The rich collection of modern and most recent artwork owned by Hanna and Jarosław Przyborowski serves as the basis on which the Signum Foundation prepares interdisciplinary artistic projects, thematic exhibitions and educational projects to publicize and disseminate knowledge about contemporary and modern art, with a focus on Polish art and those projects which attempt to analyze current social and cultural issues.
The Signum Collection includes artwork by Polish and foreign artists, including those with renowned artistic output who are recognized and appreciated by an international public as well as those artists who have just entered the art scene.
The Collection of the Signum Foundation includes , inter alia, artworks by Katarzyna Kobro, Władysław Strzemiński, Maria Nicz-Borowiakowa, Karol Hiller, Mieczysława Szczuka, Kazimierz Podsadecki, Janusz Maria Brzeski,Stefan Wegner, Tadeusza Kantor, Edwarda Krasiński, Jarosław Kozłowski, Zbigniew Gostomski, Antoni Starczewski, Stanisław Dróżdż, Roman Opałka, Natalia LL, Józef Robakowski, Ryszard Waśko, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Dominik Lejman, Katarzyna Kozyra, Grupa Sędzia Główny, Karol Radziszewski andPaweł Książek.
SUPPORTING YOUNG AND TALENTED ARTISTS
The Signum Foundation tries to provide support for the artistic work of young talented artists who are only starting their work in the area of art. It is the ambition of the Foundation to participate in shaping the modern art scene through this activity and in this way to perform a culture creating function.
Following this approach the Foundation showed photographs taken by Michal Martychowiec (born in 1987), a representative of the youngest generation of artists during the first exhibition "Awake and Dream" which took place in Palazzo Donà. Additionally, according to the decision made by the curators the exhibition ended with the presentation of the documentation of the exhibition entitled, "Awake and Dream. Documentation" also prepared by Martychowiec.
PALAZZO DONA – INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
In 2009 the Signum Foundation set up a permanent exhibition space in Palazzo Donà in Venice, the city of international biennales of contemporary culture. This allowed to introduce works from the Signum Foundation collection into an international context so that they can be confronted with numerous events and exhibitions organized in Venice, including the most renowned international preview of art – La Biennale di Venezia. In this way it became possible to introduce works of art which so far have functioned only locally and frequently only in the Polish context to an international public including also art curators and art critics.
EVENTS PROFILE
The exhibitions and events organized by the Foundation are in their nature thematic problem-related interdisciplinary expositions and projects. They are not limited to exhibiting works from the Signum Collection but they reach much further also outside the area of the visual arts and the traditional character of exhibitions. Accordingly, it is the purpose of the Signum Foundation to provide an artistic analysis of a particular problem area which is socially and culturally topical and which is built in relation to the time and place where it occurs.
PUBLIC ART AND SITE SPECIFIC ART
The Foundation is not functioning within a stable and seemingly universal context of art but within the changing context of the collection, including the place where the projects are realized, the space marked by current social and cultural events. The Foundation regards it essential to reach outwards in the activities it initiates, to intervene in the local community, to engage into the local situation with its social and cultural problems related to the place where the activities take place.
It is for this purpose that within the activities organized by the Foundation there are public art and site specific projects.
In 2008 at the invitation of the Signum Foundation Krzysztof Wodiczko, one of the most renowned representatives of public art realized his project, "Poznan Projection". On the other hand, the "Palazzo Donà. site specific" cyclic project was inaugurated at the opening of Palazzo Donà in Venice.