CZUŁOŚĆ
(in polish has two meanings – tenderness and light sensitivity)
is an international movement in contemporary art.
is a group of artists who explore the medium of photography and consciously limit themselves to the characteristics and meanings of the medium.
is organized as an art gallery and as a foundation of culture with NGO structure
Czułość seat in Warsaw, just before the opening of Nampei Akaki exhibition
HISTORY
Czułość was created in 2010 from an impulse purely tied to friendship, aiming for the niche in the discussion of contemporary photography in Poland. The lack of open discourse within the fossilized hierarchy of local curators and public art institutions inspired us to alternative solutions and gathered a strong community of supporters around us.
What may seem obvious now, was a sufficient founding statement. We think of photographs as about objects and we understand the exposition as an installation in the space. We promote understanding of photography as contemporary art and we want to popularize its collecting. What unites us is a strong, honest, unpretentious energy. We combine art with other activities rather than separate it from the everyday life – since the beginning, we’re partnering up also with Polish and international independent music scene.
Villa on the Warsaw district Saska Kepa before the opening of the Czułość second-anniversary exhibition
Now, the underground is still our natural habitat, but you can also find us in the mainstream gallery world – like the Warsaw Gallery Weekend or on important international art fairs. We cooperate with the Ministry of Culture and EU, our artists are invited as curators, jurors, and experts by Polish and international institutions. Yet we’re still a young gallery representing young artists.
posters of Czułość exhibitions and concerts
IDEA
Czułość is constructing an organized structure with institutional qualities – the wall that works as a filter on both sides: it is prepared to reach and advise to the collectors, art critics, curators and other professionals. On the other, it creates a sanctuary for people who want to create in the conditions of complete freedom, non-commercial and intransigence, which almost impossible to do on your own.
Czułość team during the work on “Very Contemporary” exhibition
COLLECTIVE
We do not work as a collective as such. Collective is supposed to create joint work, while we together focus mainly on creating a firm environment, a movement in contemporary photography. The collective part is perhaps in our approach to reality. In terms of the art we make, we are a group of different and extreme individuals. Psychologically, we’ve created a photo- gang with an ideological bent.
Czułość first time at the art fair in Vienna and the best emerging gallery booth award: http://contemporarylynx.co.uk/archives/1840
FUTURE PLANS
Our new artists come from abroad. The plan is now to take what we’ve managed to create so far in Poland and to disseminate it internationally. We intend to create a grass-rooted, independent platform for artists working in contemporary photography. We are most focused on the exchange of experiences beyond national borders and cultures. In the years to come, we are organizing a series of international expeditions, during which we shall present our works in the most interesting art centers associated with contemporary art. We are also developing a programme of photography publications. Considering our approach to the role of visual language in the contemporary world, we should be where the very latest things are happening.
Our activities so far include:
Few dozens of individual and group art exhibitions; expert, curatorial and exhibition cooperation with Cracow’s Photomonth; Poland’s first complex local self-publishing exhibition “Publish yourself”; 4 exhibitions of Czułość’s artists in Tokyo and residencies of Japanese and Ukrainian artists in Warsaw; taking part in the “Learning from Warsaw” project in Zurich. In 2013 Czułość won the best presentation award at Viennafair The New Contemporary. Taking part in the group exhibitions “As you can see. Polish art today” and “Lest the two seas meet” in the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, residency of our artists in Ukraine, Kanada, and Japan, the solo exhibition of Janek Zamoyski in the official section at Photoespana 2015, his presence at the Paris Photo 2017 and 2018 and cooperation with galleries in Paris and Valencia. We self-published over a dozen art books and organized over 200 concerts of international alternative musicians. Currently, we are working on exhibitions of Czułość artists in Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai.
REPRESENTED ARTISTS:
Kuba Mount