NEW ICON

18.5.2019

An icon – a liturgical element common in Roman Catholic and Orthodox archaic traditions - can still be the subject of creative exploration. The first avant-garde artists looking for new forms of expression and unobvious sources of inspiration, already perceived the relation between icons and the language of contemporary art. Ten years ago, the Friends of Nowica Association, the Academy of Fine Arts in Lviv and the Brotherhood of Greek Catholic Youth decided to see if there are artists who are following the same path at the beginning of the 21st century.

Since 2009, artists fascinated by icons have been invited to Nowica - a small village in the Małopolska region. The open-air formula of the workshops allows for authorial realizations – often deviating from the common perception of Orthodox art. The organizers only formulate a general theme without interfering with the form of the participant’s expression. Strong emphasis was placed not on the imitation of old patterns, but on their creative interpretation, corresponding with contemporary art.

FROM FOLK ICON TO ABSTRACT PAINTING In total, over 140 painters from Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, Belarus, Romania, Georgia and Serbia participated in ten International Iconographic Workshops in Nowica. Works selected for the exhibition show the main trends presented during the annual meetings. You won’t find copies of commonly known icons in the collection - many are thoroughly original solutions that show no origins in the art of past centuries. More conventional works are actually re-painted according to the archetype. Many of the artists approached the subject in a dynamic, innovative way, reinterpreting and modifying the artistic canon of icons. You’ll also notice numerous ideas in between these two extremities - a conservative and an innovative one. Many of them were inspired by traditional folk art, Byzantine art, expressionism, surrealism or suprematism.

NEW TOPICS Among the presented works, motifs related to figurative and abstract art harmonize with each other. By minimizing the created forms, the artists go beyond time and space. They often reach for topics outside the tradition of Orthodox art. In addition to “evergreen” topics such as the birth of Jesus, the Transfiguration or Baptism, they search for their own language by expanding the themes of sacral art by those often unheated before. They seek inspiration in the Book of the Apocalypse or in the New and Old Testament parables, ask questions without giving obvious answers. The works presented at the exhibition were created in 2009-2017 in Nowica (małopolskie province, Poland).

The exhibition is accompanied by the album “Nowa Ikona. Nowica 2009-2017” (A New Icon. Nowica 2009-2017) edited by Katarzyna Jakubowska-Krawczyk and Mateusz Sora.

Curators: Mateusz Sora, Katarzyna Jakubowska-Krawczyk, Marian Waldemar Kuczma

Graphic design: Ostap Lozynskyj, Vasyl Savchenko

Organizer: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych we Wrocławiu

Partner: Muzeum Architektury we Wrocławiu

Workshop organizers: The Friends of Nowica Association, Academy of Fine Arts in Lviv and the Brotherhood of Greek Catholic Youth