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Elbląg’s Biennale Turned the City Into an Open-Air Gallery

An unusual artist project from the 1960s and 70s turned a medium-sized Polish city's public squares into the exposition of the country's best sculptors.

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Elblag, 1960s. Polish sculptors prepare their works at the Zamech factory, n/z on the left Magdalena Więcek-Wnuk. The sculpture by Magdalena Więcek-Wnuk was created during the Second Biennial of Spatial Forms in 1967. The form was designed for the surroundings of the stadium of the "Olimpia" sports club, but was eventually set up in Dworcowy Square, opposite the railroad station. In the 1990s, the composition was moved to the courtyard of the EL Gallery. In this work, the author was interested in the problem of extracting spherical forms from space and confronting them in space.
Elblag, 1960s. Polish sculptors prepare their works in the Zamech factory, on the left Magdalena Więcek-Wnuk. The sculpture by Magdalena Więcek-Wnuk was created during the 2nd Biennale of Spatial Forms in 1967. The form was designed to surround the stadium of the "Olimpia" sports club, but finally it was placed on Plac Dworcowy, opposite the railway station. In the 1990s, the composition was moved to the courtyard of the EL Gallery. In this work, the author was interested in the problem of separating spherical forms from space and confronting them in space. Photo: Slawek Biegański / Forum

How do you turn a city into a giant gallery of art? It’s easy – just invite the artists and let them do their job. That’s exactly what happened in Elbląg, a medium-sized city in Northern Poland of just over a hundred thousand inhabitants. Although the Biennale of Spatial Forms happened there for the last time half a century ago, the project’s remnants have withstood the test of time and ornate the city to this day.

A Nation With No Country in the Spotlight at the Venice Biennale 

State-sponsored artists

The art market under socialism was different than what existed on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Whereas in the Western model, art is a kind of competition between artists, their representatives, galleries, and buyers, there are models for the state-supported art market. The socialist one, modeled in the countries of the Eastern bloc, was connected to cultural institutions.

Obviously, the downsides are probably what first comes to mind. For example, how easy it would be to mute the voice of art in several easy steps. Like selling paper to printers for only “appropriate” books. However, in both capitalism and socialism, the easiest form of suppression is money.

But money and other monetizable resources can also be an advantage – and the sheer number of notable artists that came out of socialist Poland serves as proof. (Magdalena Abakanowicz‘s recent exhibition at the Tate Modern in London is one.) The state muted dissident voices but, for most of its history, was not strongly opposed to the pure form in art or the reflection of the human condition in general.

Elblag, 1965, pictured is Antoni Starczewski at work on his sculpture.
Elblag, 1965 - Setting up a sculpture by Henryk Stażewski. The form is located in the square separating Slavic Square and Srodmiescie from the Old Town. Stażewski's work is a document of research on relief in the artist's work
Elblag, 1965, working on a sculpture by Krystyn Zielinski. This realization was created by joining the edges of pipes cut lengthwise into a circle. Viewed from a lateral perspective, it gives the impression that it was not made of metal - that the material of this sculpture is organic matter, such as tree bark. It is located on Giermków Street
Elblag, 1965, Tihamer Gyarmathy while working on a sculpture in the Zamech factory hall. The work by the Hungarian representative of the avant-garde is located in a small park on 3 Maja Street. Gyarmathy placed a series of semicircularly bent thick metal sheets horizontally on a frame made of pipes, creating a kind of spatial relief.
Elblag, 1965, a work by Edawrd Krasinski. Krasinski designed the sculpture as a vertical, approximately 6-meter tall, telescopically tapering pipe with a burst circle connected to the top. Today it can be seen in the southwestern part of the EL Gallery's courtyard.
Elblag, 1965, Sculpture by Marian Bogusz. Traveling from Gdansk along Tysiąclecia Avenue towards Warsaw, one first notices Bogusz's composition on the north side, consisting of three forms, decreasing in the direction of travel, formed from the combination of vertical, narrow slabs.
Elblag, 1965, Composition by Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz, the sculpture is sometimes titled in two ways; once as "Signpost Composition," and at other times as "Greeting Sign." It emanates primarily from the play of chiaroscuro, built by appropriately angled sheets of metal resembling louvers. The form was renovated in 2006.
Elblag, 1965, Kajetan Sosnowski (center) while working on a sculpture at the Zamech factory hall. Sosnowski's composition originally consisted of three cubic elements. Only the largest of them has survived to this day. In it, the artist delineated the cube structure with a frame, while inside he placed sheets of metal cut appropriately, which suggest the existence of a sphere shape inside. The sculpture is located at the intersection of Millennium Avenue and Malborska Street.
Elbląg, 1965. (top row) On the left, Antoni Starczewski working on his sculpture; Center, Setting up Henryk Stażewski’s sculpture; On the right, work in progress on Krystyn Zieliński’s sculpture. (Middle row) Left, Tihamer Gyarmathy working on a sculpture in the Zamech factory. In the center, Edward Krasiński’s sculpture; On the right, a sculpture by Marian Bogusz; (Bottom row) On the left, a composition by Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz, the sculpture is sometimes titled in two ways; once as “Signpost Composition”, other times as “Welcome”. On the right, Kajetan Sosnowski (in the middle) working on a sculpture in the Zamech factory. All photos: Eustachy Kossakowski / © Anka Ptaszkowska, Paulina Krasińska. The negatives are the property of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

Sculpting the machines

Now that we’ve gone through the general, let’s get technical. Under socialist economic rules, most of the industry was owned by the government, and there was no clear delineation between state vs. industrial sponsorship of art. Major exhibitions in museums and galleries were subject to the decisions of the Ministry of Culture and Art, but large industrial complexes also had a budget for promoting culture.

Among these industrial complexes was Zamech – the Machines Factory in Elbląg, which ran Gallery EL. Led by Gerhard Kwiatkowski, a Polish-German painter and installation artist, in 1961, he managed to get his sponsors to organize a biennale. His argument was strong: Elbląg, named Elbling until 1945, was an ex-Prussian, aka German, city, and launching a major art project sponsored by Poland was an opportunity to overwrite its German heritage with Polish history.

The project was named the Biennale of Spatial Forms in Elbing, and its association with Zamech Factory was strong. Its heavy industrial and factory spaces allowed notable artists to explore the concepts of space in art and gave them access to the use of the factory’s heavy equipment.

The first Biennale was organized in 1965, and the project had five iterations – until the last one in 1973. Polish mid-century art aficionados will appreciate a list of artists invited, as it was crème de la crème of Eastern Bloc form-oriented artists like Magdalena Abakanowicz, Edward Krasiński, and Jerzy Rosołowicz – just to name a few.

Antoni Starczewski's form is located on the Zawada estate. The sculpture has the form of a monumental shield with a diameter of 6 meters. Individual slices of the circle are formed by skeletal elements placed on radially spreading from the center of the composition, on which narrow metal sheets are rhythmically arranged.
The sculpture by Magdalena Abakanowicz, is a tall, 7-meter composition, created from a rolled sheet of metal, on the outside of which the author placed short, polygonal in cross-section pipes. The whole suggests associations with a tree branch. Currently, Magdalena Abakanowicz's sculpture can be seen at the intersection of Przymurze and Przy Bramie Targowej streets, near the building of the High School.
Sculpture of Gerard Kwiatkowski in urban space. At the height of the intersection of Tysiąclecia Avenue and Malborska Street, you can see Kwiatkowski's horizontally maintained sculpture. It is a modular composition, in which each w module is formed by connecting the vertices of the plates in the shape of equilateral triangles. In March 2003, some of the modules of Gerard Kwiatkowski's work were stolen, hence this composition, like Sosnowski's work, is not preserved in its entirety.
Elbląg, 23.07.2015 - Arthur Brunsz's sculpture in urban space. The plein-air works were renewed on the occasion of the "Facing the 50th Anniversary of the 1st Biennial of Spatial Forms in Elblag", during which the artists, with the help of workers from the Zamech Mechanical Plant, created dozens of monumental metal sculptures located in the city space.
(Top row) Antoni Starczewski’s form is located in the Zawada housing estate. The form is in the form of a monumental shield with a diameter of 6 m. The individual segments of the circle are created by elements of the frame radiating from the center of the composition, on which narrow metal sheets are arranged rhythmically. Photo: Wiktor Piskorz, Art Center Galeria EL; Magdalena Abakanowicz’s sculpture is a 7-meter high composition made of a rolled sheet of metal, outside of which the author placed a short, polygonal pipe. The whole thing suggests associations with a tree branch. Currently, the sculpture of Magdalena Abakanowicz can be seen at the intersection of ul. Przymurze and at Brama Targowej, near the building of the 1st Secondary School. Photo: Wiktor Piskorz, Art Center Galeria EL; (Bottom row) Gerard Kwiatkowski’s sculpture in urban space. At the intersection of Aleja Tysiąclecia and ul. Malborska, one can notice a horizontal, horizontal sculpture by Kwiatkowski. It is a modular composition, in which each module is created by joining the tops of sheets in the shape of equilateral triangles. In March 2003, some of the modules of Gerard Kwiatkowski’s work were stolen, hence this composition, similarly to Sosnowski’s work, has not been preserved in its entirety. Photo: PAP / Tomasz Waszczuk; Artur Brunsz’s sculpture in urban space. The open-air works were renewed on the occasion of “In the face of the 50th anniversary of the 1st Biennale of Spatial Forms in Elbląg”, during which the artists, with the help of workers from Zakłady Mechaniczne Zamech, created several dozen monumental metal sculptures located in the city space. Photo: PAP / Tomasz Waszczuk.

The art of living

Access to professional tools and materials with a creative mix of different artistic approaches resulted in spectacular effects: mostly abstract and geometric, exploring spatial relations. Some sculptures are many meters high, and all are eye-catching.

Don’t believe it? It’s easy to see for yourself, as there was also one condition for the artists – the results of their work were to be exhibited in the city’s public space that hosted the event. And, as a shining example of the robust products of the factory, there they stand to this day.

Elbląg is peppered with works whose significance and meaning are perhaps incognito to average pedestrians but are lauded by the modern art world. In the 2000s, the art is still appreciated – and hidden meanings of the forms are still being explored, like in a 2012 conference held by Karolina Breguła that examined how the artworks have ingrained themselves into the city’s fibers and into the inhabitants’ consciousness.

Public parks and squares are adorned by this unusual urban furniture, making Elbląg a perfect spot to live among art.

Przemysław Bociąga

is a Polish journalist and essayist based in Warsaw. An anthropologist and art historian by education, he specializes in combining cultural phenomena with compelling narrative. He has authored and co-authored several books covering lifestyle and history. The most recent of them is “Impeccable. The biography of masculine image”. He has contributed to many leading magazines, both in print and online, and teaches cultural anthropology to college students.

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