Henryk

Stażewski

Building, construction, structure as a medium that testifies to both the permanence and development of the world. The idea of the superiority of mathematics and geometry over inner emotions being the guarantee of man's individuality, and therefore the harbinger of a certain disorder. For Henryk Stażewski, one of the most important precursors of constructivism in Poland, a science based on the repetition of accepted patterns was the only way leading to the maintenance of structural order within the painting.

The order present in the reliefs created by the artist since the 1950s led to the desired interpenetration of the inner - pictorial - space with the outer - real - space, i.e. to the creation of an ideal constructivist work. The unification of these realities became possible thanks to the recognition of the square form as the main element of painterly expression, which for Stażewski was the only natural and metaphysical shape that allowed for persistence and manifestation.

Initially white - testifying to the universality of the world, nature and art - squares began to multiply and take on colours differing only in their pigment, thus visualising the movement present in static objects. According to Stażewski, the art of the new world and the human being entering the epoch of contemporaneity should lead to an aesthetic moment ordered by the collective.


Exhibitions
1994 "Henry Stażewski. Painting and Friendship.", Kordegarda Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
1992/1993 „Polnische Avantgarde 1930 – 1990”, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany
1992 „Reduktivismus. Abstraktion in Polen Tschechoslowakei Ungarn 1950 – 1980”, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, Austria
1992 “Henryk Stażewski 1894 – 1988. Rilievi e dipinti 1958/1987”, Galeria d’Arte Spicchi dell’Est, Roma, Italy
1990 “Henryk Stażewski. Pionero Polaco del Arte Concreto”, Centro Atlantioco de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
1989 "The Friends of Sophie Taeuber-Arp with the International Collection of Modern Art of the "a.r" Group, Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, Poland
1988 Zapiecek Gallery, Warsaw
Biennare of Sydney. From the Southern Cross - A view of World Art ac. 1944-1988, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sideny, Australia
Mes Annees, Galerie Denis Rene, Paris, France
1985 "Dialogue", Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
"The Formists" - National Museum, Warsaw, Poland
"Władysław Strzemiński, Katarzyna Kobro, Henryk Stażewski. Tre Pionerer for polsk Avant - Garde", Fyns Kunstmuseum, Odense, Denmark
1984 "Constructivism in Poland 1923 - 1936", Kettle's Yard Gallery, Cambridge, UK
1980 "Henryk Stażewski. Works from 1923 - 1980", Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, Toruń, Poland
"Henryk Stażewski. Reliefs from 1961 - 1978", Salon Sztuki Współczesnej BWA, Bydgoszcz, Poland