BIENNALE / SPRING 2025
The 14th Poznań Graphic Arts Biennale: IMPORT/EXPORT
The first international edition
Thank you to all participants! We’re thrilled to have received 917 submissions from 67 countries! Good luck to everyone and stay tuned for the next steps!
COMPETITION EXHIBITION
Municipal Gallery Arsenał
Stary Rynek 6, Poznań
4–27 April 2025
Opening: 4 April 2025, 6:00 pm
ACCOMPANYING EXHIBITIONS
Transit
Exhibition of the Laureates of the 13th Graphic Arts Bienniale / ERROR
Pop Culture Gallery @ Stary Browar
ul. Półwiejska 42, Poznań
10 April – 4 May 2025
Curator: Agnieszka C. Maćkowiak
Artists: Gabriela Bałdyga, Oksana Fedchyshyn, Aleksandra Gigiel, Olga Ilicheva, Aleksandra Kaim, Anastazja Kramer, Gabriela Palicka, Borys Szadkowski, Martyna Wojciechowska
Opening: 10 April 2025, 6:00 pm
Import/Export. Ljubljana | ALUO Lecturers
Pop Culture Gallery @ Stary Browar
ul. Półwiejska 42, Poznań
10 April – 4 May 2025
Curator: Zora Stančič
Coordination: Witold Modrzejewski, Maja Michalska
Opening: 10 April 2025, 6:00 pm
Gene BY | Volha Savich
Curators’LAB UAP Gallery
ul. Nowowiejskiego 12, Poznań
1–20 April 2025
Curator: Ewelina Muraszkiewicz
Opening: 1 April 2025, 7:00 pm
The Graphic Arts Biennale, established in 1999, is a cyclical review/competition presenting the works of young-generation artists working in the area of graphic arts. In 2019, the competition formula was changed as thematic areas were defined to expose alternative values entering into dialogue with contemporary culture and everyday life. The new formula of the Biennale has been adapted to changes in contemporary art related to post-artistic activities (1:1 art, ‘utilitarian’ art and material realism) and to transformations conditioned by the role of graphic statements in the context of social activities (activist movements).
IMPORT/EXPORT is the theme of the 14th Graphic Arts Biennale, which will take place in Poznań in the spring of 2025. It refers to the hierarchy of dependencies between core countries and the periphery that lead to cultural self-colonization and perpetuate this division of the world. Here, import and export allude to the exchange of culture-forming artistic phenomena.
The competition is addressed to artists from all over the world, aged 18 to 40 years. In stage one, preview files of original graphic works together with a short description of the idea and technique used shall be sent by 16 February 2025 using the online Application Form on grafikaart.pl.
Works qualified by the jury for stage two of the competition shall be sent in the form of physical media to the address given on grafikaart.pl. The works nominated for awards will be presented at a post-competition exhibition organised at the Municipal Gallery Arsenał in Poznań and published in a catalogue accompanying the exhibition.
We cordially invite you to participate in the 14th Graphic Arts Biennale in Poznań, Poland.
JURY 2nd STAGE:
Sebastian Cichocki
A curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN). He has curated, among others, The Gleaners Society at EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art (2023) as well as the Polish Pavilions at the Venice Biennale, Gwangju Biennale, and Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai. His curatorial practice focuses on artistic approaches that engage with climate activism, radical education, and agriculture.
Eulalia Domanowska
Director of the State Gallery of Art in Sopot, an artist, art historian, and curator, she has organized over 100 exhibitions, including those featuring Tony Cragg, Magdalena Abakanowicz, and Henry Moore. Director of the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko from 2016 to 2019 and lecturer in art history. Author of numerous publications and former editor-in-chief of the Orońsko Quarterly. The initiator of the conference “Sculpture Today” and a participant in numerous conferences in Poland and worldwide. Specializes in art in public space and landscape. Member of AICA and IKT.
Anna Łazar
Curator, author, and translator. Creator of numerous exhibitions in Poland and abroad, including at the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok, and the Museum of Art in Łódź. Curator of the international artistic cooperation program Free Word (2022–2024). Former Deputy Director and Acting Director of the Polish Institutes in Kyiv and Saint Petersburg. Member of the Women’s Archive at IBL PAN and the Polish section of AICA.
Błażej Ostoja Lniski
A painter and graphic artist specializing in lithography, as well as a book, poster, and typeface designer. Professor dr. hab. at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where he leads the Lithography Studio. Dean of the Academy from 2012 to 2020. Currently serves as Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Chairperson of the Conference of Rectors of Art Universities. Honoris Causa Doctor of the Lviv National Academy of Arts and recipient of the Gold Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture.
Marta Anna Raczek-Karcz
Art historian and cultural studies scholar, PhD in humanities, assistant professor at the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. Art theorist, critic, and independent curator collaborating with the National Museum in Krakow, the Manggha Museum, and MODEM in Debrecen. Jury member for graphic arts competitions in Poland and abroad. Since 2013, president of the SMTG in Krakow. Member of AICA and the Polish Cultural Studies Association. Author of publications on art, film, and digital media.
Magdalena Radomska
A post-Marxist art historian and philosopher, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Art History at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and Director of the Piotr Piotrowski Center for Research on East-Central European Art. She has been a scholar at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Getty Foundation, ERSTE Stiftung, NCN, ELTE, and MTA. Author of books and numerous academic publications in several languages. Her research focuses on communist and post-communist art in Europe and the critique of capitalism in global art. Member of AICA, ASEEES, and OZZ. Her book Plural Subject: Art after the Crisis of 2008 – Shifting the Paradigm will be published by Routledge in autumn 2025.
Marek Wasilewski
An artist, art critic, and Professor dr. hab. at the University of the Arts in Poznań, Faculty of Animation and Intermedia. Former editor-in-chief of Zeszyty Artystyczne and Czas Kultury. Since 2017, director of the Arsenał Municipal Gallery. Member of AICA and recipient of scholarships from the British Council, Fulbright Foundation, and the Kosciuszko Foundation. Author of books on art, including Art in the Age of Populism.
JURY 1st STAGE:
Oskar Dawicki
Born in 1971. Polish multimedia artist specializing in performance art, video, photography, and documentation; also creates installations and objects. He lives and works in Warsaw. In 1996, he graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where he studied painting under Professor Lech Wolski. During the 1990s, together with Radosław Nowakowski and Wojciech Kiwi Jaruszewski, he formed the group Tu Performance. Later, in 2001, along with Igor Krenz, Wojciech Niedzielko, and Łukasz Skąpski, he co-founded the Azorro group. Since 1994, he has been active as a performer, and since 1995, he has been known for his characteristic blue sequined jacket.
Lidia Głuchowska
Art and literary historian; head of the Department of History and Theory of Art at the Institute of Visual Arts, University of Zielona Góra. After her studies in Warsaw PhD degree from Humboldt University, Berlin. Curator; (co-)organiser of conferences in Poland and abroad. Author of over 100 articles, 4 books and (co-)editor of 5 international collective volumes.
Maciej Kozłowski
Born in 1976. Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań. Laureate of the Grand Prix in the “Painting of the Year 2003” competition, co-publisher and co-editor of the zine “Glizda”. His works are included, among others, in the collection of the Greater Poland Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts. His areas of interest and artistic activity include graphics, painting, urban actionism, and publishing. Since 2019, lecturer at the Faculty of Graphic Arts and Visual Communication, and since 2024, at the Faculty of Artistic Graphics at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts Poznań.
Mariya Plyatsko
An artist, head of the lithography workshop, and senior lecturer at the Department of Graphics and Book Art at the Institute of Printing art and Media Technologies of Lviv Polytechnic National University. A member of the jury of the 2023 Graphic Biennale in Poznań, “Error”. Organizer of printmaking graphic courses and promotes printmaking in Ukraine. Conducts artistic practices for military personnel and veterans in rehabilitation.
Import/Export
The expanding global capitalist system creates a network of supranational connections, shaping the binary division of the world into the dominant core and the subordinated periphery. Areas in which civilizational and economic development does not keep up with the pace of the core are still influenced by outdated (archaic) forms of socio-economic organization. The slower paced development of the periphery is often explained by its insufficient integration with more economically advanced areas. However, we fail to observe that it is the global economic system, which is based on the accumulation of capital, that contributes to the emergence of this division and of backward regions, which are a ‘consequence of the polarising logic of the expansion of this system’.1
Each new state included in this supranational structure, usually because of conquest, is pushed to a peripheral position. In this way, the integrated economic system that is being created leads to the emergence of a hierarchy based on various specializations and degrees of professionalization. In the newly incorporated and less developed regions, production processes usually require a large input of labour and time, but they do not guarantee high profits. In addition, the peripheral economy is usually based on agriculture and the extraction of raw materials, with intensive exploitation of natural resources and labour. As a result, less affluent regions in the global economic system become dependent on more developed areas. The profitability of production in the periphery results from low costs, which are possible thanks to cheap or even slave labour. The export of cheap products from poorer regions is the key factor that influences the functioning of economic systems and deepens the phenomenon of polarization between the core and the periphery. As a result, differences in profits in individual regions arise, giving developed countries an advantage over less affluent areas. According to Immanuel Wallerstein, social polarization is a key element in creating this kind of dependency in the economic system, which is based on the accumulation of capital. This is caused not only by a delay in achieving the standards imposed by the core but also by the very structure of the system, which is based on these inequalities. Consequently, closing the gap and catching up with richer regions becomes impossible.
The economic system, supported by the political and social structure, also leads to the export of western/central patterns and models of behaviour to less affluent regions. This process is closely linked to cultural expansion, an example of which is the phenomenon of Eurocentrism. As the periphery, and the semi-periphery in particular, try to achieve the standards and organizational models set by the core, they obsessively compare themselves to developed countries and intensively adapt their cultural patterns. The process of importing social patterns and organizational structures in order to build one’s own identity is referred to as cultural self- colonization. It is defined through ‘the trauma of inferiority resulting from awareness of alienation from the Universal’.2 Thus, cultural phenomena in semi-peripheral areas are often described in relation to paradigms and trends established by the core.
In the context of the above considerations, it is worth paying attention to the concept of horizontal art history by Piotr Piotrowski. It can be interpreted as an attempt to neutralize the vertical approach, in which art trends are imposed by the dominant western culture.3 In the traditional, vertical model of cultural development, artistic phenomena spread from the core to the periphery. The export of artistic phenomena, and particularly how they are interpreted, significantly affects their reception in regions located outside the strict core. The concept of horizontal art history reveals a process resulting from the complexity of visual culture, which makes it difficult to indicate clearly which artistic phenomena were dominant in any period.
This allows simplifications and the superficial popularization of trends developing at any historical moment to be avoided.
The import and export of culture-forming artistic phenomena in the horizontal model support socialization while sustaining diversity, which makes it possible to show the complex human environment more thoroughly. This model of exchange is not limited to ‘products’ (which is typical of consumer culture) but focuses on active participation in a creative process and on searching for and propagating utopian visions.
Curator: Maciej Kurak
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1 Marcin Starnawski, Przemysław Wielgosz, Kapitalizm nad przepaścią, społeczeństwa wobec wyboru. O krytycznych perspektywach analizy systemów-światów Immanuela Wallersteina, in: Immanuel Wallerstein, Analiza systemów-światów. Wprowadzenie, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Akademickie Dialog, 2007, p. XXV.
2 In reference to Alexander Kiossev, Jan Sowa, Fantomowe ciało króla. Peryferyjne zmagania z nowoczesną formą, Kraków: UNIVERSITAS, 2011, p. 21.
3 For more on this topic see e.g. Piotr Piotrowski, Globalne ujęcie sztuki Europy Wschodniej, Poznań: Dom Wydawniczy REBIS, 2018.