7th Refugees Welcome Charity Art Auction
5 November 2023

On International Refugee Day, the Ocalenie Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and the Society of Friends of the MSN invite you for the seventh time to the exhibition "Refugees Welcome". The charity auction will be held on 5 November 2023, the proceeds will go towards helping people with refugee experience.

In 2022, 22 500 people received support from the Ocalenie Foundation, four times more than in previous years. The exhibition accompanying the auction, on the other hand, has been enduringly popular with the public. Last year, several thousand visitors attended, including numerous people with refugee experience.

The charity auction "Refugees Welcome. Artists for Refugees" and the exhibition that preceds it are solidarity gestures through which the art community supports people in a refugee situation. The migration crisis, which may have already faded into obscurity for many of us, still demands our attention and refugee people need support. The Refugees Welcome exhibition and auction are a response to the pressing challenge posed by reality.

As Kalina Czwarnóg of the Ocalenie Foundation puts it: "In 2022, more than 22,500 people received support from the Ocalenie Foundation. This is a number more than four times higher than in previous years and is mainly related to the need for intervention support for those fleeing the Russian invasion and those experiencing violence on the Polish-Belarusian border. However, we must remember that intervention assistance is the first step - these people will now need long-term and ongoing support, such as psychological, legal or housing assistance. Already at this point, the clients and customers of the Refugees Welcome Poland programme are, in large part, people to whom we have provided humanitarian assistance at the border with Belarus. The long-term assistance and activities of the Refugees Welcome Centres can be realised thanks to the proceeds from the auctions."

Thanks to the commitment and openness of the artists and creators, as well as the accompanying galleries and collectors associated with the Society of Friends of the MSN, a cross-sectional exhibition will open at the Museum on the Vistula River at the end of September/beginning of October, which juxtaposes the work of many generations of artists, different themes and creative strategies in a non-obvious way.

Aleksandra Auleytner, President of the Board of the Society of Friends of the MSN explains: "We are delighted that the artistic community notices and appreciates the activities of the Ocalenie Foundation and is so enthusiastic in supporting them. Taking part in the auction is an opportunity for our members to both contribute to real help for refugees and to meet new artists or learn about the latest trends in modern art."

The earliest works donated to the auction date to the early 1970s, and a significant number of the invitees have produced new paintings, drawings or sculptures with this event in mind. Historical works will therefore be juxtaposed with the most current ones. Although, by design, this cross-sectional show is devoid of a linear narrative, it is possible to see a set of themes or creative attitudes representative of today's art world.

Szymon Maliborski, curator of this year's Refugees Welcome exhibition, emphasises: "The preparation of this exhibition has allowed me to look more closely at what seemed familiar to me. I am thus free to transcend my own established ways of thinking in order to give voice to the works - something that doesn't happen all that often in curatorial work that usually attempts to chisel meanings and drive an issue-based narrative."

The Refugees Welcome charity auction is driven by the certainty that helping should not be conditioned by skin colour, religion or ethnicity. The more than seventy people who agreed to accept the invitation to participate in the auction are practising social solidarity across borders. 

Artists:
Bartek Arobal Kociemba, Karolina Balcer, Gosia Bartosik, Zuzanna Bartoszek, Edna Baud, Alicja Biała, Jędrzej Bieńko, Yuriy Biley, Przemek Branas, Bartek Buczek, Kinga Burek, Monika Chlebek, Dawid Czycz, Norbert Delman, Łukasz Dziedzic, Jagoda Dobecka, Monika Drożyńska. Edward Dwurnik, Pola Dwurnik, Monika Falkus, Michał Frydrych, Józef Gałązka, Weronika Gęsicka, Ksenia Gryckiewicz, Aneta Grzeszykowska i Jan Smaga, Ania Grzymała, Hekla Studio (Monika Proniewska, Paulina Ufnal) i Marta Weronika Orlikowska, Teresa Jakubowska, Piotr Janas, Agata Jarosławiec, Ola Jasionowska, Emilia Kina, Karolina Konopka, Jan Kowal, Adam Kozicki, Katarzyna Kozyra, Yulia Krivich, Olga Krykun, Kamil Kukla, Katarzyna Kukuła, Ewa Kuryluk, Agata Kus, Linda Lach, Krzysztof Maniak, Rafał Milach, Małgorzata Mycek, Marta Niedbał, Kinga Nowak, Krzysztof Nowicki, Karol Palczak, Łukasz Patelczyk, Grzegorz Pieniak, Wojtek Pietrasz, Jagoda Przybylak, Igor Przybylski, Patryk Różycki, Anna Rutkowska, Filip Rybkowski, Wilhelm Sasnal, Paweł Śliwiński, Justyna Smoleń, Wojciech Ireneusz Sobczyk, Krzysztof Stepniewski, Łukasz Stokłosa, Łukasz Surowiec, Paweł Susid, Stach Szumski, Wiktora Walendzik, Katarzyna Walentynowicz, Izabela Wilk (Devils Claws), Rafał Wilk, Sebastian Winkler, Paulina Włostowska, Karolina Wojtas, Jakub Woynarowski, Katarzyna Wyszkowska, Rajmund Ziemski, Jakub Julian Ziółkowski.