December 14, 2024 – January 18, 2025
For his first solo exhibition in Italy, the young Polish painter Rafał Podgórski has chosen the Marta Czok Foundation in Venice, one of the reference cities for contemporary art worldwide, which has always been a cultural bridge between East and West.
The exhibition Modular and wild land, which takes place under the patronage of the Polish Institute of Rome and with the prestigious magazine Contemporary Lynx as media partner, is curated by Niccolò Lucarelli and starts from the reflection on the social changes that occurred in Poland after 1989, and the internal debate on the modernization of society that since then has not yet found a point of equilibrium; Podgórski is an artist of thought even before aesthetic form, and his gaze rests on a society in transformation but also in a crisis of values, to which it would perhaps be necessary to try to look back, to rebuild a relationship with tradition, also in terms of balance with nature. On these foundations, Podgórski’s refined pictorial investigation looks to the great season of Dutch still life of the 17th century – paying homage to artists such as Jan Asselijn and Jan Weenix – to the Polish romantic painting of Juliusz Słowacki, and to the architectural landscape of the multifaceted Stanisław Witkiewicz; all this substratum is placed alongside twentieth-century urban modernism, in a pictorial mélange in which nature stands alongside the city, the rationalism of the Bauhaus meets fairy-tale suggestions, and the urban greyness besieges the bucolic poetry of landscapes that seem to have come out of a page by Adam Mickiewicz. As the curator Lucarelli notes, «Podgórski’s paintings recreate the thousand nuances of the natural environment, immersing the observer in a universe of silence, leaves, monumental trunks, shadowy areas; celebrate the grandeur of nature, its forms that recall architecture, echoing Mickiewicz, who first used the term “natural monument” in his Pan Tadeusz. Podgórski pays homage to the great landscape artist Stanisław Witkiewicz, but instead of a naturalistic and realistic approach, he opts for a magical realism, made of suspended, foggy, fairy-tale and introspective atmospheres, which invite silence and introspection, to consider a new ecology of relationships based on solidarity and inclusiveness»
The Polish Institute of Rome is pleased to begin the collaboration with the Marta Czok Foundation, which for years has been committed to enhancing the legacy of the artist of Polish origin to whom the foundation itself is dedicated, as well as carrying out artistic and curatorial research. No less precious to us is the dialogue between the Polish artist Rafał Podgórski and the Italian curator Niccolò Lucarelli, of which the Venetian exhibition Modular and wild land is today the fruit. The activity of the Polish Institute in Rome, in which visual art has always occupied an important place, consists precisely in facilitating the meeting between our two cultures, in stimulating collaborations and mutual influences. From this perspective, Podgórski’s exhibition, on the one hand is inspired by the Polish cultural heritage, and on the other hand reflects the nature and effects of the transformation of the last decades, fits perfectly into the mission Polish Institute has given itself.
The exhibition is made possible with the generous support of the Polish Institute in Rome, the Farmacia Centrale Di Gioacchino in Rome, the Lodi typography Copia Sprint 2, and the Galeria Sztuki Nowy Warzywniak in Gdańsk. The vernissaage will take place on Saturday, December 14 th, at 5 pm, in the presence of Ania Jagiello, curator of the art program of the Polish Institute in Rome.
Rafał Podgórski is a Polish painter renowned for his versatile and experimental approach, combining traditional techniques with innovative media such as lithography and glass screen-printing. His works delve into themes of geometry, architecture, and the interplay between human order and natural chaos. With more than 200 artworks and exhibitions across Europe, including Mythen und Zahlen in Karlsruhe and Human.Nature in Szczecin, Podgórski remains a prominent figure in contemporary art. As an educator, has developed pioneering teaching methods and continues to inspire through artistic and academic contributions.