the street is our gallery

Six public art installations in the city of Lodz, based on advertising columns along Piotrkowska St. the longest street in Europe. The columns were transformed into giant, symbolical items – icons related to Polish People’s Republic (1952-1989 r.)

The installations are authored by LUMP – an artist from Szczecin, graduate of Poznan’s Academy of Fine Arts, painter, muralist, designer and constructor of art installations, photographer. The installations are temporary and the exposition in the public space is planned for two-three months.

Michał Bieżyński – Art Director of UNIQA Art Łódź Project:

“Lump is one of very few Polish artists related with “street art movement”, who is doing something else than only walls. Apart from the murals, one of his most relevant project is “Kingsize”, where he’s using “rescaling” effect to change the elements of the street’s infrastructure and later create out of them giant, spacious objects taken from everyday’s life. Thanks to his works, in the public space we could find a bit surrealistic objects, that are completely deprived of it’s primary functions. Lump’s output it’s not something that is trying to diagnose deeper and more metaphysical areas of human condition. Here You won’t find any political involvement. The main aim of “Kingsize” project is pure fun, but intelligent and done with really good taste. These installations are not trying to catch our attention with “vibrant colors” and the “rescalling” effect creates not obvious, tricky “hit” in the everyday’s communication from point A to point B”.

The installations are:

1. An electronic coffee machine that was very popular in Poland in the 80’s.
2. A vacuum flask that was very popular in Poland in the 80’s.
3. A pepper shaker that was popular in Poland in the 80’s.
4. A jug that was very popular in Poland in the 80’s.
5. Famous washing machine called “Frania” – electronic rotary washer that was very popular in Poland in the ’80.
6. A soda siphon (also known as the seltzer bottle) – a metal device for dispensing carbonated or soda water in home conditions. Apart from the device and drinking water, special cartridges filled with compressed carbon dioxide were necessary. Siphons had different shapes and colors and cartridges were bought in cartons. Soda siphons were very practical devices in every home. In the 70’s and 80’s they were extremely popular, today are almost completely forgotten.

The installations of LUMP are the first part of international, public art project UNIQA Art Lodz.

UNIQA Art Lodz is an international arts project in the public space of Łódź. State-of-the-art objects will become temporary or permanent parts of the cityscape. The project will move away from standard murals to construct an urban art gallery which will not consist of paintings only. 6 works by street artists from Poland, Spain and the US, among other countries, will come into being by the end of 2016.

– ETAM CRU | ROBERT PROCH (Poland) – mural
– ALICIA MARTIN (Spain) – public art installation out of books
– CRYSTAL WAGNER (USA) – public art installation
– CHAZME | TOMASZ GÓRNICKI (Poland) – metal sculpture on the wall
– LUMP (Poland) – public art installations
– MONA TUSZ (Poland) – mural with ceramics, glass and mirrors

Michał Bieżyński – Art Director of UNIQA Art Łódź Project, Art Director of Galeria Urban Forms project (2009-2014):
“After more than 6 years of the mural project in Łódź, I feel I can say the city centre has been adequately saturated with these works. I saw murals as the first, most logical and natural step towards thinking about a contemporary art gallery in Łódź’s urban spaces. The massed numbers of bare walls in the city centre virtually demanded to be filled with painting. The ideas has been put into practice, Łódź’s murals are famous all over the world and have become a major icon of the city. I wouldn’t like to cause a surfeit, though, a situation where numbers of the murals will be so high that the inhabitants will lose interest and the reception will become thoughtless.
That’s the reason why we’re starting the UNIQA Art Łódź project to create various works of art – sculptures, bas-reliefs, installations, site-specific realisations. Diverse materials and technologies will be employed to make the project as varied as possible. It is essential that residents be presented with the broadest possible range of graphic solutions, so that the project, beside the purely artistic format, will offer some visual education. Moreover, the project is not a festival which is taking place at a definite time. It will function as an urban art programme, with particular realizations to be prepared during different months.”.

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