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April 27, 2012
Gallery awash in color
New Waldemar Smolarek exhibit engages viewers.
OLGA LIVSHIN
The name Waldemar Smolarek is practically unknown in Canadian art circles. At least, it was until his solo exhibition The Art of Constructivism opened at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery. This is the first show of Smolarek’s work in Canada since 1986, and the first posthumous one.
According to his son, Peter, his father was a quiet, solitary man. “We called each other weekly, had coffee sometimes, but father didn’t talk much about himself. He had few friends and didn’t trust people easily,” he said.
Since his father’s death, Peter Smolarek has been trying to piece together his father’s story. Despite the help of his friend, Paul Chilton, who appointed himself the artist’s unofficial biographer, many details are still missing.
“Waldemar lived alone, with no family,” Chilton said. “He channeled everything into his art but he didn’t seek fame. He didn’t offer his paintings to museums or exhibitions. They invited him because he was so good. He sold his paintings to private and corporate collectors, but only by recommendations or to the people he knew.... After he died in 2010, Peter went to his dad’s apartment to see what had to be done, and he called me in shock. He said: ‘You’ve got to come and see what I found. I don’t know what to do with it.’”
There were about 100 paintings in his father’s apartment. Intrigued by the unexpected find, Smolarek traveled to Poland, the country of his father’s youth. “I found a family there I knew nothing about,” he said. He also discovered that he might be Jewish.
“Peter is so excited to find his Jewish roots,” Chilton said. “It’s like he found a new family. He wants to give to his new community.”
After his journey to Poland, Smolarek offered his father’s paintings for a show at the Zack Gallery. He also proposed to donate 50 percent of the proceeds to the gallery, thus continuing his father’s generosity tradition: over the years, his father had donated several paintings to the B.C. Cancer Agency.
Smolarek told the Independent that his father started his artistic journey in Poland in the 1950s. Under communist rule, the artist tried to find his niche. He experimented with metal work and abstract paintings, but the pro-Russian authorities suffocated the new wave of art in the countries of the East European Bloc. Away from the censors’ eyes, a group of progressive artists exhibited their works at the Warsaw Barbakan, the historical towers and walls of the old city and one of the main architectural attractions of Warsaw. These unsanctioned exhibits – the artists risked their paintings being seized by the state – happened during the spring and summer months and drew crowds of foreign tourists and their dollars
Smolarek’s father participated in the Art Barbakan movement from 1957 to 1967. From these exhibits, the name of the young Polish artist spread through the art world of the West. He began getting invitations to select shows abroad and, starting in 1959 and until his defection from Poland in 1968, he exhibited his paintings in Italy, the United States, Austria and Sweden, where he stayed for two years after leaving Poland and before immigrating to Canada, where he settled in Vancouver. His artwork has since been exhibited worldwide, but rarely in Vancouver and never in other Canadian cities.
After the East European Bloc disintegrated, Smolarek’s father visited Poland a few times. “Now he is part of the Polish cultural heritage,” said Chilton. “He is honored as one of the founders of the Art Barbakan, where the exhibitions resumed in 1998 and continue to this day.”
The Zack Gallery show includes 16 paintings, all of them brimming with bold shapes and vibrant colors that pop off the walls. A profusion of red and white angles characterizes vivid green “Slider.” Joyous orange bubbles celebrate the union of energy and beauty in golden “Cosmos,” while, in “Firedragon,” scarlet strokes chase a fiery trail across a shimmering expanse of turquoise.
“Magen David” stands apart from the rest. Zack Gallery director Reisa Schneider, who named the painting, said in her speech at the April 19 exhibit opening: “Today is Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day. It started at sunset last night, and there was a memorial ceremony in the Wosk Auditorium adjacent to the gallery. Several survivors I know came into the gallery and were drawn to this piece. As we stood together in front of it, I sensed power in this painting. It seems as if there is barbed wire in the background, and the red triangle is symbolic of the bloodshed of the Holocaust, while the yellow triangle is symbolic of the yellow star the Jews had to wear.... I could be reading into this painting, but isn’t that what art is meant to do – engage us and make us think?”
The Art of Constructivism runs until May 13. For more on Waldemar Smolarek, visit smolarekart.com.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
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