Foksal Gallery
The James Gallery at the CUNY Graduate Center
and the Polish Cultural Institute New York
present

Thoughts Isolated: The Foksal Gallery Archives, 1966-2016
at the Amie and Tony James Gallery, The Graduate Center New York
365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016

Saturday, November 19, 2016 – Saturday, December 17, 2016
Opening reception November 18 at 6:00pm

Thoughts Isolated: The Foksal Gallery Archives, 1966-2016, comprises a visual art exhibit curated by Katherine Carl, Katarzyna Krysiak, and David Senior at the Amie and Tony James Gallery, The Graduate Center New York, and accompanying educational program celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Foksal Gallery in Warsaw. The exhibit outlines Foksal Gallery’s role in shaping contemporary Polish art history while creating a space for critical discourse, exchange, and international collaboration. Thoughts Isolated showcases the Foksal Gallery Archive, which houses a unique resource of artworks, original papers and photographs, early exhibition catalogues, posters and flyers (often designed by the artists themselves), and ephemera collected since the gallery’s founding in 1966. The exhibit will also include original maquettes and designs for exhibitions, documentation of performances, installations, and social gatherings at the gallery, as well as sound and video recordings of early happenings and events.

Foksal Gallery was founded through the joint efforts of leading Polish art critics and artists, including Tadeusz Kantor. It succeeded in developing an internationally significant avant-garde art program despite Communist-area state censorship. Currently the Archive is stored in wooden crates (specially designed by Krzysztof Wodiczko in early 1970s) containing evidence of the gallery’s immense value in both artistic and historical terms. The archive includes work by experimental Polish and internationally acclaimed artists, like Zbigniew Gostomski, Maria Stangret, Tadeusz Kantor, Edward Krasinski, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Jaroslaw Kozlowski , Stanislaw Drozdz, Henryk Stazewski, Lawrence Weiner, Daniel Buren, Christian Boltanski, or Ben Vautier.

The educational program at the James Gallery accompanying the exhibition focuses on the role of the Foksal Gallery as a collaboratively-run arts space engaged consistently in critical reflective dialogue about its mission. A series of panel discussions and talks will focus on the Gallery’s critical strategies and practices over successive decades.

Thoughts Isolated: The Foksal Gallery Archives, 1966-2016 is made possible by the Polish Cultural Institute New York, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, and the Mazovia Institute of Culture in Warsaw, under the patronage of Culture.pl and Hanna Ptaszkowska. Additional support was provided by the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York, The Kosciuszko Foundation, The Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America, Inc., Artists Alliance Inc., Artists Space, CEC ArtsLink, EFA Project Space, Franklin Furnace, NURTUREart Non-Profit, Inc., and Residency Unlimited. The educational program is co-sponsored by the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, Baruch College, CUNY.