Contemporary art galleries
Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw
The Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle is located in a historic late
baroque castle in Ujazdów, in the district of Śródmieście, at 2 Jazdów Street. At present it
houses the Centre for Contemporary Art, the Castle Museum, and a cinema.
The castle, originally a 13th century stronghold of the Mazovian princes, was restored in the
1970s by Prof. Piotr Biegański. The Centre for Contemporary Art itself was established in
1895.
The Centre for Contemporary Art has not infrequently been the initiator of cooperation
in the realisation of works by unknown artists, fresh to the art world. In the 1990s, it was the
place where conditions were extremely favourable for the development of various directions
of contemporary art, as well as critical art. The Centre regularly exhibited leading local and
international artists, constantly expanded its art collection, and at the same time was the
publisher of the professional magazine "Obieg". In this way, the Centre for Contemporary Art
Ujazdowski Castle has activated artistic circles, leading to an unprecedented social
advancement of contemporary art.
The Gallery did not shy away from completely new formats either, such as a
pioneering artistic residency programme, the first of its kind in Poland. Cooperation with the
Centre has resulted in spectacular, widely discussed realisations in urban space, such as the
palm tree at the de Gaulle Roundabout in Warsaw, designed by Joanna Rajkowska.
Ujazdowski Castle hosts around 1500 events annually, being a place of creation, exhibition
and documentation of all disciplines of contemporary art. The Gallery presents the work of
local and foreign artists, and maintains contacts and active exchanges with significant art
centres outside Poland. The point of the Art Centre's programme is to show the process of
transformation of modern art, which is often a litmus test for current changes and cultural and
civilisational phenomena in the world.
In
2002, in the Ujazdowski Castle, in the renovated space of Gallery 2, a permanent exhibition
of International Contemporary Art was created, presenting works by five authors, such as
Magdalena Abakanowicz or Janusz Bałdyga.The Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski
Castle hosts exhibitions, art workshops, scholarship exchanges, contemporary music concerts,
visual theatre performances, experimental film screenings, video art shows and performances.
The Centre for Contemporary Art is also a perfect place for conferences, seminars,
promotional meetings and banquets. The varied and at the same time atmospheric interiors,
with their artistic connotations, including the historic cellars, the studio cinema or the castle
courtyard with cloisters, provide an extraordinary setting for all artistic events, temporary
exhibitions, conferences and other events devoted to modern art in the broad sense of the
term.
Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow MOCAK
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow MOCAK is the first museum in Poland
to have been designed and built with the exhibition of contemporary art in mind. It opened in
May 2011 in the buildings of Oskar Schindler's former factory.
The museum building was designed to blend in with the rolling landscape and not to stand
out, while at the same time paying homage to the past urban concepts of the place. The
designer Claudio Nardi has created an immersive, invisible volume that at the same time pays
respect to the site's past purpose. The distinctive architectural element is the shed roof, a relic
of the factory buildings that once existed there. It coherently joined the post-industrial halls
with the new building, which gave the complex architectural coherence and also referred to
the continuity of the history and purpose of the contemporary building.
The exhibition space was located around the buildings, which also made it possible to
use the space between the museum halls. This has created an irregular building with spacious
and highly varied exhibition spaces.
The southern wall, with the MOCAK logo, forms the start of a route through the exhibition
area, while at the same time being balanced, in its spaciousness and vastness, by the
neighbouring Schindler Factory Historical Museum.
From various perspectives, the Museum of Contemporary Art displays the
characteristics of a thoroughly modern building in which the unconventionality of form shines
through. It is a light, diffuse, luminous structure, easily blending into the architecture of the
existing buildings both aesthetically and functionally.
It is an amalgam of modernity and history, making interesting use of the
complementary nature of modern solutions and industrial surroundings. Its external
appearance corresponds perfectly with the industrial historical purpose of the interior.
In the inner square there are seating areas for museum visitors, which are reached by a long
inclined promenade. The building consists of two levels: ground floor and underground. The
main façade, located on the south side, is clad with a partial glazed wall to increase the energy
efficiency of the rooms during the autumn and winter seasons. The glazed façade gives the
building an attractive and modern appearance, and the intensive lighting used makes the
interior exhibition space more plastic.
A partition made of anthracite eternit is also a unifying element of the building, which
emphasises the interpenetration of the buildings. The austerity and industrial atmosphere of
the concrete plane of the partition becomes a common point between the complex of
exhibition pavilions inside and the passageways and street outside the museum.
The museum also has a storage area for the works located in close proximity to the south wall.
The huge open space created there, which gives monumentality to the building, serves as a
temporary parking area for vehicles transporting works of art. The ramp created in this way is
at the same time an entrance hall accessible from the main street.
The spacious rooms on the side of the south square, together with the entrance from
the promenade, form a kind of flexible pathway linked to the individual, naturally separated
spaces of the café, cloakroom, reception and media room.
MOCAK is active in the field of multiple forms of social activation connected with the
popularisation of various forms of contemporary art and culture, including painting, sculpture,
photography, visual arts, literature and music. The museum is a leader in organising
exhibitions, workshops and meetings with authors. A large part of the events organised are
educational projects that make it easier for enthusiasts and hobbyists to interact with various
forms of art, to get involved in creative activities and to discuss the relationship between art
and social life.
The Museum offers visitors two permanent exhibitions: The MOCAK Collection and
the Mieczysław Porębski Library, as well as numerous temporary exhibitions related to the
changing seasons. The MOCAK Collection comprises around 4000 works by 207 artists.
BWA Gallery of Contemporary Art in Wroclaw
Located in the centre of Wroclaw and designed in 1962, the gallery has a huge
exhibition space. The project was drawn up by the designer Maciej Malachowicz to
incorporate the ruins of the castle that had been spared. Currently, the entrance to the gallery
is a fragment of a salvaged corridor vault with historic columns.
The interior of the building allows many exhibitions to be shown at the same time, so
fifty exhibitions are held there annually. Awangarda presents contemporary Polish and world
art. Significant emphasis is placed on the promotion of contemporary European art, Polish art,
engaged art, video forms, photography and independent comics. At the same time, the
Gallery's activities include graduation exhibitions, meetings with artists, theoreticians and art
critics, as well as lectures and creative workshops.
Pompidou Centre in Paris
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Paris was created by President Georges
Pompidou, who ordered its construction in 1969 to put Paris on the world map of modern art.
The Pompidou Centre is an avant-garde building which boasts the most extensive collection
of modern and contemporary art in the world. The design of the museum itself is extremely
bold, innovative and controversial.
The Pompidou Centre gives the impression of being turned inside out, as the building
is surrounded by a mosaic of pipes. All installations were brought outside: electricity, water
supply, air conditioning, as well as communication paths, which were painted in various
colours, thus entangling the building with kilometres of installations. In addition, glazed
corridors and stairways are also located outside the building. The colours of the individual
pipes and installations signal their purpose: yellow for the electrical installation, blue for the
ventilation pipes, green for the hydraulic systems, red for the lifts and escalators. Because of
the exteriorisation treatment, the internal space of the building was optimised, obtaining an
unconventional and modernistic appearance.
The Pompidou Centre houses a museum with more than 100,000 exhibits of contemporary art,
which over twenty years has attracted 145 million visitors. Works of art are exhibited on two
levels, levels 4 and 5. Works from the period 1905-1960 are exhibited on level 5 and include
paintings or sculptures by artists such as Pollock, Matisse, Duchamp, Picasso, Kupka or Dali.
On level 4, works from 1960 -1990 and contemporary works by Warhol, Bacon and
Rotko, among others, are displayed. In addition to permanent exhibitions, temporary
exhibitions - about 25 a year - are also held here, and the art on display includes photography,
design, film and multimedia installations and graphics.
In addition to the exhibition area, the Pompidou Centre houses the largest, main, public
library in Paris, a theatre stage, a post office as well as 2 cinemas, a bookshop and a café.
BWA Gallery of Contemporary Art Bielsko-Biała
The BWA Bielsko Gallery is a place whose seat was erected on the remains of a
synagogue destroyed by the Germans at the beginning of the Second World War.
The modern art gallery, located in Bielsko-Biała at 3 Maja street in Dolny
Przedmieście, has existed in its contemporary version since 1975 as an independent institution
in the BWA network.
The BWA Bielska Gallery in Bielsko-Biała is a municipal art gallery, which promotes
the most interesting phenomena of contemporary art: painting, sculpture, graphics,
photography, performance and new media art. It shows and promotes contemporary art
through individual and group exhibitions of Polish and foreign artists, problem-based
exhibitions as well as by organizing, among others, international artistic residencies.
The Gallery's educational activities focus on workshops for children and young people
on various artistic techniques as well as lectures on the history of contemporary art and
meetings with contemporary artists. Since 1962 the Gallery has also organised the
National Painting Competition "Bielska Jesień".
The gallery also carries out publishing activities, publishing catalogues and books
about art, albums for art lovers, occasional publications. It publishes catalogues and
pamphlets and keeps records and artistic information. Additionally, jazz concerts are
organised there.
The gallery of contemporary art is situated in Bielsko-Biała, at 3 Maja Street, Dolny
Przedmieście.
The eastern elevation is seen from 3 Maja Street, while the northern elevation is situated on
Henryka Sienkiewicza Street. The western facade is located on Mickiewicza Street and the
building of the 'Banialuka' Puppet Theatre adjoins the wall of the BWA Gallery.
Development plan of the BWA Gallery Bielsko-Biała
The building is avant-garde and has its origins in the 1960s. The object departs from
any stylization and is characterized by visible minimalism. We can see modernist elements in
it, arranged by the architect Le Corbusier. The building is an abstract work in which steel,
glass and wood are the dominant materials.
The eastern elevation from 3 Maja Street presents a fragment of a curtain wall, while the
façade of the building is devoid of any load-bearing function as a thermal and functional
shield. It has a lightweight structure in the form of special aluminium profiles. The structure is
filled with sheets of transparent glass. On the eastern façade, the mural "It's a crowd" was
created in 2008. Murals also cover the Gallery on the north and west sides. They are inspired
by geometric forms, futurism and pop art.
The upper, tallest part of the building has a flat roof, which is a manifestation of modernity.
Wide windows let in a lot of light and are sometimes flush with the façade. The floor plans
have free plan characteristics, so the plan is not divided into closed rooms. The space is
defined by freely arranged planes and columns.
The BWA Gallery building is a three-storey building with one staircase, including two
exhibition halls, a club-café and offices. The building accommodates supply and exhaust
ventilation with air pre-conditioning.
Punta della Dogana in Italy
The Punta della Dogana contemporary art gallery is located in Dogana da Mar, Venice,
occupying a former maritime customs house converted for museum purposes. The site forms
an organisational unit with the Museum of Contemporary Art located in Palazzo Grassi. Both
galleries have been managed since 2005 by the French millionaire, entrepreneur and art
collector François Pinault.
The building was completed in 1682, designed by Giuseppe Benoni, and its contemporary
modernisation in 2007 was undertaken by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando. The building
itself is characterised by its triangular shape, with a tower on top topped by a statue of Atlas
holding a golden globe upon which is the statue of Fortune. Covering an area of almost 5,000
square metres, it houses nine halls that are currently used as exhibition space. It refers to the
triangular area of Venice where the Grand Canal meets the Giudecca Canal, and its collection
of buildings: Santa Maria della Salute, (hence the area is also known as Punta della Salute),
the Patriarchal Seminary of Venice, and Dogana da Mar at the triangle's tip.
In 2009, the site was reborn as a museum and contemporary art centre linked to
Palazzo Grassi, where works from the François Pinault Foundation are permanently on
display, alternating with temporary exhibitions presenting paintings, installations, sculptures,
videos and performance art and many temporary exhibitions with works of Adel Abdessemed,
Philippe Parreno, Bruce Nauman or Zenga Fanzhi.
Kunsthalle Wien - gallery of contemporary art in Vienna
Kunsthalle Wien is a contemporary art gallery located in MuseumsQuartier in the
centre of Vienna. Kunsthalle Wien is dedicated to international contemporary art and culture
and to discussions around culture.
It focuses on artistic positions that make the social context tangible and
encourages the audience to actively participate in contemplating art. Kunsthalle Wien stands
for new, experimental risks by seeing itself as a place of experimentation, constant action and
change, a place that develops innovative formats for presentation and communication.
The art gallery is open to all: it enables the interconnection of artistic practice and its
theoretical reflection and promotes an intensive investigation of current issues of everyday
life. As an urban institution it presents national and international contemporary art and
focuses on thematic group exhibitions and individual presentations by international artists.
With this approach, the gallery holds a special position among Vienna's cultural institutions.
Trzecie Oko - Photo Gallery in Cracow
Trzecie Oko Gallery of Photography is located in Krakow in the Kazimierz district. It
exhibits artistic photographs by talented Polish photographers and promotes photography art
enthusiasts and artists of the young generation who are interested in photography in an artistic
context.
The Third Eye Footography Gallery also houses the Leica Boutique, which is a unique
place on the city map. Visitors have the opportunity to learn about the history of Leica
cameras and the company's famous lenses, used by the most eminent master photographers. It
is also possible to buy models and equipment branded with this brand.
The Gallery also sells photographic accessories, collector's and artistic photographs of
high auction value, made by both domestic and foreign artists.
Trzeciecie Oko also offers a wide range of decorative photography of various subjects.
The Photographer's Gallery in London
The Photographer's Gallery is the leading public independent photography gallery in
the UK, located in the London Borough of Soho on Ramilies Street, dedicated exclusively to
photography. It is London's largest gallery exhibiting works in photography. Founded in 1971
in Covent Garden, it moved to a new post-industrial building forty years later and was
redeveloped and reopened to visitors in 2012.
Designed by architects O'Donell and Tuomey, the building houses three exhibition
spaces, an education studio, media room, bookshop and café.
The Photographer's Gallery showcases all types of photographic art: from domestic,
photojournalistic, fashion photography to modern art. Its aim is to present the works of the
world's best photographers, which is why Juergen Teller, Taryn Simon, Andreas Gursky and
Robert Cap are among the names present there. Its main motto is to be a driving force in the
debate on the role of the photographic message in shaping social attitudes and the artistic
dimension of this field of art.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is a modern art museum located on 53rd Street
between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
It is widely regarded as one of the world's largest and most significant museums of
modern art, with a vital role in the development and collection of contemporary art.
MoMA's collection includes works of architecture and design, drawing, painting,
sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated books and artist's books, video, and electronic
media, as well as works of modern and contemporary art.
More than 300,000 books and exhibition catalogs, more than 1,000 magazine publications,
and more than 40,000 files of ephemera regarding specific artists and organizations are
housed in the MoMA Library.
Primary source material relating to the history of modern and contemporary art may be
found in the archives.
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao
The Guggenheim Museum is a contemporary art museum in Bilbao, Spain, housed in a Frank
O. Gehry-designed structure. The deconstructivist building by Gehry measures 24,000 m2.
Titanium sheet and glass, among other materials, are used to create it. It features a dynamic
shape with twisted components, wavy lines, and fluid shapes.This sort of structure was
designed using the CATIA computer software, which is often used in the aerospace industry.
The structure has a central atrium around which the three display floors are organized.
It is one of Spain's largest museums. The display space at the museum is approximately
11,000 m2. Eduardo Chillida, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, Francesco Clemente, Mark
Rothko, Anselm Kiefer and Jenny Holzer, Robert Rauschenberg, and Richard Serra are
among the artists represented.
The exhibitions change frequently; the museum generally hosts thematic exhibitions, centered
for example on specific country art. Traditional paintings and sculptures are a minority
compared to installations and electronic forms.
