About
The Biała Gallery was established in 1985 as part of the Centre for Culture in Lublin, a municipal cultural institution. This non-commercial gallery presenting artists’ original works is founded by Anna Nawrot and Jan Gryka. There are also working in the gallery Piotr Wysocki (graphic studio), Katarzyna Bartnik-Daniel and Agata Zwierzyńska.
The mission of the gallery is to present new art phenomena and tendencies in their many forms and manifestations. The starting point for preparing the gallery’s programme was the desire to create our own artistic space for art that is up-to-date, unconventional and experimenting. The gallery has its own archive (documentation of exhibitions, books on art, art magazines, films) and publishes catalogues.
Biała has organized more than 350 exhibitions and meetings including group exhibitions presenting art outside Lublin. Some of them are:
- Biała – Art Without Walls, BWA Gallery, Kraków, 1994
- Unter einem Dach, Podewil, Berlin, 1995
- Nine Squares for Biała, Centre of Polish Sculpture, Orońsko, 1997
- White Art, Arsenał Gallery, Poznań, 1999
- Postacademia, Center for Contemporary Art, Kyiv, 2002
- White Zone, Austrian Gallery, Warsaw, 2006
- White Combinations, BWA Gallery, Sanok, 2007/08
- Between Abstraction and Realism, Dzyga Gallery, Lviv, 2010
Gallery also participated in the international contemporary art presentations such as Supermarket in Kulturhuset in Stockholm in 2011.
Some of the artists who had their debut at Biała are: Mirosław Maszlanko, Wojciech Gilewicz, Robert Kuśmirowski, Eliza Galey, Mariusz Tarkawian, Michał Stachyra, Bogna Burska.
The gallery exhibited works of artists from Germany, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Czech Republic – Horst Sagunski, Frank Fietzek, Sigrun Jakubaschke, Henk Visch, Boaz Tal, Rudi van Dijk, Pavel Doskocil to name just a few.
Since 1996 till 2013 the gallery conducts an educational programme for students of the Faculty of Arts of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin – Young Forum of Art. Several dozens of group and individual exhibitions have been organized as part of this programme, run by Jan Gryka.
In the years 1996-98 the gallery carried out a project entitled New Spaces of Art of the 90s (Mirosław Maszlanko, Piotr Kurka, Mikołaj Smoczyński, Grzegorz Klaman, Jan Gryka, Marek Kijewski, Mirosław Filonik, Leon Tarasewicz, Joanna Rajkowska, Joanna Hoffmann, Krzysztof Sołowiej, Agata Michowska, Sławomir Belina, Marek Targoński, Hanna Łuczak).
In 2003/4 the gallery organized a series of exhibitions under the title Painting! Beware! (Dorota Podlaska, Robert Maciejuk, Edward Dwurnik, Paweł Susid, Piotr C.Kowalski, Dominik Lejman, Leon Tarasewicz and Tomasz Ciecierski) and in 2006/7 a series of exhibitions of the youngest art from Lublin, White Class (Paulina Kara, Cezary Klimaszewski, Justyna Janusz, Anna Gryczka, Agnieszka Ciekot, Mariusz Tarkawian, Marcin Łukasiewicz, Kamil Stańczak, Michał Stachyra, Magdalena Bicz).
Between 2005 and 2009 the gallery organized four large group exhibitions in the abandoned part of the Centre for Culture (Nova Biała, Transgression of Imagination, Complete Refurbishment and Alternative Collection).
2010 is the year of the 25th anniversary of the Biała Gallery, the year when we present artists collaborating with Biała and revitalize the Art Yard project, a permanent outdoor exhibition (works of Jadwiga Sawicka, Twożywo, Jan Gryka, Michał Stachyra, Tomasz Bielak, Kamil Stańczak, Ilona Oszust among others).
Since 2011 till 2014 gallery runs cycle titled ende neu – which was focusing on the critical analysis of contemporary art and the presentation of artists who propose new solutions. In this framework screenings, exhibitions and meetings have been organized. The program was run by Piotr Pękala.
Since September 2013 Biała Gallery occupies a much larger exhibition space in the Centre for Culture in Lublin building, 12th Peowiaków Street.