Gallery ŻAK | BRANICKA, Berlin

The gallery was set up in 2007/08 by Asia Żak and Monika Branicka. It is housed in the ground floor of the gallery house in Lindenstraße 35, not far from Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlinische Galerie between Berlin-Kreuzberg and Berlin-Mitte. The gallery opened its activities in April 2008 with a project by the Macedonian multimedia artists, Ivanoska and Calovski on the Polish architect, Oskar Hansen. There followed an exhibition by the photographer, Zofia Kulik, who lives in Łomianki near Warsaw. The gallery presents an international programme specialising in avant-garde art, critical art and performance. Because of its origins and history it devotes a significant part of its work to promoting Polish artists with the aim of integrating them into international developments in art and putting them on the art market.

The ŻAK | BRANICKA Foundation has its headquarters in Kraków and can be compared to a non-profit association in Germany. The gallery uses it to encourage support by public bodies and sponsors for projects and appearances by artists it represents and which it cannot finance from its own resources. Thus, it was able to gain grant aid from the Polish Ministry of Culture, German and national foundations, and the Internet portal, culture.pl for the presentation of a number of artists at the Art Cologne, the Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst, the Paris FIAC, at international film and video festivals, the Artissima in Turin and Art Rotterdam. It was also given similar financial help for book projects on individual artists like Joanna Rajkowska and Dominik Lejman. The gallery's homepage provides considerable information on the other activities of the artists it represents, and also on their international awards and prizes.

In autumn 2017 the gallery house in Lindenstraße 34-35 and the ŻAK | BRANICKA gallery will be celebrating their 10th anniversary. The gallery is currently extending its programme. Alongside the Portuguese artist, Diogo Pimentão (*1973 Lisbon), it is hoping to also take up further international artists, some of whom will perhaps come from Germany. In November 2017 it will present an exhibition of works by Jarosław Kozłowski (*1945 Śrem), one of the best-known concept artists in Poland.

Axel Feuß, October 2017

We should like to thank the ŻAK | BRANICKA gallery for allowing us to present reproductions of works by many artists. The catalogue PDFs come from the gallery's homepage.