Grażyna Hase’s Studio

We present another project of Piotr Janowczyk in 2020 aimed at documenting the work of the outstanding Polish fashion designer Grażyna Hase (born 1939), who celebrated her 80th-anniversary last year. The studio she runs, apart from the informal fashion house, in the last quarter of the twentieth century played the role of an art gallery gathering the Warsaw artistic community. In the 1980s, a number of excellent exhibitions took place here (including the first Franciszek Starowieyski Painting Theatre or the only Polish vernissage of works by the painter Françoise Gilot — Pablo Picasso’s wife).

The project consisted of two stages
1) querying and archiving documentary materials owned by the artist regarding the studio;
2) film documentation of the interior of the studio and the artist’s statements on-site functioning; All activities were agreed with the artist and approved by her.
Our goal to pursue this project was
— disseminating knowledge about the workplaces of artists operating in the capital city of Warsaw;
— revitalization of historic creative workplaces;
— supporting their users in organizational activities;
— organizing, securing and preserving the artistic heritage accumulated in the premises of Warsaw art studios and workshops;
— emphasizing the value of the studio as an important element of Warsaw’s cultural identity.

The result of the project is a documentary film entitled “IN GRAŻYNA HASE’S STUDIO”. The footage is a record of a conversation that took place in September 2020 in the studio of the outstanding Polish fashion designer Grażyna Hase. In it, the artist talks about her creative achievements and gives a tour of the creative studio that has been occupied for almost 40 years. Their functions were not only an informal fashion house but also in the last quarter of the twentieth century, it became an important art gallery, gathering the Warsaw artistic community.
The artist presents fragments of old fashion collections, shows archival photographs and tells many anecdotes about the life of the Warsaw creative milieu in the late PRL era. Currently, hardly anyone remembers that there was an excellent art gallery in Grażyna Hase’s studio for many years.

GRAŻYNA HASE likes to repeat that her life could be shared by several people. She was born in Warsaw on January 12, 1939, she started as a model, collaborated with the legendary Jadwiga Grabowska from Moda Polska and appeared on the covers of colourful magazines. She has always liked to stand out and although her unconventional clothes and hairstyles in the grey years of the Polish People’s Republic caused various reactions, she knew that she was right. She was a colourful bird of the Warsaw Bohemia. When she started designing in 1967, her clothes were soon admired in Paris, Hamburg, Moscow, Berlin and Toronto. It was she who discovered Małgorzata Niemen with whom she worked for several dozen years for Polish fashion. She also designed for film, theatre and stage. In 1980, Grażyna Hase’s Gallery was established on Marszałkowska Street, presenting contemporary art, which became an important place on the artistic map of Warsaw.

Film premiere: 18/12/2020
The film was made as part of the support program for Warsaw creative studios.
Realization: Piotr Janowczyk.
The organizer of the project: PERFORM Artistic Foundation
Co-financing: the Capital City of Warsaw.