The Foksal Gallery was founded as an initiative of artists, such as Zbigniew Gostomski, Tadeusz Kantor, Edward Krasiński, Roman Owidzki and Henryk Stażewski, and the art critics Wiesław Borowski, Anka Ptaszkowska and Mariusz Tchorek. Originally the place was run by these three critics themselves. When Ptaszkowska and Tchorek emigrated, the gallery was run by Borowski. In the 1970s, the gallery worked with Andrzej Turowski, an art theoretician, and later with Milada Ślizińska and Jaromir Jedliński.
Since its inception, the Foksal Gallery was a state-run institution. Until 1984, it was part of the Visual Arts Studio, until 2000 it was part of the Central Office of Arts Exhibitions and is currently part of the Mazovia Institute of Culture. The gallery, apart from exhibitions and publications, also collects documentation on contemporary artists – both Polish and foreign. The archive collects work created in various historic periods by a wide array of artists: from the pioneer of Polish Avant-garde Henryk Stażewski, to international conceptual artists such as Lawrence Weiner, Daniel Buren, Christian Boltanski and Ben Vautier.
Sources: culture.pl, galeriafoksal.pl, compiled by AS, 7 Feb 2017; translated by WF, 27 Feb 2017