This year Lodz Kaliska celebrates its twentieth anniversary. Because of that the celebrations have lasted the whole year. The final events of these celebrations will be the exhibition in the Mala Gallery ZPAF-CSW "How the picture comes into being" - "Coats not coats" and performance and exhibition in the Laboratorium Gallery in the Ujazdowski Castle.

Earlier this year Lodz Kaliska has been presenting its works and performances in the Karowa Gallery in Warsaw, in the Art Museum in Lodz, the BWA Gallery in Wrocław and also in the Liget Gallery in Budapest where in the Toldi Cinema there were presented their films and video realisations too.

The fact that the Lodz Kaliska group exists for such long time is an unusual event. Artistic activities of the group was often connected with moral scandals and shaking the schemes existing in contemporary art life, breaking through convencies and effective blurring of borders between art and life. The artists of Lodz Kaliska have had many conflicts with art circles, their work was subjected to strong contestations of critics and used to arise consternation or enthusiasm of public.

At the begining, mainly during martial law years in Poland the group acted as a part of so called "culture of clubbing together", they were publishing independent clandestine magazine "Tango" and initiated festivals of "silent movies" which took place in so caled "Attic", the place which assembled independent artists not only from Lodz but also from whole Poland. From 1980 on the artists of Lodz Kaliska have had many exhibitions (individual and collective) and have been organising various art events in the Mala Gallery in Warsaw (e.g. exhibition of Andrzej Swietlik "Like children" in 1996.)

Recently Lodz Kaliska concentrates, apart from realising films, upon making performaces ("A married woman unclothed by her bachelors, even" in the Liget Gallery in Budapest) and great photographic stagings ("Histerical Battle of Grunwald", Gallery Karowa, Warsaw, photographic staging of M.Zichy painting in the Zala Museum, Hungary).

Marek Grygiel

Marek Janiak
Born in 1929, lives in Lodz since 16 years (before that, inter alia, in Częstochowa), farming education, amateur sculptor. Wife Michalina, three children. His artistic credo: To be and not to be - simultanously. Fascinated with jazz music in his early youth, spent three years in music school. He is currently working over a symbolic figure entitled "Captivation" presenting in stone the Infant himself.

Andrzej Kwietniewski
Born in 1965 in Siemiatycze, lives in Lodz for 5 years. Married four times, daughter Marysia. Graduated from the Lublin Catholic University and the Higher School of Social Sciences. Amateur sociologist - in the Lodz Kaliska group he employs himself with relations and casting (it is him whom we owe that the group's muses are so nice. In 1974-1975 scholarship stay in Canada. Since one month he realizes in Bohemia a dark feature film with the interim title "The Arts".

Adam Rzepecki
Born in 1951. Art historian, journalist. Bachelor, two children. He has written the book "I know dada, please go out" dedicated to art of traveling. Connoisseur of wines. For eleven years he has persistently carried stones to the peak of Czerwony Wierch thus making it one and half meter higherabove sea level. Since two years he is working as 5the Promotion Department Manager of the town of Nowy Sącz. Currently his artistic activities are sporadic.

Andrzej Swietlik
Born in 1951. Comes from Pomerania. Married, two sons. Self-taught photographer. Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. Lives in Warsaw since 20 years; a friend of all male and female artists. He has made about twenty five thousands pictures, inter alia Playboy cover, bilboards, newspaper coverages. During the last three years in the Lodz Kaliska group he employed himself exclusively with conceptional and promotional work. In his spare time he is finishing few cardboard models of the first world war airplanes.

Andrzej Wielogorski
Born in 1939 in Vienna, lives in Lodz since his early childhood. Educated as a graphic artist and actor (graduated from the State Higher Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz. He has made television commercials and promotional campaigns for the world leading producers in RTV. Winner of numerous competitions, including the World Press Photo. He is dealing with Public Relations of the Lodz Kaliska group. His most recent passion are old cars (Alfa Romeo).