Soap bubbles, Maria Pinińska-Bereś

The exhibition forms a part of the Classics of Contemporary Art series.

Soap bubbles, Maria Pinińska-Bereś (1931–1999)

Date: 09.10. – 11.11.2020

An exhibition of one of the most original Polish artists of the 20th century, a sculptor and performer far ahead of her time, considered a precursor of art with a clearly feminine form and message. Her work escapes easy classification; it is delicate and transient like the “soap bubbles” she once made in 1979 while lying in a white dress on a white duvet among green glacial hillocks located near the town of Miastko. The exhibition includes works from all periods and routes of her creativity, from student artwork to pieces that were never completed due to the artist’s premature death. Some have not been shown in public for several decades.

The artist was born in 1931 in Poznań and died in 1999 in Kraków. She graduated from the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under the supervision of Xawery Dunikowski (1950–1956). Since 1979, she was a member of the Kraków Group. During her lifetime, despite numerous exhibitions, she did not live to see her large monographic exhibition, which ultimately took place at the turn of 1999 and 2000 (Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art in Kraków, Galeria Bielska BWA in Bielsko-Biala, Municipal Gallery Arsenał). Although the art of Maria Pinińska-Bereś is placed alongside such accomplished sculptors as Magdalena Abakanowicz and Alina Szapocznikow, it continues to call for further examination, as numerous threads of her art demand to be studied and disseminated.

Exhibition curator: Jerzy Hanusek – born in 1954, he is a philosopher, art critic, curator, and lecturer at the Jagiellonian University. For many years, he was the president of the Kraków’s Art Society “Otwarta Pracownia” (Open Studio), and in the 1990s he published texts in Czas Krakowski, Arka and Arkany. Author of the book Robak w Sztuce (Art Worm). He is a co-founder of the Maria Pinińska-Bereś and Jerzy Bereś Foundation. Jerzy Hanusek specialises in the art of Jerzy Bereś and Maria Pinińska-Bereś, whose art he got to know not only as a researcher and critic but also as a family member and friend.  

Program: 

  • A curator’s tour around the exhibition will take place on 10 October at 15:00.
  • The vernissage will take place on 9 October at 18:00 (during the vernissage there will be a performance by Bettina Bereś, the artist’s daughter).