Zarys Działalności Łódzkiej Alternatywnej Sceny Artystycznej w Latach Osiemdziesiątych Dwudziestego Wieku
An Outline of the Lodz Alternative Art Scene Activity in the 1980s

Summary/Abstract: The article describes the activities of the alternative art scene in Łódź in the 1980s and the most important events organized by this community: from Construction in Process in 1981, through the Silent Cinema [Nieme Kino] shown at The Attic [Strych] - the seat of Łódź Kaliska, the Artistic Pilgrimage, and the happenings of the Orange Alternative in Łódź (1988-89) to the exhibition Dungeons of Manhattan [Lochy Manhattanu] (1989). The most important private art galleries in Lodz, as meeting places for independent artists and many artistic initiatives, were: Józef Robakowski and Małgorzata Potocka’s Exchange Gallery, Antoni Mikołajczyk’s Consulting Point, Ryszard and Maria Waśko’s Archives of Contemporary Thought, Radosław Sowiak and Adam Paczkowski’s Carpet Cleaning, Janusz Zagrodzki’s Trace II, and Adam Klimczak and Jerzy Grzegorski’s Eastern Gallery (on the East Street). These underground places carried out counter-cultural activities resulting from the need to rebel against power and strive for full creative autonomy. But also from the need for a sense of community, collective work, linking independent artistic circles. This strategy was a continuation of this type of activity initiated in Poland by alternative artists, operating outside the state sponsorship already in the 1970s. A decade later, especially during the Martial Law period, the resistance to the totalitarian system of power and the centralistic control of culture, which had been growing for years, turned into a boycott of state art institutions and the total separation of the creative circles from the official artistic life, and at the same time the artistic milieu organized by the artists themselves was created.

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