Galeria Foksal was established in 1966 in Warsaw by three art critics, Wieslaw Borowski, Anka Ptaszkowska and Mariusz Tchorek, and a group of artists which included Henryk Staewski, one of the founding members of the Polish Constructivist Group of the 1920s. The founding moment became a focal point of critical reflection and continual re-examination of the reasons why and how the gallery exists.

Galeria Foksal is non-commercial, government-subsidized historic gallery space whose main objectives are; to promote independent artists and their work through curated exhibitions, and to create an international perspective for Polish art through cooperation with public and private institutions abroad. Foksal pursues these objectives via a continuous series of temporary exhibitions and an extensive public library available to visiting students and researchers.

Foksal Gallery has always been focused on radical contemporary art and on work in line with the avantgarde tradition. Across nearly half a century, it became the stage of a wide range of events; happenings by Tadeusz Kantor, exhibitions and site specific installations by avant-garde artists from Poland such as Henryk Stazewski, Zbigniew Gostomski, and Edward Krasinski; and exhibitions from abroad, mainly focused on Conceptual and Post-minimal projects, including Lars Englund, Lawrence Weiner, Christian Boltanski, Ben Vautier, Victor Burgin, and Robert Barry to name a few. The gallery has methodically built up an Archive of historical documentation related to associated artists that is available for the public to study and research. The gallery published numerous catalogs and often collaborates on projects with European institutions such as Galerie Konrad Fisher in Dusseldorf, Lodz Museum of Art, Musee de la Ville de Paris or Moderna Museet in Stockholm. In the 1980s and 90s, the gallery widened the scope of its activities and organized exhibitions by Roman Opalka, Miroslaw Balka, Anselm Kiefer, Leon Tarasewicz, Douglas Gordon, Matthew Barney, Marek Chlanda and Luc Tuymans among many other notable names.

Gallery Foksal presents approximately 6–8 exhibitions each year.

Most outstanding projects in recent years:

2010: Comfort #8, L/B; Drawings and Sounds, Milan Grygar; Black Box, Bianka Rolando.

2009: Bars and Clocks, Piotr Bosacki; Wee See You.The Foksal Gallery Activties 1966-1989 at Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn.

2008: Pruszkow Paintings, Koji Kamoji; HEART, Christian Boltanski, and the performance While Still We Live together with Angelika Markul, Jean Kalman, Franz Krawczyk.

2007: Jonas Dahlberg; Equilibrium disturbed, Michael Kidner.

2006: Six Days, Marek Chlanda; Sen Muchy, Angelika Markul; Leon Tarasewicz, 2006.

Foksal does not run a regular education program. Depending on the context of the exhibition it will organize artist talks, usually connected with their exhibitions at the gallery, two or three times each year. Sensitive Archive is Foksal developing public/ education program that will launch in 2011 to offer a series of lectures and workshops for youth concerning the issue of the archive.

Foksal produces approximately 4–5 small catalogues each year.

Foksal has a total surface area or 85,3 m2. Main exhibition space 36,5 sqm; exhibition space/ corridor 8,1 sqm; offices/ archive + entrance space 40,7 sqm.