Karolina Zychowicz
University of Wroclaw, Institute of Art History, Faculty Member
- University of Zielona Gora, Department of Visual Arts, Faculty Memberadd
The documentation of the Committee for Cultural Cooperation with Foreign Countries, which was an offi cial agency active in the years 1950–1956, is currently deposited at the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw and constitutes an... more
The documentation of the Committee for Cultural Cooperation with Foreign Countries, which was an offi cial agency active in the years 1950–1956, is currently deposited at the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw and constitutes an invaluable source for any Polish scholar interested in the history of exhibitions. It contains large amounts of interesting data which make it possible to ascertain the character of Polish exhibitionorganising activity in the fi rst half of the 1950s. In the six years of its existence the Committee organised ca. one hundred exhibitions. The essay concerns exhibitions hosted in the main building of the Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions, i.e. the Zachęta. Foreign exhibitions prepared by the Committee were intended to justify the state’s cultural strategy based on promoting the aesthetics of Socialist Realism, which programmatically referred to 19th-century Realism and its historical traditions. Exhibitions of art produced in the countries of the East...
