My Hands Are Clean and My Floor Is Green

From 24 July to 27 September 2026 Labirynt Gallery showed nearly a hundred paintings, drawings and prints from its own collection by 81 artists, from Edward Dwurnik to Marek Sapetto.

Labirynt Gallery on the exhibition (the gallery’s own English text):

It focuses on what is immediately available to experience: colour relationships, textures, forms, shapes, compositional tensions, and the pleasure of perception that comes from engaging with a material image.

What to expect

The gallery went into its own storerooms and hung what normally stays there. There were no screens and no multimedia, and the title came from a 1971 painting by Marek Sapetto. The show ran from 24 July to 27 September 2026, with free admission.

Scale mattered more than any single work: with roughly one piece per artist, this was a cross-section, not a set of monographic displays. It ran from post-war Lublin painters, through Jan and Rajmund Ziemski, to the 1980s New Expression generation: Ryszard Grzyb, Włodzimierz Pawlak, Jarosław Modzelewski, Paweł Kowalewski and Ryszard Woźniak. Dwurnik, Fałat, Adam Styka and Zbigniew Makowski hung next to artists known mainly within the region, and that juxtaposition was the real subject of the show.

The gallery published no checklist of works with titles. A few are named in the photo captions of a feature in the art magazine SZUM on 17 September 2026 (photographs by Natalia Wierzbicka; English titles are our translations):

• Grzegorz Moryciński, “Uliczka. Kazimierz” (Little Street. Kazimierz) and “Uliczka ze znakiem drogowym” (Little Street with a Road Sign) (both 1972, oil on canvas) - two street views hung side by side.
• Zenon Kononowicz, “Chatka - pejzaż z domkiem” (Hut - Landscape with a Little House) (around 1960, oil on canvas) - the oldest of the works named in the captions.
• Marek Kwaszkiewicz, “Zielonooka” (Green-Eyed Woman) (around 1973, drawing on paper) - drawing, one of the show’s three media alongside painting and printmaking.
• Jarosław Olejnicki, “Przemoc” (Violence) (around 1976, oil on canvas) - a title that stands apart from the landscapes and street views on this list.
• Ryszard Grzyb, “Podskok / Uśmiech Picassy” (Hop / Picasso’s Smile) (around 1983, gouache on paper) - by a member of Gruppa, and the most recent of the named works.

The rest you had to discover in the room: as the curator explained, the hanging followed runs of colour and motif rather than dates or movements. The gallery’s own film shows the scale and the hang:

The gallery’s photographic documentation of the exhibition is on its Flickr album .

Context

Marek Sapetto (1939-2019), whose 1971 painting gave the show its title, was a painter and printmaker of Poland’s New Figuration circle. He taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1971 and was made a professor of fine arts in 1990. A title that reads like a studio note rather than a manifesto set the tone for the whole exhibition.

Labirynt has been building its collection since the 1960s and now counts it in the hundreds of works. Its holdings rank among Poland’s more significant collections of neo-avant-garde art: the Lublin-based Zamek Group with Jan Ziemski, action and performance art, photo-medialism, critical art. This show turned to the less documented side of that collection - painting, drawing and printmaking, which for decades rarely made it back onto the walls.

The last large presentation of the holdings was “Zakręty awangardy” in 2010. Sixteen years on, the gallery went back to the storerooms, this time for the part of the collection that had been written about least.

Tickets and time

Admission was free, with no ticket, and the gallery mentioned no booking. Labirynt does not sell exhibition tickets at all, so the usual questions about free days and city tourist cards did not arise. The show was open Tuesday to Sunday, 12:00-19:00 (noon to 7 PM), and groups could request a curator-led tour through the form on the exhibition page .

English on site: the gallery published an English version of the exhibition page with the description, dates and full list of artists. It did not say whether the wall texts in the rooms were in English, and announced no English-language tours or audio guide. The opening programme was in Polish with Ukrainian and Polish Sign Language interpretation.

Who it was for: anyone who likes to look at painting rather than decode it, and anyone who knows post-war Polish art well enough to enjoy spotting the names. It suited visitors less well if they wanted a narrative exhibition with captions that lead you by the hand - deliberately, there were none.

Quiet hours ran every Wednesday from 15:00 to 19:00, when the gallery switched off all works emitting loud sound or flashing light. The bookshop lent noise-cancelling ear defenders and a wheelchair free of charge. A Polish Sign Language description of the show is on the gallery’s channel .

What the press says

Radio Lublin (20 September 2026, “Do-patrzenia” podcast series, “Nie tylko rozrywkowa niedziela radiowa” programme): curator Paweł Korbus takes listeners round the exhibition - Radio Lublin “Do-patrzenia” recording (Polish-language audio).

SZUM (17 September 2026, editorial team, “Do zobaczenia” section): a short piece built on the gallery’s text and the curator’s words; its installation photographs carry captions naming individual works - SZUM feature (Polish-language source).

Radio Lublin (24 July 2026, KovA / ed. WM): an opening-day preview summarising the premise and quoting the curator, who names Dwurnik, Łazorek, Styka and Fałat as examples of the artists on show - Radio Lublin preview (Polish-language source).

Narodowcy.pl (July 2026, unsigned): a second preview, in practice a reprint of the gallery’s press material, with no observation from the galleries themselves - Narodowcy.pl preview (Polish-language source).

No review had been found as of 4 October 2026; all four items are previews or presentations built on the gallery’s text or the curator’s own words. Curator Paweł Korbus writes in the gallery’s English text : “The exhibition is ‘analogue’, pleasant and relaxing.”

See also

• Labirynt Gallery - the institution’s profile: its history since 1956, the neo-avant-garde collection, hours, quiet hours and how to get there.
• Stanisław Szygell - landscapes by a painter of Jan Stanisławski’s school, from a gift made to the National Museum in Lublin in 1952. It is another Lublin display of painting from a museum collection, at Lublin Castle until 1 November 2026.

After the show

The gallery announces no further showing of the exhibition, here or in another city (as of 4 October 2026). No catalogue was found, either on the exhibition page or through the gallery’s site search. What remains online is the gallery’s film, the Flickr album and the curator’s tour recorded by Radio Lublin, all linked above.

What is on at Labirynt and in Lublin now:

• Cezary Klimaszewski: boor - the next show in the same building at Popiełuszki 5, open until 25 October 2026, free entry. It is an installation by the Lublin artist built around two of Marlon Brando’s film roles.
• Tomasz Zawadzki - paintings by the Lublin abstract painter in the gallery devoted to the Zamek Group at Lublin Castle, until 3 January 2027. It is the same Lublin tradition that Jan Ziemski represents in Labirynt’s collection.
• Figurative Works from the Zamek Group Circle - early, representational work by Jerzy Durakiewicz and Tytus Dzieduszycki-Sas in the same gallery at the Castle, until 1 November 2026. Like the Labirynt show, it brings out a less familiar stage of Lublin art.

The press covered the exhibition with previews, and no critical review was found. SZUM (17 September 2026) ran installation photographs with captions naming the works, and Radio Lublin (20 September 2026) broadcast a tour by the curator, Paweł Korbus, in its “Do-patrzenia” series. The gallery has published no attendance figures.

Museum profile: Labirynt Gallery .