Permanent collection
Building a permanent collection, together with exhibiting and educational activities, is the most important aim of the Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Torun. In accordance with the Znaki Czasu Programme formed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, which is to propagate and promote Polish art, the collection has been built since 2007 in cooperation with the CoCA's Advisory Board, Znaki Czasu Friends of Fine Arts Association in Torun, and local artistic circles.
During the first stage of building the CoCA's permanent collection in 2007, thanks to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage subsidy, coordinated by the National Culture Centre, there were bought 52 works of artists who worked in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian region between 1990 and 2007. They included:
Tomasz Barczyk, Marek Basiul, Joanna Bebarska, Anna Bochenek, Andrzej Borcz, Jerzy Brzuskiewicz, Ignacy Bulla, Anna Drejas, Joanna Górska, Marcelina Gunia, Andrzej Guttfeld, Marta Ipczyńska-Budziak, Andrzej Kałucki, Wojciech Kapelański, Leszek Kiljański, Piotr Klugowski, Anna Kola, Zenon Korytowski, Ryszard Krzywka, Violetta Kuś, Iwona Langowska, Katarzyna Łyszkowska, Zdzisław Mackiewicz, Marek Noniewicz, Paweł Nowak, Ewa Pankiewicz, Tomasz Pietrzyk, Dorota Podlaska, Bogumiła Pręgowska, Filip Pręgowski, Jan Pręgowski, Andrzej Prokopiuk, Bogdan Przybyliński, Jerzy Puciata, Izabella Retkowska, Jerzy Riegel, Aleksandra Simińska, Józef Słobosz, Zbigniew Stec, Marek Szary, Marian Stępak, Andrzej Wasilewski, Mieczysław Wiśniewski, Lech Wolski, Anna Wysocka, Mieczysław Ziomek.
The same financial resources were used to purchase a painting by Jarosław Modzelewski and two videos by Izabella Gustowska. As a part of a subsidy granted by the President of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodship for the purpose of building the CoCA's collection there were purchased – on the initiative of the Znaki Czasu Friends of Fine Arts Association – 29 works by:
Stanisław Borysowski, Tomasz Ciecierski, Władysław Jackiewicz, Marek Jaromski, Jan Lebenstein, Andrzej M. Łubowski, Zbysław M. Maciejewski, Jerzy Mierzejewski, Andrzej Nowacki, Kazimierz Ostrowski, Andrzej Prokopiuk, Leon Tarasewicz, Włodzimierz J. Zakrzewski.
The CoCA's own collection of works, which represent main trends of the 20th and 21st century art, made by local and other artists, will be a basis for educational and promotional activity of the CoCA. Public shows of the collection and a reflection on it will provide a possibility to include local artists, critics, and viewers in the mainstream contemporary art discourse.
We hope that the first presentation of the collection will initiate critical debate which will indicate these fields ions of contemporary art which should be included in the dynamical process of collection developing.
The building of collection will be continued. As a part of the Znaki Czasu Programme in 2008 the Minister of Culture and National Heritage granted a subsidy of 200 000 złoty (twice as much as a year before) for this purpose.
