Historia
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The beginnings of the Virgin Mary Church date back to the 1250s. The charter permitting the Polish-descended Dominicans to settle in Elbląg was granted by the Master of the Teutonic Knights Herman Balk. The erection of the church started after 1246 with the construction of presbytery, sacristry and two small annexes on the west side. In the last quarter of the 13th century a one-naved, four-bayed nave trunk was built as well as a cloister on the north side. By around 1350 the south nave was built. Originally, it was lower and covered with a separate roof.
Destroyed by the fire in 1504, the church practically lost the vault, the gable and the church interior. Soon after the fire, the rebuilding process began. The south nave was raised, which gave the church the shape of a two-naved hall. Both naves were added a net vault and a common ceiling. The roof was attached a gorgeous ave-bell, placed near the east gable.
The restoration of the church from the early 16th century and numerous repairs did not change its essential shape.
The development of the Reformation in Elbląg brought about the fall of the Dominican monastery. In 1542 the last two monks transferred both the monastery and the church to the Town Council. Thus for the first time the Protestants took over a Catholic sanctuary.
From 1542 to 1945 St Mary’s Church was the main Protestant place of worship in town. Of all the valuable objects only some epitaphs and tombstones have survived till the present day. Most of them were destroyed during the WW2 military operations in 1945 and after the war, as a result of negligence. The most precious examples of the old furnishings are the epitaph of the burgrave Jan Jungschultz (1631), an inscription plate, funded in 1647 by Izaak Spiring in honour of Władysław IV, a mannerist tombstone of Hans Gross (1600), Martin Michaels’s epitaph (1623) and Bartholomew Meisenreis’s, Jan Slocumbe’s and their wives’ tombstones (1621).
During the Soviet army’s siege of Elbląg, the church sustained serious damage. The vault of both naves caved in, causing the east and (partially) west gables to collapse. The monastery was destroyed, too. The only survivors were the presbytery, sacristry and the cloister with its roof.
In the post-war period, the church, like the whole town, was in the state of ruin. Taken in 1959, the decision of its restoration had to be reconsidered due to the lack of adequate funds. The reconstruction started several years later.
In 1961 Gerard Kwiatkowski, an artist employed in a machine plant „Zamech” applied to the town authorities for converting the Dominican church ruins into an atelier. The place also functioned as a modern art gallery thanks to young local intelligentsia from „Zamech.” They were Jerzy Wojewski, Lech Rutkowiak and Wacław Nadziakiewicz. „Zamech”, the town authorities , and Socialist Youth Union supported them.
The name „Galeria EL” was given through contest. The author was a painter Janusz Hankowski. The founders managed to hire Gdańsk artists such as Barbara Argasińska, Edward Bober, Jan Góra, Gizela Pierzyńska, Dorota and Jerzy Łabanowski and Bogusław Czerwiński.
On 24 July 1961 Gerard Kwiatkowski and Janusz Hankowski mounted an exhibition of their works and this date is regarded as the beginning of Galeria EL.
The enterprises that established the gallery’s reputation and ensured its uniqueness were The Biennial Three-dimensional Forms Exhibition (BTFE). From 1965 to 1973 five BTFEs took place. „Zamech” provided material and technical aid.
The First BTFE appealed to the constructivist idea of artists and blue-collar workers’ unity, which Marian Bogusz’s can take the credit for. His pragmatism and devotion to promoting modern art and his ingenuity led to the organisation of several vital performances in the entire history of Polish art. The essence of the experiment was the introduction of avant-garde slogans that promoted merging art and technology in the name of confronting the artist’s and the worker’s workshop. In addition, what BTFE creators had in mind was the possibility of organising unconventional open-air spaces.
During the First and Second BTFEs a few dozen creations came into being spread all over Elbląg. Many of them deserve attention due to their artistic value and uniqueness in each of the artist’s output, e.g. three-dimensional forms made by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Zbigniew Dłubak, Henryk Stażewski, Zbigniew Gostomski, Henryk Morel and Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz. Not only did the metal sculpture become a decorative element of the town landscape, but they also aroused interest of the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art, UNESCO and inspired the Danish artists from Alborg to take similar actions.
Though the name and the rules remained the same in the following years, the content was not restricted to 3D forms or metal sculpture. It was dominated by the topics of main concern of the Polish artistic avant-garde.
The Third BTFE acquired a different character. Fewer participants and more artistic freedom resulted in syncretic creations encompassing light, sound, movement, colour and also time and space initiatives. The sole exception was the space graphics composition in the form of metal sculpture made by Z. Książkiewicz.
Because of the lack of material and adequate funds, not all the artistic concepts were brought into life. The decision to leave the designs on the paper gave birth to protoconceptualism where drafts or designs are of artistic value in their own right.
The failure of the Third BTFE forced Kwiatkowski to change the concept of the exhibition. That was the consequence of his ambition to contribute to the rise of conceptual art. With no exaggeration can one state that Galeria EL played a key role in the transformation of Polish modern art by crossing the boundaries of traditional art. Originated at the Fourth BTFE by the Assembly of Dreamers, conceptual art
became the art of reduction devoid of museal character.
The program of the Assembly was as capacious as to include every act of creation. There were lectures, manifestos, photographic exhibitions and films.
The Fifth BTFE (1973) was a fruit of the gallery’s cooperation with the Film Form Workshop from Łódź. A few dozen Polish and foreign films were shown with the projections being accompanied by musical and theatrical peformances as well as by shows of conceptual character. The Lab-Cinema focused on the formal language of the film with the omission of its meanings.
Galeria EL popularised modern art in a very flexible way and kept up with the latest avant-garde trends. As an Art-Lab ceased to exist in 1974. When Kwiatkowski left for Germany, the gallery collapsed despite its status of a budget institution since 1972. Elbląg authorities, which were responsible for the gallery, found themselves in serious trouble not being prepared to act in absence of the main activist. His departure made them realise severity of the loss. Fortunately, the gallery’s nationwide prestige and vitality did not let it be closed down.
In the second half of 1974 Paweł Petasz became the new director. Cultivating the tradition he tended towards conceptual activity and mail art.
In 1969 and 1970 the premises were given a makeshift protection from destruction. It lacked electricity and central heating. The destructive force of rising damp in absence of a store caused almost a total destruction of the art. Works collection coming from their authors’ gifts. For that reason, the authorities suspended the gallery’s functioning for the time of redecoration.
The reopening of Galeria EL took place in December 1982. Ryszard Tomczyk was appointed director, whose main intention was to integrate many branches of art.
Except for exhibitions diverging from the pattern of the activity of the Offices of Art. Exhibition, such as, e.g. „Painting paraphrases on the Cosmos and the Matter,” „Apocryphs” or two editions of „Art Confrontations of Northern Poland,” the gallery specialised in organising time and space performances with the elements of open-air performances, i.e. „The Night of Dziady,” „Dies Irae” and „Struck out of the Walls.”
The martial law (1981-83) and its consequences such as the boycott of official exhibitions disrupted the gallery’s activity.
Tomczyk aimed at cooperation and integration of artists as seen in the presentations of artists from other towns (Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Szczecin, Gorzów and Olsztyn). In the early 1980s Galeria EL took charge of biennial-like Salony Elbląskie that encompassed individual artists’ exhibitions.
A sort of Art-Lab continuation were „Integrated Creative Meetings” in 1986 which attracted artists, theoreticians and critics from all over the country. However, the direct correspondence to Kwiatkowski’s tradition of the gallery were the shows directly relating to the function of works of art in town areas. The open-air display „Interferences” strove to bring out the co-existence of the two elements and is one of the most important events in the Elbląg of the 1980s.
„Interferences” were supported by „Zamech” and brought a dozen or so 3D forms that „interfered” with the existing collection of such forms with the nature of their substance itself. The non-metallic construction were destroyed by the atmospheric conditions, which, however, had been taken into account. Other references to Kwiatkowski’s enterprises were made through the open-air display „What Now?” with the participation of students and graduates of Professor Everdt Hilgemann from Kampen Academy of Fine Arts and of Professor Ryszard Winiarski of Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in collaboration with „Zamech.” The sculptures resembled 3D forms and the most remarkable form was that of Hilgeman who deformated it through implosion.
In the second half of 1987 a graduate of Gdańsk Fine Arts College, Andrzej Szadkowski, took the director’s office over. In 1988 the gallery gathered computer artists at „International Computer Workshops.” During the second edition of the workshops in 1989 Professor Paul Rutkovsky from the U.S., representing The Cultural Resources Commission on Behalf of the Cultural Community, handed over a diploma in recognition of the „effort in propagating peace through art and technology”.
Szadkowski’s eleven-year directorship span abounded in artistic events of various kinds. There were several hundred of them and they ranged from individual to collective and thematic exhibitions such as, for example, „Truso Symposium” held from 1992 to 1997.
Numerous musical concerts were a special feature of that period. The spatial value of Galeria EL had been spotted by Tomczyk and his successor. Since then, the gallery has been the venue for concerts, plays and paratheatrical performances, also because of the lack of a genuine concert hall in town. In the 1960s it is in the church ruins that „EL Klub Jazzu Tradycyjnego (EL Club of Traditional Jazz)” the first jazz club was set up by the young intelligentsia from Zamech. So, the tradition was carried on.
Elbląg inhabitants identify the gallery with the propagation of jazz music (Z. Namysłowski, T. Stańko, M. Urbaniak), classical music („Polish Requiem” by K. Penderecki, performed by the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra and the Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir (1987), Mozart’s „Requiem” performed by the Sopot Chamber Choir „Continuo” and the Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra from Gdańsk (1998), F.G. Haendel’s „The Messiah”, performed by the Polish Chamber Choir „Schola Cantorum Gedanensis” and the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra (1999)) and singing poetry („evening concerts”).
Galeria EL has always tried to show the changing art by presenting the newest trends to the art lovers. Since October 1998, with Zbyszek Opalewski as the new director, Galeria EL has promoted Polish and foreign artists, has organised workshops (Multimedial Art and Improvised Music Workshop 2000), collective exhibitions like, for example, „Within the Workshop,” thematic exhibitions (similar to Kwiatkowski’s ideas) such as „Abstract painting” (2000) and „The Language of Geometry II” (2001). Besides, the gallery has been the venue for musical concerts and plays.
Text: Jarosław Denisiuk
Translated Sławomir Demkowicz-Dobrzański