Art stations fundation - by Grażyna Kulczyk


The Foundation

The Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk was established in 2004, as the Kulczyk Foundation. The goal of the Founder, Grażyna Kulczyk, was to support the development of culture and art. The mission of popularising culture and art, in addition to facilitating and increasing their availability to the public, was consistently accomplished through the Foundation’s various exhibition projects and grants. In 2008, in connection with plans to build a museum, the Foundation changed its name to the Art Stations Foundation. From the beginning of its existence, it has been continuously operating to implement its artistic and social mission.

The Foundation is located in the heart of the Stary Browar Urban & Art Centre, one of the most renowned commercial and cultural centres in Europe. The complex, a collection  of nineteenth-century industrial buildings restored by Grażyna Kulczyk and declared the best shopping mall in the world in 2008, provides space for the harmonious coexistence of commercial and cultural activity through its innovative 50/50 formula. The philosophy of 50% art and 50% business provides the basis for the conscious building of an institutional program to promote knowledge about art and culture within a commercial setting, and for creating a common space in ​​the Stary Browar for bringing these together.

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Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk carries out two primary programmes: one focused on exhibitions, the other on performances. The major focus of exhibition program is innovative juxtapositions of Polish and foreign contemporary art, they illustrate the newest artistic trends, as well as those in esthetic and theoretic exploration. The foundation’s activities are open to bold new curatorial strategies, inviting curators from Polish and foreign institutions to contribute to exhibition projects, providing fresh, new perspectives for viewing the collection. Each exhibition is accompanied by an extensive educational program, consisting of guided tours, lectures and film screenings aimed at all age groups – including various workshops for children, young people, and university students and meetings for seniors.

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Performance programme - Old Brewery New Dance - is a multi-level program (performances, productions, residence programmes, and educational and research projects) for the promotion and presentation of contemporary dance, whose primary mission to popularize contemporary choreography and to support the professional development of young Polish artists. The initial aim of the programme was to create a site in Poznań for regularly presenting avant-garde trends in dance and establish the first permanent space in Poland for creating works of contemporary dance. One important task for the programme is to inspire in both artists and the public a deeper consciousness of how rich the phenomenon of contemporary dance is by initiating a discussion about it and sparking a previously absent theoretical reflection, in order to provide the groundwork for the art of choreography in Poland to move dynamically ahead. 

Since its founding, Old Brewery New Dance worked in partnership with other institutions in Europe on numerous cooperative efforts and EU projects, creating in Stary Browar a platform for bringing together Polish and foreign artists and promoting Polish dance on the international stage.

The Foundation’s visual and performing art projects are centred around the Art Courtyard, which features the Art Stations art gallery and the Słodownia building, which provides a venue for both dance performances and art exhibitions. The Grażyna Kulczyk Collection is made accessible to the general public not only through the exhibitions organized in the Art Stations gallery, but also through works of art that occupy spaces throughout the Stary Browar Urban & Art Centre. This is the most impressive result of our consistently implementing the founder’s 50/50 concept, 50% art and 50% business – which has for years characterized everything that Grażyna Kulczyk does.