BOOK AT THE MUSEUM. Meeting with Dr. Marek Bartelik about the book Nieoprowadzanie po wystawie (Not Guiding Through the Exhibition). Event as part of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Stefan Gierowski's birth.

The publication by Dr. Marek Bartelik accompanies the exhibition "Painting is a joy—even priming a canvas is a great celebration," prepared on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Stefan Gierowski, one of the most outstanding artists of post-war Polish art.

The exhibition was inaugurated with a guided tour by Dr. Marek Bartelik, and the book contains an essay by him inspired by the content of this tour. The text expands on the narrative of the exhibition, deepening the analysis of the artist's work and his six decades of consistent research into the relationships between light, color, and space.

 

The publication goes beyond an attempt to interpret the paintings, opening up space for reflection and drawing inspiration from the texts of philosophers and thinkers such as Gaston Bachelard, Martin Heidegger, Roland Barthes, Goethe, and Homer, whose ideas the author juxtaposes with Gierowski's work. These thoughts become a starting point for reflections on the presence, concealment, and perception of space. The author shows that Gierowski's paintings, although rooted in abstraction, remain at the same time uncovered and hidden, visible and invisible, combining precision of form with the depth of spiritual introspection. Painting becomes a space in which light and darkness negotiate their meaning. The book guides the reader through Stefan Gierowski's work not chronologically, but through associations and digressions. Bartelik describes selected paintings—from mesmerizing blue planes to subtle green compositions—and juxtaposes them with his own memories, travels, and reflections, including those about Greece, and in particular the island of Aegina.

 

THE MEETING WILL BE ATTENDED BY:

 

Marek Bartelik – historian and art critic, curator and poet, living in New York. He has lectured at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, among others, and has also been a visiting professor at Tokyo University of the Arts, MIT, and Yale University. He is the author of numerous books, including On the Polishness of Contemporary Polish Art (2008) and GDR/DDR: Contemporary German Painting from Portuguese Collections (2008). Bartelik has curated museum exhibitions of Mark Rothko, Adja Yunkers, and Anna Bella Geiger, among others, and served as president of AICA-USA (2008) and 15th president of AICA International (International Association of Art Critics). He is a long-time contributor to Artforum International and has written various articles on art for publications such as Art in America, ArtNews, The Brooklyn Rail, Gazeta Wyborcza, and SZUM.