Grażyna Kulczyk is a promoter of culture and a contemporary art collector. While still a law student she began to build her private collection, which was initially focused on Polish art. As the collection expanded, it became increasingly international in composition, providing Polish audiences with new opportunities to come face-to-face with works by some of the world’s most acclaimed artists.
For Grażyna Kulczyk collecting art is more than merely a private pleasure, it is also a public service mission. Her desire to share her collection with a wider audience gave rise to the Kulczyk Foundation, which grew into the Art Stations Foundation by Grazyna Kulczyk with the art gallery located in the heart of Stary Browar.
Stary Browar is Grażyna Kulczyk’s largest project in Poland which introduced both a dynamic commercial space and new cultural activity into the city center. It resulted from the revitalization and expansion of the historic, nineteenth-century buildings of the Hugger Brewery, and from the outset was intended as a site for artistic activity. Today, Stary Browar is a place for growing new brands in Poland, and a site for exhibitions, a performance program and educational projects involving thousands of people each year. This urban complex has received numerous Polish and international awards.
The Art Stations Foundation by Grazyna Kulczyk was committed to the goal of continuously enriching the artistic life in the heart of the Stary Browar, arranging encounters and providing the public with opportunities for contact with the work of many prominent Polish and international artists. The realization of these plans includes bringing art to the public in commercial spaces, examples of which include the artworks from the GK Collection exhibited within Stary Browar public spaces as well as in being part of the whole complex the Blow Up Hall hotel, and dance performances in the park and outside the gallery building.
Since 2007, every autumn Stary Browar has held the Art & Fashion Festival – an innovative initiative by Grazyna Kulczyk featuring an Open University formula that combines the art, creativity and handicraft displayed by the creations of today’s fashion industry and students of fashion design. The festival’s educational program included workshops for young artists and fashion theorists (in areas such as Fashion Design, Fashion Drawing, Writing Fashion, Jewelry Design, Fashion Photography, and Fashion Video), as well as numerous (and open to the general public) lectures and meetings with artists and designers.
Grazyna Kulczyk is known for her bold and original projects, as well as for her commitment and utmost consistency in carrying them out. She is not afraid to take risky decisions or to experiment, which are valuable qualities in a collector of contemporary art. Her involvement and promotion of culture and art reach far beyond Poland’s borders, as evidenced by her support of the Kunsthalle Zurich and memberships in the Tate Modern Russian and Eastern Europe Acquisition Committee as well as in MoMA’s Modern Women Fund Committee. All Grazyna Kulczyk’s investments combine business and art in a creative, yet highly rational way. “50 50” – this simple equation describes the way in which her modern style of doing business and her social involvement intersect with the promotion of culture.