Henryk Lula: Ceramika. Sztuka materii

The exhibition presents a wide selection of works by Henryk Lula - artist, pedagogue and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. It includes over 100 objects and in the fullest way to date, it brings closer the achievements of the outstanding artist active from the 1950s to the present day, creating on the basis of the workshop and the medium of ceramics. The theme of matter, emphasised in the title, corresponds with the ideological message of the presentation, as well as the artist's theoretical reflection on its role in art. The exhibition also resonates with the issue of the formation of a modern ceramic tradition in Poland, eschewing the criteria of applied art or design, which has been alive on the Polish art scene since the 1960s.

Created by hand, the unique objects depend on the laws of physics, thermal and chemical processes - including shells, bottles, platters, jugs, flat, round, concave and convex forms - are Lula's favourite resource of open and closed lumps and structures understood as autonomous works whose integrity is created by the colours and textures developed at the stage of glazing and firing. Authorial glazes, created by Henryk Lula himself and precisely matched to the shape of the forms, complete the works in such a way that they become an inseparable unity of ceramics understood as the art of matter. On the example of works composed into sets on the basis of harmony or contrast of forms, the complexities and nuances in the shaping of ceramics, governed by technical and artistic sophistication and characterised by a wide spectrum of potentialities, are shown.

The exhibition also familiarises visitors with Henryk Lula's work and involvement in the reconstruction of a Renaissance masterpiece of ceramic art - the Great Kiln of the Artus Court in Gdansk, an object of such importance for European cultural heritage.