I Suddenly Woke Up in Barcelona
Exhibition at Piękny Pies
The former glory of Kraków’s bars and cafés is constantly fading. Sometimes nothing remains of these places but words and memories. Some, wrapped in legend, still exist today—occasionally owing their survival to the fact that nothing there has really changed.
I am fascinated by places where something more than consumption and prosaic everyday life takes place. The exhibition consists of installations telling stories about Kraków addresses where a specific kind of energy once boiled—where revolutions, small and large, were taking shape, sometimes coming to fruition.
Straszewskiego 24: Beer Hall / Barcelona
“I suddenly woke up in Barcelona
Mr. Jasio nervously carried the beer
As usual, without giving any change
The pork jelly
Shook with fear all the more
Because at the next table
Under the window, an informer had sat down
I was sitting with Wojtek Bellon
Who still wanted to leave Barcelona…”
— Adam Ziemianin
Podwale 7: Esplanada / Gałka Muszkatałowa / Cristobal / Bisanz / C. K. Browar
“In this elegant café gathered the world of science, the university body, writers, musicians, and students, devouring—almost literally—periodicals. Round marble tables, plush sofas, armchairs, and in summer an open veranda placed Esplanada at the forefront of Kraków’s social life.”
— Antoni Wasilewski
“Visual artists decorated the interior with peculiar paintings. (…) Through the street-facing window one could observe this motley of colors and chaos of forms, from which unnaturally twisted figures, asymmetrical pseudo-faces, and geometric arabesques emerged. In the center hung an astonishing lamp of enormous size—something like a winged balloon, something like an angular pyramid turned upside down.”
— Zygmunt Leśnodorski on Gałka Muszkatołowa, the operational headquarters of the Futurists
Szpitalna 38: Paon / Teatralna / Cyganeria / Coco
“A particularly loud echo was caused, for example, by the attack on the Cyganeria café, carried out on December 22, 1942 by the Jewish combat group ‘Iskra’. The fighters, led by Idek Liber, threw grenades into the venue, killing 11 Germans and wounding 13.”
— Krzysztof Jakubowski
“I rushed into the apartment when some woman was tearing the canvas from Paon. I took it away by force, then left it on the balcony and began rescuing typewriters and calculating machines. (…) And so it happened—the canvas, accompanied by two guards, was soon transferred to the new building of the National Museum.”
— Zdzisław Pankowicz
Jana, Sławkowska, Bożego Ciała: Piękny Pies
“We place a heavy metal gas cylinder for beer on the bar counter, aiming its valve toward the door. We will repel any attack! Long live canine freedom…
We meet here in order to be together. Like husband and wife, heaven and earth. Together we overcome the pain of existence, trying to find a bit of understanding and warmth in this threatening duration of yet another Republic of Poland. The neighbors, however, burn with a desire to kill. They are interested only in their own comfort and their own profit. They are deaf to the call of reality.”
— Maciej Piotr Prus
