“There were only a few worse appointments in the history of cultural institutions: Janusz Janowski is an unknown man from Gdańsk: a painter and musician with little managerial experience, who broke through the structures of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers. Under the leadership of the current government, he was promoted and gained publicity in the right-wing media, where he has a habit of sharing his traditionalist views and praising the rule of law of the official party line, also in disputes about culture, “we read about the new director of Zachęta on the website. Janowski has just started his four-year term as director of Zachęta – one of the most prestigious museums of contemporary art in Poland.
New director from the award “has no experience”
Janowski replaced the current director of the National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Hanna Wróblewska, who had been managing the institution since 2010. In an interview with Krytyka Polityczna, the latter emphasized at the end of 2021 that he is “undoubtedly a man of many talents, but he has neither managerial nor programmatic experience in managing a large cultural institution.” The trade unions operating in Zachęta had a similar opinion on his candidacy: “Mr. Janusz Janowski has no experience in managing a large cultural institution, he lacks the qualifications to manage a budget of several dozen million and a team of nearly 100 people”.
According to the official biographical note, Janowski is “a Polish painter, doctor of humanities, art theorist, artistic activist, jazz drummer”. Tymon Tymański met the new director of Zachęta in the 90s. “” He says: “Jasiu was a talented drummer, and yes, but with all his talent he was considered a very difficult person to work with. We tried to work with him as part of the so-called yass scene in Pomerania, but it soon turned out to be an impossible task. (…) He practically excluded himself from the company. He played loud, inattentively, absently, as if he were a soloist solipsist. His biggest problem was that he could not listen to others, and jazz is, after all, the music of collaboration. and synergy “. His painting skills do not delight art critics either. An example of his authorship looks like this:
He may lack experience, but he has no problems with contacts with the authorities. Since 2015, he has been a member of the Council of NGOs at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and in 2020 he also became an advisor to the director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk. As the president of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers, he also became the editor-in-chief of the quarterly “ArsForum” published by the association, and since 2017 he has been co-host of the “Republika Sztuki” program broadcast on Republika Television. He remembered statements that “good change” in art does not work fast enough, attacks on “leftism” or contempt for “LGBT ideology” or “inhuman environmentalism”.
He was appointed director of Zachęta under the procedure of appointment by the Minister of Culture, Piotr Gliński. No competition was scheduled. After it was announced on November 30 that he would take over the position, protests began. During one of them, the participants of the demonstration gathered at Zachęta surrounded the building, holding hands – this is how they expressed their solidarity with the resigning Wróblewska. However, no appeals, protests, open letters signed by thousands of people from the world of Polish and foreign art helped. Gliński did not change his mind. Maria Świerżewska from the Works Committee of the National Trade Union Employee Initiative at Zachęta says T4:
I think it is very, very unpleasant and it is a kind of slap on us employees and workers, artists, artists, but also the audience.
Anda Rottenberg, who was the director of Zachęta from 1993 to 2001, points out in the pages that he is “a man of political advancement, with no experience in managing a large cultural institution, unknown in art circles, even in Poland. art must be beautiful, which completely disqualifies him as a professional, because such categories were used in the Third Reich, dividing art into beautiful and ‘degenerated’, thrown out of museums and galleries, condemned to non-existence – and today acquired for German public collections for large amounts of money “.
What are the plans of the new director for Zachęta?
As we read on the website of the Ministry of Culture, the first year of Janowski’s rule “will be primarily marked by the continuation of the most important program activities and strengthening the institution’s resources. The new director intends to implement the commenced exhibition projects this year. He will also continue long-term investment activities and international projects”.
His program for institutions has also been published – the document is several pages long. The director’s plans include series of exhibitions devoted to artists devoted to family issues or Christian themes. He also wants to run a competition for the best art debut. The vice-president of the board of the International Association of Art Critics AICA Polish Section, Małgorzata Kaźmierczak, says in an interview with TVN 24 that “in fact, there are only generalities under which everything can be put”, and Dr. Mikołaj Iwański from the Civic Forum of Contemporary Art adds that the director he does not understand how the institution he is supposed to manage works because he “writes a program for a completely different institution set in the 1950s, maybe 60s”.
The president of Ordo Iuris came to the first meeting with the employees of Zachęta
Janowski announces changes at Zachęta. He begins with the fact that he comes to the new facility with people he has previously worked with. After the first meeting of the new director with the museum staff, Maria Świerżewska in an interview with TVN 24 said:
Some of these people were mysterious gentlemen whom he did not want to introduce. One of these people is a recognizable person, so we know that it was Kwaśniewski from Ordo Iuris.
Kwaśniewski and Janowski have been cooperating for a long time – the president of Ordo Iuris, under the rule of the new director of Zachęta, became a lawyer of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers, of which Janowski has been president since 2014. This institution is “now associated with the conservative pole of Polish culture.” Let us remind you that in 2018 he was appointed for a second term in this institution, despite the fact that at the ZPAP congress he lost the first round voting to Wojciech Mendzelewski from Lublin. After the second vote, the congress was interrupted, and new delegates had arrived in the meantime. It was only in the third round that Janowski was announced as a win. Kwaśniewski took care of the counting of votes. One of the ZPAP activists submitted:
The College of Presidents, i.e. the presidents of the ZPAP districts, categorically demanded that cooperation with Kwasniewski be terminated. Meanwhile, Kwasniewski demanded an increase in his salary. Janowski promised him that if he became president for another term, he would increase his salary and would continue to be a lawyer in the Main Board. So there was a deal: one wanted more money and work, and the other one for the next term. All the district presidents at one of the first meetings learned about all this from the mouth of the president himself elected for the second term of office. They were surprised and disgusted. Power can do anything.
Kwaśniewski is already working as a lawyer at the Center for Contemporary Art, who was also employed by Piotr Bernatowicz, director appointed by Gliński.
Source: Gazeta
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
