September 15, 2021
“Bestiariusz” is a hot and wild position on the publishing market, which arose as a result of the collaboration of an indomitable writer with a rebellious artist, namely Michał Komar and Paweł Kowalewski. This sublime creative duo created a book of spicy fairy tales for adults, drawing ideas straight from the bosom of nature. Kowalewski's feisty dash and Komar's cut pen entertain and teach the reader, while transporting him to the magical world of animals. The adventures of unusual fauna spill out of the 'toothed' cards of the “Bestiary”, delighting our senses with juicy content.
“Animals are different, bloody and bloodless, two-legged, four-legged and legless, swimming, running and flying,” writes Michał Komar, beginning the story about unusual creatures that have inhabited our world for a long time. On the pages of the book we find the Psychopher, about whom you need to learn as much as possible if you want to “understand who man is and what his place is in the plan of Providence”, the Bishop's Fish and the Monk Fish, the Unicorn, the Lion, the Viper, the Sea Centipede or the Ant. All these animals, seemingly so different from each other, have one thing in common: dignity. “Each animal has respect for itself and the place it occupies in the order of nature,” the author writes, arguing that it is false to say that many more animals once lived than today. “Animals, seeing the ineptitude with which man imitates them and experiencing the enormity of embarrassment, decided to hide in human oblivion,” he explains. “Bestiary” fortunately reminds us of them, and the unusual drawings of Paweł Kowalewski allow us to hope that this time we will not forget them again. Every illustration by Paweł Kowalewski is different. Collected together in the “Bestiary”, however, they constitute a whole. Entering the artist's personal world, we will see that the problems that occupy him are eternal, and the language he speaks to us is painfully simple and defenselessly pure — to quote the art critic Anda Rottenberg. Even during his studies at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, Paweł Kowalewski kept expressive notebooks in which he recorded his state of mind. Kowalewski was interested in spontaneous expression of thoughts, forgetting about plastic education, as he says, “freeing the hand” in order to simply be in a natural creative process. It is precisely this spontaneous quality that is contained in the illustrations in the “Bestiary”, and the reader will find in them quite a lot of the cassandric nature of the creator. One of the last drawings, in the epilogue of the book, is by a Polish sculptor and close friend of Kowalewski — Krzysztof M. Bednarski. The “sweaty monument” simply “would not have been sculpted” better by anyone else! The book will be available from September 15 in Empik stores and online sales. “The Bestiary” will be released by Luna House.
29 July 2021
“*** TO FREEDOM. Polish art of the 80s and 90s of the 20th century from the collection of Werner Jerke from Recklinghausen”.
Opening: July 29, 2021 Exhibition: 30 July — 3 October 2021 Curator: Bogusław Deptuła A fragment of one of the best collections of Polish art of the 20th and 21st century, from the collection of Werner Jerke, will be presented at the State Art Gallery in Sopot. Some of the works shown have a downright legendary character, they are known and reproduced, but hardly anyone realizes who owns them. Jerke collects with knowledge and a sense of the specificity of Polish art. He keeps his hand on her pulse and knows exactly where he beats. He chooses accurately and sensitively. By profession, Werner Jerke is a doctor-ophthalmologist, owner of an eye clinic and winemaker. However, he is best known as a collector of Polish art and creator of the first private museum of Polish art abroad. The museum is located in Germany's Recklinghausen (Ruhr Basin) in a building designed by a collector himself. Born in Gliwice to a German family, Jerke left Poland at the age of 23. He began by collecting the art of Young Poland and the École de Paris. Currently, his collection has several hundred items. It focuses on the Polish avant-garde of interwar and postwar modernity. The exhibition at the PGS in Sopot will present mainly paintings from the 80s and 90s of the 20th century. Works by members of the Warsaw Group — Ryszard Grzyb, Paweł Kowalewski, Jarosław Modzelewski, Włodzimierz Pawlak, Marek Sobczyk, Roman Woźniak; Wrocław Luxury, Ładnie Group, or classics such as Edward Dwurnik or Leon Tarasewicz and artists of the younger generation, such as Radek Szlaga. The presentation, numbering more than 60 objects, is a selection of works with a political or social commitment. It presents a slightly lesser-known side of Werner Jerke's collecting interests. The exhibition will also show one of the most famous paintings by Paweł Kowalewski — “I shot by the Indians”. The canvas was created in 1983 during the martial law and is an ironic self-portrait of the creator.
24 June 2021
As the only artist from Poland, Paweł Kowalewski was invited by the Pope of the Italian art scene and internationally renowned curator — Achille Bonito Oliva — to participate in the collective exhibition “A.B.O. THEATRON. L'Arte o la Vita/Art or Life” in the company of such stars as Louise Bourgeois, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Marcel Duchamp, Damien Hirst, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol. Opening of the exhibition today, 24 June 2021, at Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea — Museum of Modern Art in Turin.