Vernissage on Friday, July 1 at 17:00, exhibition until August 7, 2022 / Sleńdzinski Gallery - Municipal Institution of Culture, 5 Victoria Street, Bialystok
More than 11 thousand negatives.
A one-of-a-kind photographic documentation of Manhattan from 1982-1984. Unique in the world both in terms of volume, but especially thanks to the person of the author.
Andrzej Strumillo, greedily photographing New York, looked at its phenomenon through the prism of his multiple professional experiences, at the same time confronting it not only with the sensitivity and point of view of a European, but both with his in-depth empirical knowledge of Asia.
Curator of the exhibition Anna Strumillo
In the early fall of 1982 from John F. Kennedy International Airport, having driven through the Brooklyn suburbs, I stood at the Doral Inn hotel on Lexington Ave. The skyscraper across the street was hosting a banquet for those with a million for petty spending. I slept in a sticky plastic sheet under a plastic comforter, among plastic wallpaper, plastic furniture and plastic curtains. Plastic light oozed through the plastic blinds day and night. I had behind me crystal-freezing nights spent in the trees, wet shoelaces and a rotten paddle, which will be rewarded in the Land of Eternal Hunting. I've had years of Asian peregrinations, the silence of the Mongolian steppes, the blinding splendor of Himalayan glaciers, the green, ever-moist velvet of the Indochinese jungle, the smoke of pyres in Benares, the gardens of Kyoto, the palaces and tombs of the emperors of China, eyes enticing, hands begging, departing into oblivion. I can say with a clear conscience - Mount Meru lent me its invigorating shadow. In a world of overproduction, hyperconsumption and predatory capital, I felt on the outside. Amidst the eruption of human energy, the endless stream of offerings, I moved with an open eye and a Canon F-1 loaded with sensitive Tri-X Kodak film or economical, super-thin, double llford. I chewed, chewed, swallowed day and night the phenomenon called Manhattan. Thousands and thousands of glances through the viewfinder. Thousands and thousands of shutter presses. My voraciousness and persistence made the accumulated negative material into a kind of new reality, as vast and formless as the initial one. Only new choices, new selections, new constructions can make this collection a legible and artistically meaningful message.
Andrew Strumillo
Andrzej Strumillo 1927 - 2020
Painter, draughtsman, photographer, sculptor, graphic designer, poet and traveler, activist for the development of culture and protection of the landscape of northeastern Poland. He was involved in exhibitions (architecture and exhibition graphics), television and theater stage design, design graphics (books, catalogs, posters), book illustration, essay writing and journalism, and space arrangement (landscaping). He initiated, organized and curated many exhibitions and plein-air events.
In 1984 Andrzej Strumillo settled in Maćkowa Ruda, where he created a place where domestic and foreign artists, cultural animators, politicians and social activists, clergymen, youth groups and art groups meet and create.
He was born in Vilnius on October 23, 1927.
He studied at the State Higher School of Plastic Arts in Lodz under Władysław Strzemiński, and graduated from the painting department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow (1950).
In 1954, the artist made his first trip to China, which enriched him with new inspirations. The experiences of Strzeminski's avant-garde and the colorists of the Krakow Academy were now overlaid with symbol, calligraphy, lapidary shorthand and the achievements of centuries-old Asian culture.
Hundreds of drawings, tens of thousands of photographs, notes and collections of artworks and objects of material culture for the Ethnographic Museum in Cracow and the Asia-Pacific Museum in Warsaw are produced during these trips.
He was commissioner and one of the initiators of the international interdisciplinary meetings of artists, scientists, ecologists, cultural workers titled Art and Environment (later Culture and Environment), held from 1977 to 1994 at Wigry. Programs of the Wigry National Park, the Suwałki and Mazurian Landscape Parks, and the Green Lungs of Poland Foundation, among others, were established then.
From 1982 to 1984, he headed the Graphics Presentation Unit at the UN General Secretariat in New York, carrying out projects for the UN, UNESCO, FAO and UNICEF.
As an educator, Andrzej Strumillo was associated with the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, Bialystok University of Technology, a branch of the Catholic-Theological Academy in Suwałki, and the Mazurian University in Olecko, among others.
He has exhibited his works in more than 120 individual exhibitions at home and around the world and participated in numerous group exhibitions representing Polish art abroad, including the Sao Paulo Biennale and the Venice Biennale. He was the author, co-author or illustrator of more than 200 books (children's literature, poetry, albums, popular science publications). He published a volume of his own diaries, six volumes of poetry, many books by authors. A special position is occupied by "The Book of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania," which he initiated the publication together with Czeslaw Milosz and Tomasz Venclova, and which was created entirely according to his concept.
He was a member of nationwide bodies, including the Council of Culture and Art at the Ministry of Culture and Art, the Board of the Foundation of Polish Culture, the Chapter of the Golden Sceptre of Polish Culture, the Council of the Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw and the Podlaskie Museum in Białystok, the Borderland Foundation in Sejny, the Union of Polish Artists Photographers, the Provincial Commission for Nature Protection in Suwałki and the Scientific Council of the Wigry National Park.
Andrzej Strumillo was honored with many state decorations and awards for his artistic achievements, promotion of Polish culture abroad and social activities, among others: Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Gold Medal for Merit to Culture Gloria Artis, Award of the Marshal of Podlasie Province. He received the titles of Honorary Ambassador of Podlaskie Voivodeship, Honorary Ambassador of the East and Honorary Citizen of the City of Suwałki.
