‘Workers’ resistance—Artists’ resistance’

In July 1980, a strike broke out in Świdnik, sparking the all-Poland ‘Solidarity’ movement. The exhibition ‘Workers’ resistance—Artists’ resistance’, held at the ‘Za Szybą’ Gallery of the Municipal Cultural Centre in Świdnik, explores this turning point, as well as a second, less apparent form of defiance: artists’ resistance.

exhibition opening: 25 July 2025 (Friday), 7:00 p.m.
venue: ‘Za Szybą’ Gallery, Municipal Cultural Centre, Świdnik
admission: free
exhibition runs until: 16 November 2025
the exhibition includes documentation from the collection of the Świdnik History Zone as well as artworks from the Galeria Labirynt collection, featuring artists such as: Janusz Bałdyga, Włodzimierz Borowski, Andrzej Lachowicz, Natalia LL, Katarzyna Kozyra, Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Andrzej Partum, Józef Robakowski, Jan Świdziński, Anna Kutera, Romuald Kutera, Zbigniew Warpechowski
curator: Mateusz Wszelaki

The art of the 1970s and 1980s in Poland became a form of resistance: independent, conceptual, and often ephemeral. Artists such as Józef Robakowski, Jan Świdziński, Anna Kutera, Romuald Kutera, Andrzej Partum, Natalia LL, Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Janusz Bałdyga, Zbigniew Warpechowski, Andrzej Lachowicz, and Włodzimierz Borowski created works hovering between documentation, ritual, and intervention. The exhibition also explores how artists’ resistance evolved after the political transformation—for instance, in the works of Katarzyna Kozyra, who in the 1990s addressed the issue of individual freedom in a new reality.

The exhibition juxtaposes this artists’ resistance with documents and memorabilia of workers’ strikes from the History Zone—a place where testimonies of those events are stored. It is a story of rejecting violence and silence and of a struggle for agency.

In September, the exhibition will be expanded to include works by young artists selected through an open call.