Project in cooperation with the Polish-American Fulbright Commission

In May this year (in cooperation with Fotofestiwal) we opened the exhibition "Tender Attention. Urszula Czartoryska and Photography", which presented the figure and practice of an outstanding curator and art critic to the audience. Her research, texts and curiosity about photography in all its manifestations have shaped not only the museum's collection, but also entire generations of Polish artists. During the research seminar accompanying the exhibition, we wanted to express the multidimensionality and relevance of the rich theoretical and critical legacy of the "first lady of Polish photography".

Through cooperation with Fulbright Specialist, we wanted to analyze Czartoryska's curatorial projects in the broader context of global curatorial practices at that time. We want to subject the collection built by Czartoryska to a similar analysis. The project "Historical research on curatorial and collecting practices at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź in the face of the global art scene" is located in the area of ​​art history, cultural and curatorial studies, as well as gender studies.

During her stay in Poland as part of the Fulbright Specialist program, researcher and curator Joanna Szupińska focused on the figure of Urszula Czartoryska in the context of broader processes such as curatorial strategies, building collections and the functioning of the local artistic community. As part of an extensive query conducted at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, but primarily in the in-house archive of the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, the researcher began a reconstruction of the program policy implemented by Urszula Czartoryska while working in the Department of Photography and Visual Technologies and an attempt to embed it in the field of the then international curatorial culture and institutional.

An extremely important result of activities under the program was also the completion of the translation into English of a fragment of Czartoryska's iconic publication "The Art Adventures of Photography", which, more than fifty years after its publication, will have a chance to appear in international circulation.

During internal seminar meetings, as well as numerous meetings with former colleagues, people from Czartoryska's environment and local researchers, Joanna Szupińska and the Museum Research Center indicated possible ways of further cooperation on this project.

The project was created in cooperation with the Polish-American Fulbright Commission