Since 1993 the Society for Arts, a non-profit organization aimed at a promotion of European arts and film, has been discovering to the American public extraordinary artists, both emerging ones and those already established on the Old Continent. The 12th exhibition season promises to be no exception. Works of the most talented artists from Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic will be on display throughout the following year in two 1112 galleries of the Society for Arts (1112 Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago).

IMAGES, the show of forty mainly small boards painted in distemper and oil by Andrzej Kozyra of Cracow, Poland opens the 2004-2005 exhibition season. His body of works is a delightful revelation, claims Christopher Kamyszew, the Society's President and the curator of the exhibit. Kozyra's works do not shock the viewer, do not try to impress with the harshness of motifs employed, do not provide treacherous aesthetic surprises, do not bring unexpected turns in the language of painting, Mirek Sikorski writes in the exhibition catalogue, Usually not large, sometimes even microscopic surfaces of pictures are filled with contrast between the insignificance of the plane and the abundance and complexity of visual phenomena that it contains. The contrast somehow gently and overwhelmingly enthralls the viewers and makes them fall within the orbit of this painting. For Andrzej Stasiuk, eminent Polish novelist: There is nobody here. Everyone is gone. Nothing will ever happen again, because nobody will return. That is what things abandoned once and for all look like. We are looking at them and we are thinking about the absent, because they are more important than what is left. Who might have abandoned these parts? Who raised them and then spurned? Everything seems to be still warm, in use until recently and reminds us of those towns in the jungles, deserted by their builders and residents.

Andrzej Kozyra will attend the opening of his U.S. debut exhibition on August 26th to answer questions and autograph the catalogues.

Masters of Contemporary European Graphics: Anna Sobol-Wejman in 1112b Gallery

While the Contemporary Polish Graphics, most instructive and popular exhibit of works by forty three artists was a grand finale of the previous season at the Society for Arts, ambitious and thought-provoking one-man show of art prints by Anna Sobol-Wejman marks the inauguration of a new exhibition year. The artist comes from a famous Cracow family of graphic artists; the show of miniatures by Stanislaw Wejman, Anna's husband, was a great hit just a few months ago. In her works she employs a whole dictionary of signs from the edge of abstraction and figuration. She often situates them in undefined pictorial spaces that results in intellectual charades combined with powerful emotional effect.

Works of Anna Sobol-Wejman are particularly favored by buyers in Western Europe and find the permanent place in numerous public and private collections.
The exhibition is organized in collaboration with Fejkiel Gallery in Cracow.

Both shows are sponsored in part by Poltel Telecommunications, and will continue until September 26, 2004. The 1112 galleries are open for a general public from noon till six o'clock Thursday to Sunday. Otherwise, open by appointment only. More information available on the Society's website: www.societyforarts.com, or by phone at 773.486.9612.