Set Free the Artistic Energy of Lodz! The Evolution of the Urban Forms Foundation

Abstract

In the last catalogue of the Urban Forms Foundation, Teresa Latuszewska-Syrda describes her initial inspiration in these words: In 2008, the London Tate Modern presented on the façade of the building the works of six artists: Os Gemeos, Nunca, Sixeart, JR, Blu and Faile. At that point I thought to myself: why not do it here? Why not in Lodz? After all, the history of Lodz resembles the history of street art to some extent: Lodz is a young city, just like street art. Lodz is a city of revolution. Its golden age was in the period of the great industrial revolution, in times when artistic revolutions were so frequent as technical inventions. Its traces can be seen everywhere-in the brick walls of the factories, in the factory owners' eclectic villas, in the art nouveau tenement houses and villas, in the modernist housing estate of Helena and Szymon Syrkusowie and in the Strzeminski Art Museum, for which foundations were laid by the collection of the a.r. group-a group of revolutionary artists. The revolution is also reflected in the blank walls of tenement houses created as a result of clearances planned by communist planners. Political, social and economic revolutions built and ruined this city. The revolutions of the 1980s formed street art, which derives its own independence from them and is not limited by schematic formulas (Latuszewska-Syrda 2015: 2). Those revolutions left their mark on the architecture of Lodz and impacted the current image of the city as the place with post-industrial atmosphere and multicultural traditions, full of artistic energy, but also as the place that is overwhelming, grey and struggling with various problems. Recently the restoration of neglected buildings and places has accelerated, which symbolises the rebirth of