The exhibition will present works of artists associated with the gallery over the years, as well as documents and photographic documentation comprising the archives of the Gallery at Piwna 20/26. The exhibition is the culmination of archival and research activities undertaken by the Monopol Gallery this year. Emilia and Andrzej Dłużniewski’s Galeria Piwna 20/26 in Warsaw operated in the artists’ private apartment between 1980 and 1993.

Being a part of the current of non-institutional activities, opposing the official circulation of culture connected with the communist regime, the place developed its individual character. Instead of focusing on contesting the current situation in Poland, although the very fact of the gallery’s existence was already a gesture of opposition, the gallery’s program was based on searching for more universal values in art. At the gallery on Piwna Street, the private, almost intimate nature of exhibitions and meetings was combined with a wide perspective, as for those times, mainly thanks to the participation of foreign artists. The attitude of the gallery’s creators seems admirable; being artists themselves, they created a place open to new ideas, going beyond the narrow context of local time and place, and at the same time celebrating this place and this time in a subtle way.

(…) I used to like being here or there. Emilia taught me a certain balance. You can look without moving, watch and listen with the thought of the place you are in. But you can’t be everywhere. You can’t see everything from our place either. But seeing everything that can be seen from our place is a lot. Piwna is a place from which you can see so much (…).

Andrzej Dłużniewski

Among the artists showing their works on Piwna there are: Emmett Williams, Ann Noel, Shelagh Wakely, Henryk Stażewski, Koji Kamoji, Andrzej Dłużniewski, Grzegorz Kowalski, Alexander Honory and Susan Hiller.