Radoslaw SOWIAK (born 1950), checkers, 2024

Own technique (autograph, relief, acrylic, wood), pvc, author's frame, 95 x 95 cm, signed and described on the back

Radoslaw Sowiak (b. 1950, Lodz)
Has been involved in artistic creation since 1986. Associated with art and the art community since the early 1970s. Art collector. Originator and co-organizer of the All-Poland Auction of Contemporary Art for the benefit of the Lodz Land Solidarity MKZ in 1981. Co-owner of the only independent, self-financing, underground Gallery of Carpet Cleaning in Poland during martial law - from March 20, 1982 to December 13, 1982. Co-owner of the underground publication "Zakaz Zawracania" (1985-1986). Initiator of the Social Protest Art Institute with temporary headquarters in Copenhagen, where the collections and documentation of the Carpet Cleaning Gallery were sent in 1983. The works returned to Poland and were later donated to the Museum of Art in Lodz. In 2011, they were presented together with works by Radoslaw Sowiak and Adam Paczkowski at the Cleaning Carpets Exhibition, held as part of the Art and Documentation Festival. In 2011 there was also an exhibition "Carpet makers you want fucking works, do it yourself" - Archives of the Carpet Cleaning Gallery, Radoslaw Sowiak's painting "Dream of Kazimierz M." at the Koneser Cultural Center in Warsaw. From IV to VIII 2023, Radoslaw Sowiak's works were presented at the Museum of Art in Lodz in a large retrospective exhibition "Henryk Stażewski. Late Style." The artist's works are in the collections of the Museum of Art in Lodz, and in private collections.