The Ceramic and Sculpture Symposium has been held in Bolesławiec since 1964. Circumstances changed, commissioners changed, and artistic fashions changed. The sculptures and commemorative photographs remained. The exhibition organized by the Museum of Ceramics at Kutuzowa Street is not an ordinary post-symposium exhibition. It shows that the symposium is above all about the people who create it—their passions and their ideas. Original and unconventional. It shows that clay is not a shapeless, drab mass, but above all a rewarding material from which wonders can be conjured. The beautiful “Clowns” triptych by Marita Benke-Gajda, Krystyna Gay-Kutschenreiter’s “Interweavings” and Paulina Pokorny-Ziemba’s “Relief” have nothing in common with a shapeless mass. And that is only a fraction of what we can see at the exhibition.
The exhibition at the Museum of Ceramics is an opportunity to reminisce. The artists who attended its opening fondly recounted the symposia held in the past. Some of them—such as Władysław Garnik—recalled works they had created earlier. The collection presented by the Museum of Ceramics is impressive—not only because of the number of works assembled, but also their diversity, richness of form and the multitude of ideas about what art can be.
The exhibition “The Art of Earth and Fire” is worth seeing. Not because it is expected of us. We may have a unique opportunity to view so many original works in one place—works that contrast with one another while also complementing each other. Above all, however, we have an opportunity to change our opinion of the Ceramic and Sculpture Symposium. It is not an event created at the request of affected, capricious artists. It is not another item in the city budget that must be funded. Only those who know nothing about it can say that. There is no shortage of ignorant people, so many will probably still shrug their shoulders after reading this information and not go to the exhibition. However, everyone who wants to know what things were like in the past, who took part in the symposia and what resulted from them has a chance to find out by the end of September.