Günter Grass – Gdańsk collection on the way

Venue: Nuremberg House in Krakow
Opening: 24 October 2017
Exhibition open since 24 October to 17 December 2017.

The Günter Grass Gallery in Gdańsk is a home to one of the world’s largest collections of artworks (141 works) by the Nobel Prize winning writer, who passed away in 2015. Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig in 1927. In 1993 he was granted the title of an Honorary Citizen of Gdańsk. For his entire life he liked returning to his native city on the Baltic, travelling to the city, writing about it in his literary works and art. As the author of Danzig Trilogy, Grass became a world-renowned writer, but not everybody knows that the Nobel Prize-winning author (1999) was thoroughly educated in arts in higher education establishments in Düsseldorf (where he studied along with Joseph Beuys, among others) and in the Berlin school where he later held the presidency.

Grass’ art is inextricably connected with his writing. His graphic works, drawings and sculptures are by no means illustrations to literature in a strict sense. They are rather some kinds of pictorial supplement to the content, visualisation of motifs, metaphors and concepts Grass describes in detail in his books. People, animals, objects and landscapes he portrayed usually aren’t what they look like at the first glance. At the same time they are a closed set defining  Grass’ own micro-cosmos of notions and ideas. They are signs encrypting a message by the author who was actively and keenly interested in global affairs, numerous communities and their little homelands. By giving a voice and picturing his repertoire of symbols, Grass presents a polyphonic stance on minor and universal matters, affecting great nations and individuals alike.

On display there are selected graphic works and sculptures from the Gdańsk collections of  the author’s works  from the  Günter Grass Gallery in Gdańsk, shown on the 90^th anniversary of the artist’s birth.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue of all Grass’ works kept in the collection.

Curator: Marta Wróblewska