Gallery Nowa Scena UAP, 28 Marcinkowskiego Ave.
Opening: 19.11.2024, 18:00
20.11.2024–8.12.2024

Curatorial and arrangement team: Katarzyna Podgórska-Glonti, Ewa Mróz-Pacholczyk, Karolina Grzeszczuk, Justyna Ryczek

Was it always about the mask? Ireneusz Domagała

We did not create a retrospective exhibition, we chose a set of works that, on the one hand, show the diversity of artistic explorations, and, on the other hand, their communal nature and intriguing repeatability.

Chronologically, we have collected works that outlined the artistic path – its beginning is a diploma thesis from 1979, and the end is a playful and reflective mask for the difficult pandemic everyday life of 2020. Between drawings, designs, costumes, dolls, costumes brought to life in theater performances, sketches, scripts of plays he worked on, graphic works, collected clippings…

These are only fragments, a small part of the activity in which, in addition to finished objects, the process of creation was equally important, and in addition to one’s own creativity, teaching was also important.

The curatorial examination of Ireneusz Domagała’s work raised many questions. We see relevance in the presented activities and build contemporary contexts. We look at the materials used and ask ecological questions. We stand before the queen with crawling rodents and constantly ask questions about Poland. And when we look through almost 100 masks, we smile and ask about the importance and seriousness of art, about tradition, its connections with popular culture and our everyday existence.

The exhibition highlights the ambiguity of artistic time.

In art, the past tense can also be the present tense.

Curatorial team

Ireneusz Domagała

Outstanding stage designer, costume designer and graphic designer, academic teacher at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts Poznan (UAP), in recent years associated with the Department of Fashion, Faculty of Interior Design and Stage Desigjn, where he ran his own studio.

While studying at the Technical Secondary School of Mechanical Engineering in Radom, Ireneusz Domagała also attended the Fine Arts Center, which influenced his further professional choices. In 1979, he obtained a diploma with honors in graphic arts from the State Higher School of Fine Arts (currently UAP) and since then he has been inseparably associated with his alma mater. He studied in the studios of Waldemar Świerzy, Lucjan Mianowski, Antoni Zydroń and Magdalena Abakanowicz, who aroused his fascination with soft structures.

In 1983, Krystyna Feldman played in the theater in the artist’s costume, and two years later the author prepared the set for “The Marriage” for the Dramatic Theater in Elbląg.

Prof. Domagała completed teaching and artistic internships in 1984 in Brussels at the Saint Lucas Hoger Instituut voor Beeldende Kunsten and in 1985 at the Instituto de Artes Plásticas de Taxco in Mexico.