The temporary exhibition "Leonia Chmielnik. My world - our world"

Temporary exhibition "Leonia Chmielnik. My world - our world" Curator: Joanna Łozowska May 17 - November 3, 2024 National Museum in Szczecin - Museum of Contemporary Art, 1 Staromłyńska Street The exhibition of Leonia Chmielnik's sculptures My world - our world is the third major presentation of the artist's works in the last seven years. This time, however, it is not the stone sculptures and bronze castings that will focus attention and admiration. From the nooks and crannies of Lena's studio, where she has been creating since the 1980s, many forgotten or long-lost works have been brought to light. "What do I want to show in the exhibition? What I haven't shown recently. I want to show works made of perishable materials, works made of plaster and ceramics. The ceramics come from more or less the same period, that is 1986-1989. They were created in Boleslawiec, there was a possibility to make ideas quickly. And these ideas actually came by themselves when you took the material in hand. And that it was mostly women who came out... Women are an important theme of mine, realized and in other materials. Now it was time to name it, emphasize it and somehow close it." Leonia Chmielnik has lived and worked in Szczecin since 1965. She is the co-author of the monument to Boguslaw X and Anna Jagiellonka, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The exhibition presents, among other things, the first competition project for a monument by her, plaster models of the artist's well-known outdoor realizations, as well as competition projects that have not been realized. The premise of this first solo exhibition at the National Museum in Szczecin by Leonia Chmielnik is to show sketching, design works, made of poor matter, plaster and clay, or as a result of experimenting with combinations of materials and using so-called proprietary techniques. The objects gathered at the exhibition come from the entire period of her work, i.e. from 1965 to the present. Leonia Chmielnik's works are accompanied by photographs by Jacek Fijałkowski - a photographer and graphic designer who has been cooperating with the artist for years in developing publications accompanying her exhibitions. They present the details of the artist's sculptures, showing how revealingly one can look at sculpture, where close-ups, high magnifications and fascination with detail reveal new aspects of the sculptural matter and a different perspective of its observation. Large-format photographs complete the visual shape of the exhibition.