UAP / ST / Annotations
Stanisław Teisseyre’s legacy in the collection of the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts Poznan

UAP / ST / Annotations
Stanisław Teisseyre’s legacy in the collection of the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts Poznan

Gallery Nowa Scena UAP, 28 Marcinkowskiego Ave.
Opening: 7.03.2025, 18:00
Curatorial tour: 8.03.2025, 14:00
Duration of exhibition: 7- 23.03.2025

UAP/ST/Annotations is an exhibition that presents over 60 works from the collection that the University inherited from Prof. Stanisław Teisseyre. Currently, the works are in the collection of the University of the Arts Poznan. The curatorial team approached the Professor’s legacy with a critical distance, trying to find in it social contexts that are important today, as well as to recognize the artistic values ​​of the collection. From a contemporary perspective, the works collected by Stanisław Teisseyre reveal not only the dominance of heteronormative, male narratives in art, but also point to significant gaps in the representation of women and queerness. Moreover, due to the large representation of anonymous works, the people preparing the exhibition take up the topic of unknown authors, providing the opportunity to publicly present their works. The challenge for contemporary researchers and curators is that the collection, which is a collection of often random works collected many years ago by the Professor and now regularly kept in the warehouse, should constitute a starting point for reflection on how to create a more inclusive collection at the University, taking into account the voices of marginalized groups and engaging with the issues of identity, gender, sexuality and systemic inequalities – issues that are still too often neglected.

The collection of the University of the Arts Poznan includes several hundred works of art and archival materials. It consists of two parts. The first is a collection donated to the University in 1988 as an inheritance from Stanisław Teisseyre – the first rector of the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Poznan. The second part consists of a set of works of art donated by artists teaching at the University or their heirs. These works were included in the collection as part of a series of exhibitions that were held in 2003-2005 and 2009-2015. In 2017, the UAP Collection Unit was established at the University in order to protect the collections, conduct research on objects in the collection and disseminate knowledge about their creators.