Włoskie konteksty twórczości Zbigniewa Makowskiego
Zbigniew Makowski’s Art and Its Italian Contexts

Summary/Abstract: In the artistic career of Zbigniew Makowski (1930–2019) Italian inspirations and direct contacts with Italian artists, critics and galleries played an important, yet unrecognized role. Paradoxically – given the doubts that have always been associated with the presence/absence of surrealism in Poland and Italy – one of the reference points that seem important for these interactions is surrealism and the trends drawing on its legacy. Makowski – painter, author of artist’s books, was one of the key figures in Polish artistic life of the 1960s. Thanks to the network of direct contacts with artists made possible by the Thaw, through the Krzywe Koło gallery and the Phases group, he found himself in a creative international artistic environment, and also made contacts with Italian artists, especially Guido Biasi. The search for a new artistic language combining image and word, and the interest in signs, was a common ground for the experiments of the Polish artist and Italian visual poets. On the other hand, official cultural contacts resulted in interest in his work on the part of one of the important Italian critics – Giuseppe Marchiori, thanks to whom Makowski gained some recognition in the Western art world (exhibitions at the Galleria de’Foscherari in Bologna and the Libreria-Galleria G. Greco in Mantua in 1967). At the same time, in a situation of growing political tension before 1968 and a polarizing art scene, where the complicated reception of surrealism played a significant part, Makowski was cast in a role that was incompatible with his previous artistic alliances and interests. In 1972, he represented Poland at the XXXVI Venice Biennale.

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