Poland
Galeria Arsenal / Białystok
The Arsenal Gallery in Białystok was established in 1965 as one of the Artistic Exhibitions Bureaux. It has been under Monika Szewczyk’s management since 1990. Today, it is a municipal institution of culture financed from the budget of the City of Białystok.
The Gallery has been following a comprehensive and consistent exhibition programme for years, presenting and fostering contemporary art in a variety of media and offering a perspective of the most important and interesting phenomena in current Polish art, while not sidestepping challenges and experiments. The Arsenal Gallery holds exhibitions not only at its two permanent venues in Białystok, but also at other domestic locations and abroad. Projects tying in with Eastern Partnership and Central European countries have a special place in the Gallery’s programme – they show all tendencies and changes in the contemporary art of these regions.
Exhibition activities are accompanied by an intensely developing educational programme – the Arsenal Playground – talking about contemporary art at different levels and with the use of various languages. Projects implemented as part of the programme enable dialogue with art, presenting it as a platform for negotiating issues of social importance. Artists are frequently part of the educational process, when they deliver new works created as part of different workshops. Making current art available to people with sight and hearing impairments is a vital part of the Gallery’s educational activities.
The Arsenal Gallery has been engaging in diverse activities fostering contemporary culture, such as panel discussions, lectures, seminars, conferences, residencies, concerts, book promotions, and filmscreenings. For a number of years, it has been organizing the Children’s Art Book Fair with an extensive workshop offer for the youngest audience.
