Łódź Kaliska in Bielsko-Biala The exhibition presents 30 years of artistic activity of the group Łódź Kaliska, which has influenced a whole generation of young artists. The exhibition in Bielsko-Biala consists of two parts. The first one, entitled "Sincerity and Spoof. The Ethics of Łódź Kaliska in 1979-89," has been prepared by the Museum of Modern Art in Łódź by its curator Jarosław Lubiak. The second part, entitled "Łódź Kaliska in Black and White," which shows artworks from the 1990s, has been organized by the director of the BWA Gallery in Bielsko, Agata Smalcerz. Łódź Kaliska was founded in 1979 by Marek Janiak, Jerzy Koba, Andrzej Kwietniewski, Adam Rzepecki, Andrzej Świetlik and Andrzej Wielogórski, a group of young artists who got together after they had been expelled from an alfresco gathering during the 5th Photographic Meeting of Young Artists. Speaking about the beginnings of the group, Jarosław Lubiak stresses that: "From the very beginning the sincerity about being themselves, also, or perhaps first of all, in physiological aspects, in irrational pranks, has been what the artists set against the buffoonery and lies which they noticed everywhere around, especially in the artistic milieu." The exhibition "Sincerity and Spoof. The Ethics of Łódź Kaliska in 1979-89" is an attempt to work out an approach to recognize the activities of these artists in the first decade of the group's existence. The display groups their works into five categories: from the earliest works connected with photomedialism, through documented performances and actions, to numerous manifestos, all of which consciously used paralogism and antinomy. "Artistic ethics means here sincerity in exposing one's true nature, even if it challenges the established cultural norms and accepted norms of behaviour. Sometimes, pretending to be worse than they really are, the artists of Łódź Kaliska set their own trickery and spoof against the spoof of all those who pretended to be better than their really were," says Lubiak. Agata Smalcerz has chosen only black and white artworks by Łódź Kaliska. They are mainly parodical stagings of world famous paintings, such as Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix, The Birth of Venus by Sandro Boticelli or The Luncheon on the Grass by Édouard Manet, but also of Polish paintings, like The Battle of Grunwald by Jan Matejko. The artists themselves, together with their famous Muses, friends and extras took part in those stagings. The photographs were taken by Andrzej Swietlik, one of the group members, a renowned photographer, appreciated mainly for his work in the advertising industry. Huge canvass reproductions of the photographs were later painted over during these happenings. The famous Sisters, based on the work of an anonymous French painter, master of the Fontainebleau school "Gabriel d`Estrées and her Sister the Duchess de Villars" from the late 16th century, were used as a motif on wall tiles in the toilet of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Łódź (permanent installation, entitled "Pure Art Museum of Łódź Kaliska") The artworks exhibited in the BWA Gallery will be accompanied by the group's most famous films, starting with the earliest dating back to the beginning of the 1980s in the style of silent movie burlesques, to the staging of such famous films as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari or The Battleship Potemkin. The group's members today are Marek Janiak, Adam Rzepecki, Andrzej Świetlik and Andrzej Makary Wielogórski. Translated by Agnieszka Łowczanin