Nocny Art Patrol: BOOOOOOOM. THE DELL'ARTE FOUNDATION COLLECTION

Booooooom - The Dell’Arte Foundation Collection.
Galeria Śladowski, Krakow 29.11.-20.12.2019
Concept of the exhibition and texts: Mariusz Horanin

BOOOOOOOM.
Dawid Czycz, Karolina Jabłońska, Agata Kus, Karol Palczak, Konrad Żukowski.
A generation of Krakow painters born around 1990.
The Dell’Arte Foundation Collection.
Galeria Śladowski, Krakow - opening night 7:30 p.m., 29 November 2019
Exhibition: 29 November – 20 December 2019

Curator: Mariusz Horanin

Boom. Figurative painting is back, and Krakow again has some cool painters who tell us about the world today. Or rather, they depict their own emotions in their paintings. For the contemporary world defies description. The multitude of existing narratives eludes all analysis, and the old belief in the rational solution to the problems of our world is definitely in decline. Nothing is certain anymore. Not even our feelings. Everything has become fragile and unclear. We have little left. The only thing we are still sure of is our emotions. They are the only ones that are still real. Emotions as responses to countless stimuli from the real and virtual world.

In recent years, we have witnessed a revolution in the visual perception of the world. We look at the world through LED screens. We are assaulted by an endless amount of information and LED-illuminated images. There is a constant battle for attention. Pictures on Instagram must look beautiful to be noticed by others. The world we live in may be cruel, but it should at least look beautiful. Can art save us? Certainly not. But it can produce an emotional catharsis in us. Contemporary painting is like Xanax for the fears of today’s world. And it is beautiful again.

Dr Mariusz Horanin

For this life, I cannot change
Hidden Hills, deep off in the main
M&M's, sweet like candy cane
Drop the top, pop it, let it bang

(Travis Scott – Butterfly Effect)

Catalogue of The Dell’Arte Foundation Collection

The Dell’Arte Foundation Collection is a very personal project. It was originally intended as a private collection in response to a certain weariness, caused by many years of professional engagement with classical and modern painting, which tells of the past. But it is the present and the world we live in that are the most interesting. It was only natural, then, to turn to the work of young artists.
The Dell’Arte Foundation Collection is also a kind of record of the last five years our lives, mine and Agnieszka Gołębiewska’s. Art has always played a fundamental role in our life together, and we share a love of painting. We began to assemble the present collection when we were still living in Germany and during our occasional visits to Poland. It also includes works from the private collection of the Foundation's founder and from other collectors.

The decisive impulse to make the collection public was the establishment of the Galeria Śladowski in 2019. My conversations with Wojciech Śladowski, a painting dealer and collector who has been active in the Polish art market for over twenty years, led to the idea of founding a gallery of modern art where, from the beginning, we wanted to exhibit the work of the Krakow painters regarded by us as the most talented of the new generation. Last May the gallery hosted its first exhibition, A Fire Every Day by Karol Palczak. The success of the show and the award of the Grand Prize at the Painting Biennale Bielska Jesień 2019 to the artist for his paintings from the series of the same name provided an additional incentive for and proof of the gallery’s artistic programme. In cooperation with the Dell’Arte Foundation in Krakow, whose key aim since 2010 has been to support artists and the development of art in Poland, we decided to create a collection of the finest works by the new generation of Krakow painters. It is an open collection that will continue to be expanded. We look forward to working with artists, collectors and public institutions. A selection of the paintings included in the Dell’Arte Foundation Collection is shown in this catalogue.

What stories do the paintings made before our eyes tell us today? And why is the work of the new generation of Krakow painters so fascinating?

The Dell’Arte Foundation Collection currently holds works by Dawid Czycz, Karolina Jabłońska, Agata Kus, Karol Palczak and Konrad Żukowski, i.e. painters born around 1990 who have studied at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts and have many artistic successes, awards and honours to their credit. This is a generation which can have only dim memories of Communist Poland or know those times from their parents’ and grandparents’ stories. Nor has the Polish political transformation of the 1990s and the millennial years had a significant impact on their work. It is a generation whose paintings tell primarily of the present and of Poland in the globalized reality. The Zeitgeist and lifestyle of today. All the artists express themselves in a way that is original and unique to them. And they all paint figurative, emotional and beautiful pictures.

Konrad Żukowski | 2002 VOL2 | oil/canvas| 40x35cm | 2018 | Dell'Arte Foundation Collection

In these times of information overload, digital snapshots and LED instastories, the choice of figuration seems natural for contemporary painting. Everyone wants to tell their story. The form may be realistic or may completely reinvent reality. And a story about the world today is first and foremost an expression of emotions, mental states and experiences. It is more a capture of the moment in its universal repetition than a narrative attempting to give definite answers to any questions. A truth about our times that does not try to offer any solutions. Rather, it indicates problems and dangers. Sometimes painting also addresses the pleasures of life and can be very amusing.

And this is figurative painting par excellence, which requires technical brilliance. If our world has become a little scary, it should at least look beautiful. This is also a world increasingly filled with light. After all, we are living in the era of the LED Baroque and burning fire.

Dr Mariusz Horanin

Artistic Director of Galeria Śladowski and Dell’Arte Foundation




Karolina Jabłońska | SELF-PORTRAIT WITHOUT 
HEAD II | oil/canvas| 90x130cm |
 2015 | Dell'Arte Foundation Collection




Konrad Żukowski | CAT ON FIRE | oil/canvas|  
60x70cm | 2019 | Dell'Arte Foundation Collection

All texts and photos of the paintings from the exhibition catalogue:
Booooooom. The Dell’Arte Foundation Collection
Krakow 2019
Galeria Śladowski
Exhibition 29.11. - 12.12. 2019
Concept of the exhibition and author of all texts: Mariusz Horanin
Translation: Robert Gałązka
Patronage: The Dell'Arte Foundation, Nocny Art Patrol i Miasto Kraków