People

Chochołów, Sławoszyno, Chęciny, Celejów — the exhibition takes place far from art centres, and its protagonists are not artists but the titular People — residents of Polish villages and small towns. The narrative unfolds over three decades, from the 1960s to the early 1990s. During that time, independently of each other and outside the framework of official artistic policy, Edward Dwurnik and Zofia Rydet embarked on their own unique, personal journeys deep into the country.

Their goal was to encounter the people living there — to talk to them and document their lives: portraits set against their homes and daily activities. The practice of both artists took on an unusual character — empathetic and filled with existential emotion, yet also a pursuit of unmediated truth within the reality of systemic social engineering and political oppression.

Contrary to official slogans of class advancement, Dwurnik and Rydet — the son of a locksmith and the daughter of a lawyer — created an empowered, humanistic image of Polish society, woven from individual stories, names, and faces.

The exhibition, for the first time on such a scale, brings together the paintings, drawings, and photographs of these two key figures of Polish art of the second half of the 20th century into a cohesive narrative, revealing the intuitive kinship of their interests and their uncompromising passion for humanising art.

To extend these two historical bodies of work — and in belief of their deep relevance today — we have invited Paweł Althamer, an artist who for years has been developing his own vision of spiritual social sculpture.