Polish art exhibition opens in the European Parliament

"The European Union is not just about treaties or economics. It is about people and their feelings and culture. Jean Monnet noted 50 years ago that European Communities are for 'building Union among people not co-operation between states'", said EP President Jerzy Buzek, opening an exhibition of Polish contemporary art acquired by the European Parliament.

"We were divided for almost half of the century and did not have the possibility to exchange views and to hold discussions, including ones about art. The regimes wanted to control many things, including the language of the soul, which is art", continued Mr Buzek. "This changed in 1989, when exchange of views, art and ideas was again possible", he said.

"The tradition of purchasing and displaying contemporary artworks with a view to promoting the cultural output of the EU Member States, was started by the President of the first directly-elected European Parliament, Simone Veil. This was in 1979 - when Europe was still divided by the "iron curtain", explained Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg, Quaestor with responsibility for artistic events and Chair of Parliament's Art Committee.

"Today, 30 years later, the European Parliament's collection comprises a total of 363 paintings and sculptures, including the 59 works of art from the new Member States. This year, the collection will be enlarged by paintings and sculptures from Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia, thus completing the plan of acquisitions from the new Member States after the 2004 EU enlargement", said Ms Geringer de Oedenberg, adding that she had already taken the initiative to enrich the existing collection with the works of art from Bulgaria and Romania, which the Parliament is likely to welcome on its premises in 2011.

"It would seem that artists all around the world use exactly the same language, that it is a universal one. We seemingly speak the same language but we try to tell different stories, results of our private lives, overlapping with the history of whole regions, nations and states. I belong to a generation whose childhood and adolescence was spent behind the wall that divided Europe into West and East and therefore into the centre and the peripheries", said Polish artist Anna Baumgart, who created one of the exhibits. Noting that East-West divisions still existed in arts and culture, Ms Baumgart said she believed in the need "to rewrite history and to change the vectors of attention so that peripheries are replaced by a notion of margins". As indicated by art history professor Piotr Piotrowski, margins hold greater autonomy, play more active role and can influence the centre", she added.

Artworks by ten Polish artists from Parliament's collection can be seen in Brussels until Thursday, January 28. The collection includes works by such artists as Anna Baumgart, Tomasz Ciecierski, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Ryszard Grzyb, Stefan Gierowski, Zofia Kulik, Włodzimierz Pawlak, Zbigniew Rogalski, Henryk Stażewski and Tomasz Tatarczyk.

The works on display were chosen from a shortlist drawn up, under the supervision of the Parliament’s information office in Warsaw, by a panel of experts comprising Zofia Gołubiew, Director of the National Museum in Kraków, Agnieszka Morawińska, Director of the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Paweł Potoroczyn, Director of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and Jarosław Suchan, Director of the Łódź Museum of Art. The final choice of 10 works from among the 45 put forward by the panel was made by the Parliament’s Art Committee and President Buzek.

With the purchases made over recent years, the European Parliament’s collection now comprises a total of 363 paintings and sculptures. This collection is on display at the Parliament’s three places of work in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg and in its national information offices.