Current and announcment

Grzegorz Schmidt’s Collection

Art collecting is real when it chronicles one’s journey of discovering self. In my view, a collection is not supposed to cover the canonical art scene and be yet another list of ‘The Greatest 100’ – it should not attempt to mirror museum collections. Each work contains a clue to my life, a whole baggage is out there – the replica of my existence, the reflection of my fascinations, my interests but also failures – says Grzegorz Schmidt, a collector of modern art from Konin, who has been collecting art in this very spirit for over twenty years.

His collection is well thought out and consistent – it draws from intellectual pursuits, not from research into the market or mainstream trends. It has equipped the author of the collection with a cognitive tool and a springboard into deeper reflection about art and – through art – about the world. When adding new pieces, he is mindful of the context in which this particular work enters – be it an object, a painting, a drawing or a photograph – the new piece becomes part of new relations and dialogues inside the collection. Grzegorz Schmidt structures his works into topics and issues (nature, geometry and mathematics; writing and symbols; architecture and landscape) and pairs up ‘his’ artists to involve them in a ‘dialectic’ dialogue. He seems to have set out on a never-ending quest for new meanings and keeps asking questions without expecting immediate answers.

Currently, his collection includes over 200 works and presents dozens of artists, ranging from modern classics to the new generation – there are renowned authors, as well as the ones that the collector has discovered while assembling the collection.

The exhibition of Grzegorz Schmidt’s art collection in the BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice is the collection’s third public appearance after its presentation in Muzeum Okręgowe in Konin in 2021 and 2022. The current exhibition is the most comprehensive one.

Curators
Jan Trzupek, Mania Schmidt

Authors of works on display from Grzegorz Schmidt’s collection:
Magdalena Abakanowicz | Jan Berdyszak | Marek Chlanda | Ignacy Czwartos | Stanisław Dróżdż | Stanisław Fijałkowski | Stefan Gierowski | Zbigniew Gostomski | Józef Hałas | Antoni Haska | Zdzisław Jurkiewicz | Jerzy Kałucki | Koji Kamoji | Jarosław Kozłowski | Edward Krasiński | Moshe Kupferman | Marek Kuś | Andrzej Leśnik | Piotr Lutyński | Eugeniusz Markowski | Jarosław Modzelewski | Jerzy Nowosielski | Justyna Pyrzyńska | Mikołaj Poliński | Zofia Rydet | Mikołaj Smoczyński | Kajetan Sosnowski | Antoni Starczewski | Henryk Stażewski | Jonasz Stern | Maciej Szańkowski | Marek Szczęsny | Andrzej Szewczyk | Monika Szwed | Jan Tarasin | Tomasz Tatarczyk | Agata Trafalska | Marian Warzecha | Ryszard Winiarski | Stanisław Wójtowicz | Jerzy Wroński

The vernissage will begin at 6 pm on 29 July 2022.
The exhibition will run until 4 September.


Grzegorz Schmidt (born in 1972), Doctor of Medicine, collector of new art, publisher, author and producer of films about art. Cofounder of the foundation Ładne Życie. He lives and works in Konin.