Ewa Partum “Poem by Ewa”, collage on paper, 1971

The Galeria Studio collection in Warsaw includes three works by Ewa Partum from the series Poem by Ewa, purchased in 1982. These are the only works of the artist in the gallery’s collection. But they are a rarity in Polish public collections. Most of the works from the series, which Partum has been creating since 1971, can be found in state collections in Berlin.

Akumulacja tekstu [Texts Accumulation] comes from 1971. Letters collide with each other on a small sheet of paper, creating, as the artist puts it, a “text accumulation”. A paradoxical thing is underlined: the materiality of letters. The text being read becomes something other than a word, it’s different from speaking. It becomes an image, but it does not stop being a sign. A collection of letters on a piece of paper usually refers us to a story, a feeling or an image. Here it is text in its pure state—a cipher, the potentiality of writing itself, an enhanced act of communication.

Ewa Partum had her first solo show in 1970 at the Galeria Współczesna [Contemporary Gallery] in Warsaw. From 1972–77 she ran Galeria Adres [Address Gallery] in Łódź. Since 1982 she has lived in Berlin. In 2006 her retrospective exhibition took place at the Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdańsk, and the Xawery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture at Królikarnia in Warsaw. In 2019 we presented the exhibition “Ewa Partum. My Gallery is an Idea. The Galeria Adres archive,”, which included all three works by the artist from the Galeria Studio Collection. Alongside Text Accumulation, was My Touch is a Touch of a Woman (1971) and Hommage à Yves Klein (1973).

Dorota Jarecka