Meetings: Exhibitions of Women’s Art Curated by Izabella Gustowska

Abstract

In February of 1978 the exhibition Trzy kobiety. Ania Bednarczuk, Iza Gustowska, Krynia Piotrowska opened at the Bureau of Art Exhibitions in Poznań. It became a starting point for two cycles of exhibitions that have been organised practically until today: Odbicia (Gustowska’s and Piotrowska’s joint exhibitions) and Spotkania. The essay focuses on Spotkania, i.e. exhibitions at which Gustowska (initially with Piotrowska) presented the works of invited women artists. These exhibitions were Trzy kobiety (1978, Poznań), Sztuka kobiet (1980, Poznań), Spotkania – Obecność I (1987, Poznań), Spotkania – Obecność III (1992, Poznań), Presence IV – 6 Women (1994, Galeria La Coupole, Rennes) and Osiem dni tygodnia (2011, Szczecin). To consider them a cycle and to analyse them under the joint title of Spotkania is the author’s own interpretative approach based on the observation that, in their case, Izabella Gustowska’s actions comprise a consistent project based mainly on the recurrent gesture of creating an opportunity for women artists to meet – hence the word meetings – and to engage in a dialogue. Spotkania is the longest-lasting and most consistently carried out project enabling women artists to meet but, paradoxically, not intended to consolidate them. All of the exhibitions emphasised Gustowska’s certainty of essential closeness between women. This closeness was always characterised, very generally and indistinctly, as a kinship that becomes evident only when sought. An analysis of the exhibitions leads one to the conclusion that the combination of the conviction that women share essential similarities with an emphasis on their individuality and on the separateness of their artistic proposals, coupled with Gustowska’s distancing herself from feminism, are the reasons why Spotkania did not result in the emergence of any kind of community or in the undertaking of collective actions. The exhibitions remained as incidental meetings and their infl uence on the oeuvres of the women artists who participated in them is yet to be analysed.