Aneta Szyłak, Polish curator and founder of Wyspa Institute of Art, dies at 64

Aneta Szyłak, a prominent Polish curator, educator, writer, and art theorist, has died. She founded and directed multiple art institutions in Gdańsk, Poland, a city known for its political history linked to Lech Wałęsa and the shipyard strikes of the 1970s. Szyłak was a key figure in Gdańsk's activist cultural scene since the 1980s. In 1998, she co-founded the Łaznia (Bathhouse) Centre for Contemporary Art with Grzegorz Klaman, serving as its director until 2001. She then co-founded and directed the Wyspa Institute of Art from 2004 to 2014. Szyłak also founded and served as artistic director of the Alternativa art festival. Her curatorial work focused on the intersections of art, politics, and society. She was a widely published art critic and received the Jerzy Stajuda Prize for Art Criticism in 2003, honoring her independent and uncompromising curatorial practice.