Paulina Kurc-Maj – art historian, director of the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko.
In 1999, she graduated in art history from the University of Łódź. She also completed Interdisciplinary Doctoral Studies in Humanities at the University of Warsaw, Postgraduate Studies in Museology at the University of Warsaw and Postgraduate Studies in Culture Management at the Jagiellonian University. In 1999-2000, she worked at the Manhattan Gallery in Łódź, and then from 2001 to 2025 she was associated with the Museum of Art in Łódź, where she served as head of the Modern Art Collection Department and Deputy Director for Promotion and Dissemination. Since 2025, she has been the director of the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko.
Curator and co-curator of numerous exhibitions, including: Joseph Beuys. Polentransport 1981 (with A. Saciuk-Gąsowska, Bratislava, 2003); Swinging London. The Grabowski Collection (with A. Saciuk-Gąsowska, Łódź 2007), Afterimages of Life. Władysław Strzemiński and Rights for Art (with J. Lubiak, Łódź 2010-2011), Un Mundo Construido. Polonia 1918-1939 (with J. M. Bonet, Madrid, 2011), Change of Perspective. Modern Printing and the Avant-Garde (Łódź 2014), Dada Impulse(s). The Egidio Marzona Collection (with P. Polit, Łódź 2015), Superorganism. Awangarda i doświadczenie przyrody (with A. Jach, Łódź, 2017), Organizatorzy życia. De Stijl polska awangarda i design (Łódź, 2017-2018), Słowo kłamie – oko nigdy. Modernity in Polish Photography 1918-1939 (with M. Franecka, Düsseldorf, Budapest 2017-2018), The Great War (with A. Saciuk-Gąsowska and P. Polit, Łódź, 2018-2019), puls.y Ewa Latkowska-Żychska (Łódź 2023), Nowosielski in Łódź (with J. Goździk, Łódź, 2023), Beata Bols. Art and Evacuation (Łódź 2024).
Author of numerous texts and lectures on 20th-century art, particularly the interwar avant-garde, she co-edited, among others, the book: International Collection of Modern Art by the ‘a.r.’ group (Łódź, 2019) and prepared the anniversary exhibition and catalogue Sala Neoplastyczna. Stan początkowy (Neoplastic Room. Initial State) (Łódź, 2023). She co-curated the conference Maszyna do Komunikacji. Around the Avant-Garde Idea of New Typography (with D. Muzyczuk, Łódź 2014), Dadaist Impulse in Polish Literature and Art of the 20th Century (with P. Polit, Łódź 2015). Since 2025, editor-in-chief of Kwartalnik Rzeźby Orońsko (Orońsko Sculpture Quarterly). In 2025, she was a member of the jury of the 1st International Ceramic Sculpture Triennial in Warsaw, the International Symposium of Contemporary Sculpture and the residency programme of the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, as well as the CRP's own nationwide grant programme, Sculpture in Public Space for Independence; including co-creator of the 4th Congress of Sculpture in Public Space for Independence.
In 2015, she received an honorary award from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, ‘Distinguished Service to Polish Culture.’ Member of the Association of Art Historians. In 2024/2025, chair of the Programme Council of the Kordegarda Gallery of the National Centre for Culture.
