At the Crossroads of Modernity. 'Independent galleries' in Poland during the 1960s 499

on the other hand the 'programme-like quality' of
the spectacle and its excessive submission to utilitar-
ian messages. This second stand was represented by
critics bringing into being a specific places: new gal-
leries. It is for this reason that this spectacle is treated
as a starting point for considering the question of 'in-
dependent galleries'. Their activity brings to light an
arrangement of accents separate to the postulations
of 'modernity' during the post-Stalinist 'thaw'.
An attempt at reconstructing the above-men-
tioned phenomenon was taken up through the exam-
ples the Mona Liza and Foksal galleries, recognising
their role from two perspectives: continuity of the
'pattern', or model, of modernity and its crisis point
in the 'avant-gardist spirit' of transgressing the pic-
ture by activating relations between the object and
its viewer. The galleries arising from the middle of
the 1960s, based on a clearly drawn up programme
and individual responsibility of directions adopted
became a elear alternative in relation to the official
exhibition salons. They were distinguished from
such galleries set up in the 1950s as Krzywe Koło in
Warsaw or Krzysztofory in Cracow above all by the
self-awareness of interna! tension between (again
applying the theoretic terms of Peter Burger) 'avant-
garde' and 'the institution of art'. On the one hand
the reader is dealing with assimilating 'avant-garde
poetics', on the other bringing into being with this
aim in mind galleries which, placing their position as
an alternative to the official exhibition salons, known
as the Offices of Artistic Exhibitions (BWA), de-
fined their profiles as 'independent institutions'. The
necessity to distance themselves from conventional
shows in official exhibition salons led to the distin-
guishing of smaller galleries based on the decisions
of single people, having ambitions to display the so-
called 'new art'. Tndependence' distinguished in
this way functioned above all in the orbit of concrete
artistic preferences, being frequently in line with the
laws of progressively understood 'modernity'. As a
result of reflexions on current tendencies in art, and
above all through the appearance in the gallery scen-
ery of the viewer's position and own way of perceiv-
ing the work of art, a transformation nevertheless
ensued in the painterly tradition of the 'thaw' period.
The author analyses the Pod Moną Lizą Gallery
as a distinct example of the critic's (in this case Jerzy
Ludwihski's) dialogue with creativity exceeding
conventional artistic means. The way in which this
gallery was run appears to clearly illustrate the ten-
sion between 'lineal' history (continuity of the artis-
tic model) and the attempt at its transformation by
displaying the 'doublevoice' of the artist and critic,
the work of art and contemoraneity. Successive ex-
hibitions dealt with in the article (by Wanda
Gołkowska, Jerzy Rosołowicz, Jarosław Kozłowski

and Włodzimierz Borowski) led to reflexions on the
disintegration of a work's interna! structure, as well
as on the transformations occurring to the language
employed by critics. The gallery, defined as a 'labo-
ratory', wore down the dichotomies of object-viewer
and picture-reality giving rise in their place to 'an
artificial situation'. One of the final shows organised
at the gallery, by Borowski and bearing the title
Fubki tarb (i.e. 'Pubes of taint') signalled the exclu-
sion of metaphor typical of the minimalist turning-
point of 'the picture'. If, however, the work in
question lost its organie status to the situation acti-
vating the viewer's role, the structure of art as an
institution had not been violated, as manifested in
commentaries to exhibitions containing a reference
to artistic tradition. 'Laborartory' signified a mo-
ment in the present in relation to the past, question-
ing at the same time the utopian aspirations of the
first avant-garde. The conviction of the continuity of
artistic phenomena resulted from the interna! artistic
logic. The Pod Moną Lizą Gallery revealed the proc-
ess of crystalising a work of art (defining a particular
exhibition by means of the institutional context) in a
consistent dialogue between artist, critic and the gen-
erał public.
The activity of the Foksal Gallery in the 1960s is
described by the author in the light of a manifesto
delivered at Puławy titled 'An Introduction to the
General Theory of Place' (Wprowadzenie do
Ogólnej Teorii Miejsca), whose structure permitted
an investigation of the disintegration of a work's in-
tegral structure, while giving rise at the same time to
a subtle analysis of 'singular being' in relation to the
work. The problem of the threeway relationship be-
tween the artist, his/her work and the viewer was
analysed in selected examples of exhibitions pre-
sented in the gallery (Edward Krasiński, Zbigniew
Gostomski, Włodzimierz Borowski). Successive
shows annexing the gallery's space emphasised the
viewer's direct, undistanced introduction to the
work's structure and its internal narration. In this
way the organie, compact concept of a work through
simultaneous signifying of gallery space as a place
excluded from the institutional rituals of public life.
The action from 1969 titled Asamblag zimowy
('Winter Assemblage') was not intended to be lim-
ited either in terms of space or time. The common
realisation of critics and artists involved covering up
the gallery windows with images of their own selves.
This self-identification of theoreticians and collabo-
rators of the Foksal Gallery towards the external
context in a certain sense enacted a 'non-place', and
in the same way went beyond the autonomous status
of socially sanctioning institutions of art. On the
other hand, it was precisely by excluding the viewer
from the gallery-place area (the viewer 'observed'