As we reflect on the culmination of another year, our dedication to providing you with insightful content remains unwavering. In 2023, we published over 160 articles and interviews on Contemporary Lynx Online, featuring compelling discussions with international artists, curators, and collectors. We present you the list of 10 most-reads. Thank you for reading and being part of the Contemporary Lynx community.
Predicting The Future: Visual Arts In 2050
by Sylwia Żółkiewska
Have you ever wondered what art will look like in 30 years? Will it even remotely resemble the art world we know today? What sort of trends and tendencies will dominate the scene? How about the influence of innovative technology or the evolution of art galleries and museums? Will artificial intelligence assist curators and artists on a daily basis? Will traditional art forms, such as painting or sculpture, be consigned to obscurity? This not-too-distant (or at least, so it seems) future becomes an even greater “Unknown” when we cast our minds back to the world of only 30 years ago: The internet revolution was just around the corner, no-one was even imagining the possible impact of the mobile phone, and Video-Art was widely accepted as the most tech-heavy format that Art could take on.
10 culture-oriented apps that are worth installing on your phone
by Sylwia Żółkiewska
In a world of mobile apps, everything changes from week to week – some apps disappear forever (like Art Sherlock or Vine) and thousands of new ones, eager for fame and installation, take their place.
You can still find apps that have existed since almost the dawn of app stores. Apps that are still being updated and further developed, and offer their users upgraded or brand new features.
So how does the landscape of culture-oriented apps look like this year? Which apps are worth your time and the precious space on your mobile phone?
In this article, we present our list of the 10 most interesting culture-oriented mobile apps currently. There is something for fans of visual arts, music, literature, and… wine culture.
Top 10 Polish Contemporary Artists Worth Following
by Julia Gorlewska
The young generation of artists from Poland after 1989 is often referred to as “realism painters,” or more accurately, artists whose work focuses on current social and political events. Unlike their predecessors, they use simple means of expression and symbols to comment on contemporary reality.
Comicality or perfunctory choice of means of expression can be treated as a challenge to elite high art, a conscious and deliberate departure from academic paradigms in favour of a clearly emphasized message, as well as an expression of the artist’s reflection on the condition of humanity, culture and art.
In this article, we would like to present to you ten young Polish artists. We selected them based on our own subjective opinion, but we think they are worth following.
9 Contemporary Designers Who Make Polish Poster Great Again
by Franciszek Bryk
Who said Polish poster is dead? Doubtlessly, the past distinctness of a national style is unmatched – admitting that in fact the historical Polish Poster School has never become a school in the physical sense, and the term encompasses a hardly homogenic group – but that is not to say that contemporary Polish poster is bound to experience the stereotypical lot of a prominent parent’s child unable to measure up.
They receive much less attention than their acclaimed predecessors, while artistically try to live up to the challenge. They either reinterpret Polish design legacy or find their own way of creation, using wider sources. What they have in common – and what constitutes the premise of our albeit very subjective selection – is that poster plays a special role in their creative careers worthy of a special attention, rather than be an appendix to a pre-set branding strategy or illustration.
Polish Fashion during the Transformation Period. Andrzej Wrzesień’s photography
by Natalia Barbarska
“The things happening in culture at the moment are surely a complex problem, and it could rather take a book not a letter to analyse. But a couple of days ago I saw a documentary about snakes. They shed their skin. This is what we are doing. I get the impression that the old one is unacceptable and the new one is emerging, so to speak, and we are just not able to think about it, to feel that we’re inside it”. The photography theorist Jerzy Busza wrote these thoughts in a letter to Andrzej Wrzesień in 1989.
Andrzej Wrzesień is one of the most prominent Polish commercial photographers whose professional success aligned with the transformation period in Poland – which took place from the 1980s through to the early nineties, which is the period Jerzy Busza referred to – a period during which Polish culture, including fashion and photography, radically changed its image.
Sainer. Polish painter appreciated across the globe.
by Daga Ochendowska
The work of this Polish muralist can be appreciated across the globe: from the streets of Los Angeles to Miami, from Marocco to Australia. Przemysław Blejzyk – better known to an international audience as Sainer, as well as a member of the Etam Cru duo – has already made street art history with his original and recognizable style.
Nonetheless, the exhibition ‘SAINER. COLOUR,’ held in one of the branches of the National Museum in Gdańsk, marks his first extensive solo show, which attracted droves of enthusiasts to its opening.
The exhibition in the Department of Modern Art presents the artist as a landscapist. It is the landscape that inspires Blejzyk’s return to the rudiments of painting. By studying the landscape, he is studying the time, combining his small images to create large collages reflecting the times of day, reproducing a moving landscape and associated atmosphere. Ultimately, his concepts become compositions of colours and shapes, the forms are reduced and captured through their essence not as realistic portrayals of human subjects but rather sums of these colours and shapes.
What are our life energy and time being converted into? A conscious art creation – interview with Eva Ďurovec.
by Monika Juskowiak
We met with Eva Ďurovec to talk about her works, creative process, and the MeetFactory artists-in-residence program, Czech Republic. Focusing on various important global and personal issues, the artist investigates and explores the modern condition of society, art, and humans.
Eva’s assemblages of everyday objects such as mattresses, work clothes, or pots, often combined with autodidactic research from the kitchen and the street, explore the interrelationships among environments, the quest for a meaningful existence, and challenge the continuous obstacles presented by social, economic, and ecological crises. Through a captivating conversation and the presentation of her residency photo diary, the artist unveils her creative process and reveals the influences currently shaping her work.
STRABAG Artaward International 2023. Meet the Winning Artists
by Sylwia Krasoń
The 28th STRABAG Artaward International has announced the winning artists. The award, which focuses on painting and drawing, is one of the country’s most highly endowed private art prizes. Initially limited to Austrian artists, it expanded in 2009 to include international participants.
The prize consists of a main prize and four recognition awards, totalling €35,000, given annually. For 2021-2023, artists from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Austria were invited to participate. Out of more than 700 applications, five artists were selected as winners.
In 2023, Jósefina Alanko, a Polish-Finnish artist, received the main prize. The recognition awards were given to Peter Cvik from Slovakia, Samira Homayouni from Austria/Iran, Liza Libenko from Czech Republic, and Grzegorz Siembida from Poland.
Searching for identity. In conversation with Przemysław „Piniak” Piński.
by Zuzanna Auguścik
Przemysław “Piniak” Piński is the artist of versatile interests who was awarded his diploma at the Faculty of Painting and Drawing at the University of the Arts in Poznań (UAP) under the supervision of Mikołaj Poliński, PhD. Before he took up painting, he had studied design, interior design, fashion and shoemaking crafts.
In our conversation he told us not only about the beginning of his artistic career but also about his inspirations, dreams and numerous plans which he is going to fulfil in the near and more distant future.
12 Polish-born artists who you should know.
The art scene in Poland, like its history, is dynamic and diverse. Political complexities not only provide the backdrop of happenings for the field of art history, but have a fundamental impact on the course of facts, as well as the shape and meaning of works. Frequent border changes, wars and armed attacks destroyed many cities across the country, and consequently all cultural centres. The collapse of the Soviet Union was followed by the development of capitalism and neoliberal economic markets. All these factors influenced artists, who commented on, interpreted, and sometimes conjured up the prevailing reality.
In this article, we present 12 Polish-born artists who shaped the local art scene. We believe it will provide a deeper look into the intricate history of Polish art history from the protagonists of realism and historical painting throughout the 20th century avant-garde to artists from the new generation who continue to challenge the conservative status quo.
