Sala Neoplastyczna (Neoplastic Room) is a permanent exhibition space at Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź originally designed by the Polish avant-garde artist

Władysław Strzemiński Władysław Strzemiński (Polish pronunciation: ; ; 21 November 1893 – 26 December 1952) was a Polish painter, art theoretician, pedagogue, and soldier. He is regarded as a pioneer of Constructivist avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s and the ...

in collaboration with the director of the museum Marian Minich in 1948. It was intended to showcase the works by European

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

artists of the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

, including

Katarzyna Kobro Katarzyna Kobro (26 January 1898 – 21 February 1951) was a Polish avant-garde sculptor and a prominent representative of the Constructivist movement in Poland. A pioneer of innovative multi-dimensional abstract sculpture, she rejected A ...

Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (; born Christian Emil Marie Küpper; 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch painter, writer, poet and architect. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He married three times. Personal life Theo van Do ...

and

Henryk Berlewi Henryk Berlewi (Yiddish: הענריק בערלעװי; October 20, 1894 – August 2, 1967) was a Polish-French painter, graphic designer and art theorist, who is primarily remembered as an abstract artist who paved the way for optical art, but ...

, among others.

History

Design and installation (1948)

The idea for the Neoplastic Room emerged in the aftermath of World War II when the director Marian Minich, who had been leading the institution since 1935, expressed a desire to create a dedicated space for displaying works by European interwar

artists from the museum's collection. It was conceived for the museum's new location at the Poznański family palace on Więckowskiego Street. The Neoplastic Room was designed in 1948 by

, one of the pivotal artists associated with Polish

Constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in the Soviet Union in t ...

and a co-founder of the ''

a.r. group The a.r. group ("revolutionary artists" or "real avant-garde") was an avant-garde art group set up by Władysław Strzemiński, Katarzyna Kobro, and Henryk Stażewski in 1929, who had previously been members of Blok and Praesens. Rather than ...

'', which formed the core of the museum's pre-war collection. Strzemiński's project for the room was based on a 1931 manifesto he wrote together with his wife

, titled ''Composition of Space: Calculations of Space-Time Rhythm''. Intended to achieve a "balance of harmony of space", the Neoplastic Room and its name were inspired by the ideas and visual vocabulary of the Dutch

Neoplasticism Neoplasticism or neo-plasticism, originating from the Dutch , is an avant-garde art theory proposed by Piet Mondrian in 1917 and initially employed by the De Stijl art movement. The most notable proponents of this theory were Mondrian and anoth ...

movement originally established by

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), known after 1911 as Piet Mondrian (, , ), was a Dutch Painting, painter and Theory of art, art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He w ...

and

. The space, "divided into planes based on strict mathematical calculations and painted with basic colours (red, blue, and yellow)", was augmented by vertical and horizontal arrangement in white, gray, and black.The Neoplastic Room originally featured works by Berlewi, van Doesburg,

Sophie Taeuber-Arp Sophie Henriette Gertrud Taeuber-Arp (; 19 January 1889 – 13 January 1943) was a Swiss artist, painter, sculptor, textile designer, furniture and interior designer, architect, and dancer. Born in 1889 in Davos and raised in Trogen, Switzerlan ...

Vilmos Huszár Vilmos Huszár (5 January 1884 – 8 September 1960) was a Hungarian painter and designer. He lived in The Netherlands, where he was one of the founding members of the art movement De Stijl. Huszár was born in Budapest, Hungary. He emigra ...

Jean Hélion Jean Hélion (April 21, 1904October 27, 1987) was a French painter whose abstract work of the 1930s established him as a leading modernist. His midcareer rejection of abstraction was followed by nearly five decades as a figurative painter. He w ...

Henryk Stażewski Henryk Stażewski (pronounced: ; 9 January 1894 – 10 June 1988) was a Polish painter, visual artist and writer. Stażewski has been described as the "father of the Polish avant-garde" and is considered a pivotal figure in the history of Cons ...

, and

Georges Vantongerloo Georges Vantongerloo (24 November 1886, Antwerp – 5 October 1965, Paris) was a Belgian sculptor, painter, designer of furniture and buildings, and founding member of the De Stijl group. Life From 1905 to 1909 Vantongerloo studied Fine Art at th ...

.In addition to displaying paintings, the room showcased abstract sculptures by Kobro called ''Spatial Compositions'' (''Kompozycje Przestrzenne''), which were placed on custom-designed glass pedestals.

Later history (1960-now)

The Neoplastic Room survived only until October 1, 1950, when it was shut down due to the imposition of the Socialist Realist doctrine in Stalinist Poland. This followed the firing of Strzemiński from the Łódź Academy of Fine Arts earlier that year by the deputy minister of culture and arts

Włodzimierz Sokorski Włodzimierz Sokorski (2 July 1908 – 2 May 1999) was a Polish Communism, communist official, writer, military journalist and a brigadier general in the People's Republic of Poland. He was the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (Poland), ...

. The space was painted over and the works were moved to warehouses, as

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

and avant-garde ran counter to Stalinist cultural policies. The room was reconstructed in 1960 by Bolesław Utkin, following the 1956 Khruschev Thaw and subsequent liberalization of cultural policies across the Soviet Union and the

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

. A student of Strzemiński, Utkin based his reconstruction of the Neoplastic Room on preserved photographs. Since then, the room has been renovated multiple times and has become the most prominent permanent exhibition space at the museum.

References

{{reflist Museums in Poland Avant-garde art Polish artist groups and collectives Łódź Cultural history of Poland