IMPORT EXPORT

Import Export is a new gallery in Warsaw (PL) with a focus on experimental practice and exchange of ideas in contemporary art. Founded in 2021, the gallery is run by Sonia Jakimczyk and Piotr Bazylko. The founders are (respectively): a homecoming Millennial art dealer and a collector who pioneered and championed contemporary art in Poland after the transformation of 1989.

Sonia Jakimczyk – a UCL alumna (MA in History of Art) – previously acted as Director at Société gallery in Berlin, having earlier helped to establish Muzeum Susch in Switzerland and having worked for other galleries (Arndt Fine Art, Berlin/Singapore) and art businesses (The Art Newspaper). Piotr Bazylko has spent the last two decades sharing his collecting journey through writing and publishing books on art – including the "Contemporary Art Collector's Guidebook".

The gallery derives its creative impulse from the sense of change and the ability of collaborating with artists who expand the definitions of their media and and engage with a current agenda: political, cultural, socio-economic and environmental. The gallery opened with a collaborative project "Drama" by SAGG Napoli & Stefania Batoeva, followed by solo exhibitions by Mia Dudek ("Manhattan") and Przemek Branas ("People, Teeth").

The gallery name is humorous yet factual. “Import-export” is the essence of the art trade and a slogan recognizable in the streets of all countries the founders lived in. The gallery has a permanent space in Warsaw – the hometown of its founders, but equally employs a nimble model and will appear in international locations with its projects.