczółkowski’s work is represented by prints from his most famous series, Eight Aquatints from 1906 (including unique test prints), alongside several dozen black-and-white photographs by Mieczysław Karłowicz, in which peaks, ridges, the banks of lakes, and patches of snow make an expressive showing. The largest group is Andrzej Wróblewski’s ink drawings from the Tatra series (most of them created in 1952–53), placed in dialogue with the artist’s earlier abstract works.

How does the foundation collaborate with other entities that share similar goals in the field of contemporary art?

Other foundations working with and representing individual artists or their estates are the most interesting examples for us to look at, for instance their standards of archiving, knowledge exchange about the strategies of working with an artist’s heritage and the promotion of this. For some years we have been particularly interested in institutions involved in preparing catalogues raisonnés of their artist’s work. We are now members of The International Catalogue Raisonné Association in London, part of the platform for sharing experience and standards of this very specific type of publication.

What educational programs or activities does the foundation offer to promote appreciation and understanding of the visual arts among different communities?

Education is—in our case—always related to exhibitions. It is an essential element within our projects, developed by the partners we work with such as a museum’s education department. We very much trust and rely on their experience of working with local communities.

How does the foundation contemplate sustainability in its practices and projects related to contemporary art?

As a small, non-governmental organization, we simply try to practice a sustainable approach in all aspects of our work. We try to ensure the same responsible attitude to sustainability with all our partners and collaborators.

What motivated you to become a Major Patron of CIMAM and how do you expect this partnership to benefit your mission and vision?

We strongly believe that CIMAM is a unique type of worldwide organization that brings together professionals in the field of modern and contemporary art collections. Its operational policy and wide range of focus is interesting to us in a variety of ways— networking and sharing, learning and developing for the future, especially for an organization of such scale as ours. It is a platform for creating partnerships and institutional alliances that will allow us to grow, in the sense of making visible what we do and how we might think about art today.

What specific CIMAM programs are you most interested in and how do you plan to participate in them?

Taking into consideration our institution’s DNA, our scale and concern with one artist’s oeuvre, we are very much interested in programs related to the uses of history and tradition. We want to look for the new ways of working with Wróblewski’s practice, and more generally with historic monographic work by questioning used formats and developing new ones.