Jubilee edition of the Refugees Welcome Art Auction

It started five years ago with a spontaneous art auction in the garden of a Warsaw restaurant, organized by a group of individuals helping refugees living in the Polish capital. Now the Refugees Welcome Art Auction is celebrating a jubilee. The auction will be held for the 5th time on 20th June, marking World Refugee Day 2021. It has gained the support of 35 outstanding artists from Poland and abroad.  

Bidding in the auction is open to all persons interested in providing aid and in collecting contemporary art. The organizers are the Ocalenie Foundation, which has been assisting foreigners for over 20 years, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, and Friends of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. The auction proceeds in each case are earmarked for support of refugees living in Poland.

“Due to the prolonged pandemic, we observe with concern the growing needs of the people we help every day: migrants and refugees,” said Piotr Bystrianin, president of the Ocalenie Foundation. “We have a difficult year behind us. Over 2,300 people received material, psychological and legal support from the Ocalenie Foundation. Nearly 1,000 people, half of them children, received aid in kind, including food aid. Before the pandemic we hardly distributed any food, as there was no need.”

The Refugees Welcome Art Auction 2021 is a charity event founded on solidarity, and is made possible thanks to the support of the artists who donate their works for auction. In previous years bidders could acquire works by such artists as Miriam Cahn, Tadeusz Rolke, Joanna Rajkowska and Rafał Milach. The 5th edition of the Refugees Welcome Art Auction has gained the support of 35 Polish and foreign artists.

According to Jagna Lewandowska, curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw: “An outstanding international group of artists have confirmed their participation in this year’s jubilee edition of the auction. Forced by the pandemic to disperse around the world, these artists continue to create intensively, but they also find room to help others.”
The organizers expect a broad response not only from art collectors, but from all persons who by bidding on the works provided by the artists can show their support for refugees living in Poland. Among other ways, this can be done through the Friends of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

As Michał Borowik and Helena Czernecka from the Friends of the Museum said, “We are proud that as members of the board of the Friends of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, for several years we have been able to support refugees by participating in the Ocalenie Foundation auction, featuring outstanding works that are hard to access apart from this event.”

The proceeds raised during the auction will support two programmes of the Ocalenie Foundation: Refugees Welcome Polska and the Help Centre for Foreigners. Refugees Welcome Polska links persons in a refugee situation with residents of Warsaw who can provide them a room in their own home. This is the first step toward successful integration. Meanwhile, the Help Centre for Foreigners, employing persons from six different countries, assists foreigners in finding work and an apartment, offers legal and psychological aid, and conducts Polish language courses. Since the start of the pandemic, the centre has operated a helpline in nine languages, providing information about the epidemiological situation and current restrictions.

Last year the Refugees Welcome Art Auction collected a record PLN 250,000, enough to cover the entire annual cost of the Refugees Welcome Polska programme and a portion of the budget of the Help Centre for Foreigners.

The auction will be held on Sunday, 20 June 2021 online. It will be preceded by an exhibition of the works to be auctioned at the Museum on Pańska Street (Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, ul. Pańska 3) on 15–19 June.

Artists whose works can be bid on during the auction:

Mirosław Bałka, Tomek Baran, Zuzanna Bartoszek, Karolina Bielawska, Agata Bogacka, Rafał Bujnowski, Izabela Chamczyk, Tatjana Dannenberg, Edward Dwurnik, Jarosław Fliciński, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Edi Hila, Karolina Jabłońska, Nikita Kadan, Ida Karkoszka, Tomek Kręcicki, Maja Krysiak, Agata Kubis, Kamil Kukla, Agata Kus, KwieKulik, Maria Loboda, Piotr Łakomy, Krzysztof Maniak, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Mikołaj Moskal, Jan Możdżyński, Paweł Olszczyński, Anna Orłowska, Agnieszka Polska, Zbigniew Rogalski, Janek Simon, Mikołaj Sobczak, Paulina Stasik, Joanna Woś

5th Refugees Welcome Art Auction
20 June 2021
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Contact:
● Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw:
Józefina Bartyzel, communications, jozefina.bartyzel@artmuseum.pl, +48 695 492 970
Jagna Lewandowska, curator, jagna.lewandowska@artmuseum.pl
● Friends of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw – Maria Prokesz, towarzystwo@artmuseum.pl
● Ocalenie Foundation – Karolina Szymańska, karolina.szymanska@ocalenie.org.pl