Forms of Light - Michał Diament: photography and glass at the Fort Institute of Photography

“Formy światła” (Forms of Light) is an exhibition of the work of Michał Diament (1935-1977), a photographer, designer of functional glass and maker of art glass associated with the Wrocław art scene, at the Fort Institute of Photography; the museum calls it the artist’s first survey exhibition. It sets his documentary and experimental photographs beside surviving glass objects and grows entirely out of the family archive. The exhibition runs 16 September 2026 - 29 November 2026.

The Fort Institute of Photography on the exhibition (our translation):

Michał Diament’s work escapes simple classification. It spans documentary and experimental photography, the design of functional glass, unique art glass and advertising. The first survey exhibition devoted to the artist does not separate these fields but shows them as elements of a single practice, developed around light, glass and the transformation of forms.

The starting point was a previously unpublished archive of over a thousand negatives, prints and documentary and experimental photographs, as well as several dozen surviving glass objects. The materials obtained from the artist’s family were for the first time subjected to extensive research, digitisation and cataloguing. This made it possible to reconstruct Diament’s creative path and to see how consistently photography and glass permeated each other in his work.

At first Diament designed simple, functional vessels intended for serial production, in keeping with the ideals of modern design of the 1960s - like many other representatives of the Wrocław school of glass. But visits to the glassworks and contact with the living, malleable mass of glass gradually changed his thinking. Glass ceased to be merely a utilitarian material. It became a sculptural medium. In the last years of his life the artist made organic, unique objects known today as “Duchy” (Ghosts), which rank among the most interesting examples of auteur art glass of the period.

His photography followed a similar path. From documenting the art life of Wrocław and photographing glass for the academy and other designers, Diament moved on to experiments in which the camera became a tool for transforming reality. He was interested not so much in the objects themselves as in optical phenomena - reflections, the refraction of light, transparency and the rhythm of forms.

The exhibition presents Michał Diament’s work in such breadth for the first time: from documentary photography, through optical experiments and photographs of glass, to surviving functional and art objects. In doing so it brings out of the archive the figure of an artist whose work adds an important, so far insufficiently recognised photographic chapter to the history of the Wrocław school of glass.

The exhibition is being created in partnership with the heiresses of Michał Diament’s work and Galeria Lisowski.

Cezary Lisowski’s curatorial text and the artist’s biography are on the exhibition page of the IFF website; the English version of the page gives both texts, together with the description of the exhibition, in English.

What to expect

According to the museum, the starting point of the exhibition was a previously unpublished archive: over a thousand negatives, prints and photographs and several dozen surviving glass objects. In his curatorial text, the curator Cezary Lisowski adds that the exhibition sets the surviving glass beside documentary and experimental photographs and grows entirely out of a family archive that had not been studied before.

The museum announces a survey ranging from documentary photography, through optical experiments and photographs of glass, to surviving functional and art objects. According to the press release, the central element of the exhibition is the artist’s photographs of his own glass objects, because in them the two fields of his work meet most fully.

The curatorial text states that the exhibition concentrates on the late stage of his work. From the mid-1970s Diament’s glass clearly moves away from the simple, functional forms of the Wrocław school, and trips to the “Laura” glassworks in Tarnów yield abstract, organic forms; the latest works recall heads or silhouettes. The museum writes that these organic, unique objects from the last years of the artist’s life are known today as “Duchy” (Ghosts).

At the same time Diament began to experiment with colour photography. He brought the objects close, broke them into fragments and multiplied them, changed their scale, superimposed negatives and exposed the same image several times, so that a single object became the source of many images.

The curator writes that in Diament’s work light is not only one of the main subjects but also a material: the artist explored it in photography from the early 1960s and in glass from 1967. The museum adds that in photography he was interested not so much in the objects themselves as in optical phenomena: reflections, the refraction of light, transparency and the rhythm of forms.

At a joint opening on 16 September 2026 the museum opened two separate exhibitions in the IFF space: “Formy światła” and Michał Siarek’s “Proszę śmiało wchodzić, zostaniecie dobrze przyjęci” (Come in with confidence, and you will be warmly received). According to the museum, both are about light, colour, reflections and form and together make up a kind of optical diptych; in Diament’s work light settles on the surface of glass and passes through it.

Context

Michał Józef Diament was born on 19 September 1935 in Skarżysko-Kamienna and died on 9 May 1977 in Wrocław. In 1961 he settled in Wrocław, studied at the city’s State Higher School of Visual Arts (PWSSP) in the studio of Professor Stanisław Dawski, and in 1967 received a diploma in glass design from its Faculty of Ceramics and Glass. He then worked in the school’s Inter-faculty Photography Department, and in 1974 he became its head. His work is held by, among others, the National Museum in Wrocław.

According to the press release, Diament never planned to become a glass designer. He was led to the field by his studies at the PWSSP and by meeting Dawski, whose model of teaching wanted a glass artist to be equally at ease with drawing, printmaking and photography. The Wrocław school of glass was, as the Polish Wikipedia puts it, a convention in art and functional glass among graduates of the Wrocław PWSSP in the second half of the 1950s and the 1960s, shaped by Dawski; it was marked by purity and harmony of form, restraint in colour and simplicity of execution. Diament began in this aesthetic with long-stemmed glasses and bottles with indentations on both sides, and over time turned to unique works of a sculptural character.

According to a text by Adam Sobota for the Galeria Korytarz in Jelenia Góra, Diament’s best-known works belong to the cycle “Siatki” (Meshes) of 1967-1971, and the largest retrospective of his work took place in 1982 at the National Museum in Wrocław. The Polish Wikipedia lists “Siatki” of 1969 among the artist’s selected exhibitions. In 2007, on the thirtieth anniversary of the artist’s death, the Domek Romański photography centre in Wrocław showed photographs from every stage of his work and from his private archive, and in January 2017 the Galeria Korytarz showed the exhibition “Sztuka Fotografii” (The Art of Photography).

The curator, Cezary Lisowski, born in 1985, is an art historian; his fields include the history of Polish design and interior architecture of the 20th century, and he is the author of the project Archiwa Designu (Design Archives). Since 2023 he has run the Lisowski gallery in Warsaw, and the museum presents him as the initiator of the exhibition and the keeper of the artist’s archive. The exhibition is being created in partnership with Diament’s heiresses and Galeria Lisowski; the opening page also names the exhibition partners, the town of Skarżysko-Kamienna and Oknoplast, the technology partner Fujifilm and the strategic partners, White Stone Development and Fort Mokotów.

Tickets and time

• Where: in the space of the Fort Institute of Photography in building 2 of Fort Mokotów at ul. Władysława Szpilmana 6, beside Michał Siarek’s separate exhibition; the exhibition’s pages do not name the room. The entrance to the Fort grounds is from ul. Racławicka. Directions are on the museum profile.
• When: the exhibition runs 16 September 2026 - 29 November 2026; the museum extended it because of strong interest (see Updates).
• Ticket: according to the exhibition page, admission is free. The museum repeated this in its message of 6 November 2026. For selected events, such as workshops and guided tours, the IFF requires registration or a symbolic ticket, as stated with each event in its calendar.
• Opening hours: the gallery is open: Wed-Fri 14:00-19:00 (2-7 PM), Sat-Sun 12:00-19:00 (12-7 PM), closed Mon-Tue. Closed on 11 November 2026 (Independence Day). The other holidays on which the IFF is closed are listed on its “Visit us” page.
• How long: this is our editors’ estimate, not the museum’s figure: for both exhibitions in the gallery, which according to the museum covers about 450 m², allow roughly an hour. Those with more time can look into the reading room upstairs, where the IFF makes over 2500 publications on photography available for reading on site, with no registration and no reader card; it is reached by stairs only.
• Language: according to the museum, its exhibitions and events are held in Polish unless the programme description says otherwise. The English page of the exhibition on the museum’s website gives the description of the exhibition, the curatorial text and the artist’s biography; it says nothing about English labels in the gallery.
• Photos: photographing the exhibitions is allowed for private use, without flash.
• Accessibility: the gallery is on the ground floor and free of architectural barriers, although the ground leading to the entrance may be uneven in places. In its message of 6 November 2026 the museum confirmed that the gallery is on the ground floor and free of architectural barriers and that the reading room upstairs is reached by stairs only, and added that it is updating its accessibility statement; accessibility needs can be sent to biuro@fiff.org.pl.
• Who it’s for: people interested in Polish experimental photography, art glass and the Wrocław school of glass. The exhibition does not separate photography and glass but shows them as elements of a single practice, so those who care about both fields will get the most out of it.
• Who can skip it: anyone who needs English texts in the gallery: according to the museum, its exhibitions are held in Polish unless the programme description says otherwise, and the English page of the exhibition says nothing about English labels in the gallery. The description of the exhibition, the curatorial text and the artist’s biography can be read in English before the visit on the museum’s English page of the exhibition.

Updates

• 2026-11-06 - the museum wrote that because of strong interest the exhibition had been extended to 29 November 2026, and warned that old dates may still appear on some graphics. The IFF home page announces the extension of the exhibitions to 29 November (source: fiff.org.pl).

See also

• Fort Institute of Photography - the profile of the museum in whose space the exhibition is on.
• Heliograms in the Solomon Room. In Search of Light
• Teamwork Is a Necessity of Our Times: Artistic and Research Unit (ZAB) Exhibition, Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts

Museum profile: Fort Institute of Photography.