‘My Hands Are Clean and My Floor Is Green’

The exhibition presents nearly one hundred works from the Galeria Labirynt collection – paintings, drawings, graphics – spanning a wide range of artistic approaches. It focuses on what is immediately available to experience: colour relationships, textures, forms, shapes, compositional tensions, and the pleasure of perception that comes from engaging with a material image.

opening: 24 July 2026 (Friday), 7:00 p.m.
where: Galeria Labirynt, ul. ks. J. Popiełuszki 5, Lublin
language: opening in Polish, Ukrainian interpretation: Volodymyr Dyshlevuk; Polish Sign Language interpretation: Marta Stępniak
exhibition runs until 27 September 2026 (Tue–Sun, noon–7:00 p.m.)
free entry

curator: Paweł Korbus

Borrowed from a 1971 painting by Marek Sapetto, the title serves as a starting point for reflecting on the status of the Galeria Labirynt collection, built consistently since the 1960s and now comprising several hundred works that are re-examined and reinterpreted today. Paintings like to be viewed!

By reaching into the reserve collection, we initiate a process of stocktaking that is not only material but also conceptual. At its core are questions about the nature of the collection, selection criteria and the narratives that our institution wishes and is able to construct today.

The exhibition is ‘analogue’, pleasant and relaxing. There are no multimedia, loud music or flashing monitor screens. Instead, we want to invite visitors to spend time contemplating the paintings, their materiality, meanings and aura.

The varying states of preservation of the works and the uneven longevity of the ideas they convey make it clear that both matter and meaning are subject to erosion. In many cases, the original contexts of their creation and the hidden symbolic layers have faded.

By treating the collection as a shared heritage, we propose a selective overview – a layout of works that does not reconstruct the phenomena of art history but creates visual and semantic sequences. The works on display create ‘swarms’ of forms, colours and motifs, revealing stylistic variation and the diversity of artistic languages.

(Paweł Korbus)