CIACEK GALLERY

FLASHBACK ART FAIR 2025

Domicella Bożekowska / Barbara Levittoux – Świderska

The presentation brings together two distinct yet deeply connected artistic worlds: paintings by Barbara Levittoux–Świderska, portraying the streets of 1980s Warsaw, and sculptures by Domicella Bożekowska, including the moving piece dedicated to her beloved Fuga – a half-wolf from the Bieszczady, rescued and cared for by the artist in her home in Warsaw. Bound by a profound friendship and a shared creative spirit, both artists lived and worked in Żoliborz district. This exhibition tells the story of their bond – between art, nature, and human experience. By taking part in Flashback Art Fair, one of Italy’s most vibrant art events, Ciacek Gallery seeks to share the legacy of two remarkable Polish women artists with a wider audience. The presentation continues the gallery’s dedication to connecting histories and perspectives, bringing renewed attention to the depth and sensitivity of Central European modernism.

Nature of Friendship

Domicella Bożekowska/ Barbara Levittoux-Świderska

Ciacek Gallery, after many years, is realizing an exhibition that had long been a shared dream of two close friends—artists and graduates of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, from the Faculties of Painting, Sculpture, and Artistic Textiles in the 1950s. Bożekowska was a sculptor fascinated by the animal world, she created a unique universe in defiance of prevailing trends. Levittoux-Świderska was a painter, textile designer, and sculptor who, like her friend, responded to the world in her own way, focusing on personal and formal explorations. They both drew inspiration from nature in their creative work, but interpreted it in radically different ways. While Levittoux-Świderska innovatively used various everyday objects and natural materials to seek their visual essence, Bożekowska aimed to redefine how humans perceive animals, claiming that we are simply animals of a different species. The artist created images that elevated animals to the status of beings with ‚personalities’. The wolf in particular became her signature motif. Despite decades of parallel creative paths and a lasting personal bond, this show marks the first time their artworks are being presented side by side. This long- anticipated exhibition offers a rare opportunity to witness the interplay between their distinct yet harmoniously resonant artistic visions. This exhibition celebrates not only their lifelong friendship but also their shared ethos: the courage to remain true to one’s own vision.

Imaginary Conversation

Franca Sonnino/ Wojciech Sadley

Locus amoenus

Waldemar Baraniewski

“Such a Landscape” is the title of the exhibition by design - concrete and self-ironic at the same time. A mature artist looks at his work, his life, the places he has marked with his presence, seeing their shapes like a vast landscape - 
a summary of life. He can then say, “Everything is a landscape”; the ruts of fate that shape the surroundings, the roads and places where the trace of presence remains, demand to be visualized. It is about the truth of reality, not its visual image.

Blood. Anti-Textiles 1960-1973

Wojciech Sadley

The exhibition features works created between 1960-73, when Sadley for the last time participated in the Lausanne International Textile Biennale. It will also be the first show dedicated to Sadley’s early work since artist’s death in 2023. 

Tefaf Maastricht 2024

The Olszewski Ciacek Gallery is the first Polish gallery to take part in TEFAF Maastricht 2024. 

Chlust

Witkacy

Chlust was the name given to free piano musical improvisations occasionally performed by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. The artist's friend Roman Jasiński, enchanted by his acquaintance with Witkacy, described one of the splash performances at his parents' home as a “terrible improvisation”, for which “unfortunately little understanding was shown”.

Silence in Space

Alfred Lenica

The exhibition Silence in Space, curated by Paweł Bień, presents sixteen works by Alfred Lenica. Their selection opens with an untitled gouache from the 1940s, while they conclude with three works representing the period in which he achieved his full artistic individuality in the mid-1960s, i.e. reaching the iconic formula of ‘surrealist abstraction’ that seals Alfred Lenica's place among the most important Polish artists of the 20th century.

HÁGIOS NOMÁS

Rusin/Sadley

In the 5th century BCE, while visiting the colony of Olbia – a northern beachhead of Hellenistic culture on the Black Sea – Herodotus encountered Scythian nomads from the steppes. Thanks to their stories, and the inquisitive nature of the Father of History, a description arose of the lands of today’s Podole, Ziemia Tarnowska and Polesie, and of the nature of the nomads who roamed the lands between the Baltic and Black Seas.

Formist

Józef Doskowski

After nearly one hundred years, Józef Doskowski’s works made in the 1920s have been shown to the public, and the catalogue accompanying the exhibition is the first publication devoted to this artist. Individual paintings made by the artist can be found today in museum collections of the National Museum in Warsaw, among others.