9. THE ANDRZEJ BATURO FOTO ART FESTIVAL

The festival features unique photographs by outstanding artists from Europe, America and Asia. The photographic genres on show include documentary, landscape, portrait, reportage and experiment. All of the exhibitions will be shown in Poland for the first time!

The 9th Andrzej Baturo Foto Art Festival in Bielsko-Biała is approaching fast. Organized for the first time in 2005, the festival is a brainchild of the couple of outstanding local photographic artists Andrzej and Inez Baturo. It has been named after Andrzej Baturo since his death in 2017.

The festival shows a thematic and aesthetic diversity of the photographic art, featuring both traditional photography and modern digital media. The genres on show include documentary, landscape, portrait, reportage and experiment. The solo exhibitions of world-renowned photographic artists from Europe, America and Asia will be presented between 8 and 24 October in the largest exhibition halls in the city’s major art galleries and cultural institutions .

The venues include the Historical Museum “Old Factory”, Galeria Bielska BWA, Photographic Gallery B&B, Galeria Sfera Shopping Centre, the “Książnica Beskidzka” Library, and the Regional Cultural Centre.

Major events will take place in the first weekend of the festival (9–10 October, 2021 at the Auditorium of the College of Administration). The opening ceremony in the Polish Theatre (Friday, 8 October, 7:00 p.m.) will include the presentation of selected works by all of the participating artists who will greet the audience from the stage. The event will be hosted by the Programme and Artistic Director of the Festival Inez Baturo. This unique biennial festival enjoys enormous popularity among photographic enthusiasts and experts. One of the greatest highlights of the event is the Photo Marathon during which the artists presenting their solo exhibitions will meet the audience. We are full of hope that it will be possible to hold the festival in the traditional form, and not online due to the pandemic restrictions.


Inez Baturo, the Programme and Organizational Director of Foto Art Festival:
The meetings with the presenters and curators of the festival’s major exhibitions provide an extremely inspiring experience for anyone interested in photography at its highest level. The marathon consists of additional photo shows, presentations, films, discussions, questions and answers. Most artists come to Poland for the first time, and each of them is a unique personality. The artists will tell us a lot about their work and photography in general. We talk not only about art, but also about the world and our place in it. We meet outstanding individuals from different cultures, all united by the love of photography.

As usual, the festival will be held in major exhibition halls in the city centre, but we also have plan B should another lockdown be imposed. In such a case scenario, more exhibitions will be displayed in public spaces: on special racks, in empty display windows, on fences and walls; both exhibitions and meetings can be held online. So, one way or another, the Festival will happen...

Three out of about 20 major festival exhibitions will be presented in Galeria Bielska BWA.

Inez Baturo – photographic artist, curator at the B&B Photographic Gallery, president of the Photographic Centre Foundation; Program and Organizational Director of the Foto Art Festival in Bielsko-Biała: We are united by photography and kindness to the world and people. Our slogan is Slow Life. A festival of the people, for the people.

The Foto Art Festival was first held in 2005. The festival was created and given an individual character by well-known photographers associated with Inez and Andrzej Baturo – a pair of curators, running the B&B Photo Gallery in Bielsko-Biała, founders of the Centre of Photography Foundation.

Andrzej Baturo, the long-standing president of the Centre of Photography Foundation, the general director of the festival from the beginning, died in June 2017 at the age of 77. The Foto Art Festival has been named after this outstanding photographic artist since 2017.

The organizers of the Foto Art Festival are the Municipality of Bielsko-Biała and the Centre of Photography Foundation. The Programme and Organizational director is Inez Baturo, the chairman of the Organizing Committee is Adam Ruśniak, Deputy Mayor of Bielsko-Biała. The festival is held under the auspices of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (artistic patron), the Mayor of Bielsko-Biała Jarosław Klimaszewski (honorary patron) and ZAiKS (Polish Society of Authors and Composers ). The chief partners of the 9th Foto Art Festival are the Historical Museum in Bielsko-Biała, Galeria Bielska BWA and Galeria Sfera.


The 9th Andrzej Baturo Foto Art Festival runs from 8 to 24 October, 2021.
THE FESTIVAL CENTRE – Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała, ul. 3 Maja 11
czynne w dniach 8–24 października 2021, 10 am – 6 pm.
THE FESTIVAL CLUB is traditionally located in the Café Club Aquarium in Galeria Bielska BWA (first floor).

More information about the programme details, rules of participation in events, prices of individual and season tickets and much more on the regularly updated website of Foto Art Festival >>