黑料不打烊

This exhibition celebrates UConn Professor Emeritus of Printmaking Gus Mazzocca鈥檚 gift to the Benton of more than 150 prints by Polish artists. The prints came to Mazzocca through the exchange program that he established in 1984 with the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland. Produced largely during the 1970s and 1980s, the prints provide an opportunity to sample artistic production in Krakow during the Cold War, when Poland became a satellite state of the Soviet Union. The exhibition鈥檚 title, presented in both Polish and English, suggests how printmaking helped artists involved in the exchange transcend cultural and political barriers to find common ground.

The exhibition is divided into three parts. The first section situates key works within the context of Poland鈥檚 Cold War history. It explores how artists used metaphor to represent the contradictions of life under Communism. The second section features a wide variety of prints by artists who studied and taught at Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. The selection shows how generations of artists at the academy have shaped each other鈥檚 work. The third section documents the early years of the exchange between UConn鈥檚 School of Fine Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. It includes prints as well as posters, video, photographs, and other ephemera from the exchange鈥檚 twenty-year history.