Roem and Jacyndol, street art, Warsaw, courtesy of the Fundacja Sztuki Zewnętrznej
The Kraków-based library has begun building a massive online collection of the most valuable works of art in the public space
Arteteka has already amassed several thousand audiovisual works, a reading library and the Małopolskie Comic Book Studio, making them available to the public at its centre in the Małopolska Garden of Art and via its online databases. Arteteka, as a branch of the Regional Public Library, provides access to its collection via a server providing local or international access to the works, depending on the preferences of the artists.
Its next challenge is to compile Poland's first collection of street art, curated by Artur Wabik. This work is particularly valuable given the evanescent nature of the genre, and requires securing photographic documentation of the achievements of local and international street artists at work within Poland's public space.
Jerzy Woźniakiewicz, director of the Regional Public Library, remarked that in spite of the niche character of the genre, street art "deserves proper documentation and a collection, as it imparts an increasingly significant form of social communication and artistic value". The archive is geared towards students and researchers, as well as fans of this type of art.
The initial collection is based largely on photographs collected by Marcin Rutkiewicz in the process of compiling the publication Polish Street Art last year. Works include graffiti, murals, sticker designs, 3-D objects and more by artists like Mariusz Waras, Krystian "Truth" Czaplicki and collectives Simpson, Tybex and Pikaso Oner. As curator Artur Wabik explains,
With street art one has to look a bit closer than one would as an art historian or sociologist. This phenomenon is interdisciplinary. It appears that what is happening in street art is a barometer of public sentiment, but also of fashion and aesthetics, which varies along with social and economic change.
The collection is expected to be made available to the public in mid-2013 and eventually incorporated into the main Arteteka database, making it possible to search for an image of a wolf across epochs and genres - from the Renaissance to the street.
Arteteka is located in the state-of-the-art Małopolska Garden of Art library complex, which provides members with free access to international online databases of art, books, e-zines and music, along with collections in traditional format. The Małopolska Garden of Art was completed at the end of 2012 and has been nominated for architecture awards, including most recently an Archdaily Building of the Year award.
See more on Polish Street Art: polskistreetart.blogspot.com
Editors: AL, AD
03.04.2013
Thumbnail credit: mural by Chazme, Lump and Sepe