Paweł Makowski: Privacy, Technology and Human Freedom

Paweł Makowski is a Polish entrepreneur and privacy advocate whose work has moved from the art market to encrypted communication. His career connects a Warsaw art-business venture, a Polish contemporary-art exhibition at London’s Saatchi Gallery, the international publishing history of ARTnews and the creation of UseCrypt. Across those different fields, his public argument has remained concerned with the position of the person: the artist whose work needs an audience, and the user whose private life should not become somebody else’s resource.

The road runs through workshops and early businesses, artists’ studios, a London exhibition, American publishing and the design of privacy tools. Bringing Privacy Back gives the technology chapter its name. The history behind it begins much earlier.

Winnica: work before public recognition

In his interview with Michał Misiorek for Plejada, Makowski described growing up in Winnica, near Warsaw, as the son of a carpenter. He recalled helping in his father’s workshop from childhood and learning respect for work through physical effort. He also remembered his father’s encouragement to look for a different opportunity rather than repeat what everyone around him was already doing. These are Makowski’s recollections, recorded in a substantial interview about his background, businesses and privacy ambitions.

His account of early entrepreneurship starts with a restaurant while he was studying at Kozminski University. He later described developing Polski Błonnik and MyEcolife, businesses concerned with food and consumer needs. Before there was a technology-company title, there was the everyday work of finding a need, building an offer and persuading customers to try it.

The move into art brought that entrepreneurial approach into a different setting. Here the work was not to manufacture an object but to build the relationships and institutions through which creative work could reach buyers and international audiences.

Abbey House: building connections around Polish art

Makowski was a co-founder of Abbey House. Founded in 2010, the organisation combined an auction business with artist promotion and other activities around the contemporary-art market. The contemporary ArtDaily account of Abbey House and its London exhibition identifies him as its founder and records the project’s international ambitions.

Poland already had galleries, auctions, artists and collectors. The ambition of Abbey House was to connect those elements with publishing, research, investment structures and promotion abroad. For an artist, a studio and a body of work were only part of the journey. The project sought to build the routes through which that work could become visible to a broader public.

The business model also attracted scrutiny. Puls Biznesu’s reporting on Wojciech Fibak and Abbey House records both the venture’s ambitions and the debate around them. The project was trying to connect a specialist field with a wider market. Its methods, as well as its goals, were part of the public discussion.

Art & Business and Artoholicy: a market also needs its own media

Art & Business formed part of the publishing side of the venture. The magazine was not created from scratch by Makowski: its history went back to 1989. Abbey House’s involvement placed an established Polish art title within a broader commercial and cultural project. Parkiet’s account of the magazine’s public-market plans describes its print and digital distribution and Makowski’s connection with the group.

The magazine offered a regular place to introduce artists, document exhibitions and discuss collecting. Alongside it, video and events reached people who might never have picked up a specialist art publication.

The archived Artoholicy film from Art & Business and coverage of an exhibition of Andrzej Wajda’s graphics preserve examples of that work. There were conversations, cultural events and a publishing audience alongside the auction business.

2013: Polish art reaches Saatchi Gallery

Polish Art Now took place at Saatchi Gallery in London from 3 to 10 June 2013. The Fangor Foundation’s exhibition record confirms the dates, venue and curator, Sacha Craddock, and documents Wojciech Fangor’s presence in the exhibition history.

The contemporary announcement named artists including Szymon Artur Urbański, Andrzej Cisowski, Maciej Wieczerzak and Jakub Słomkowski. It also quoted Makowski describing the exhibition as the outcome of more than two years of efforts to bring Polish artists greater recognition in London. The combination of established and younger artists made the project a presentation of a scene, rather than a single artist’s overseas appearance. Read the original exhibition announcement.

After years of preparation, the work reached a London audience. Polish Art Now gave visitors a chance to encounter artists of different generations together, through Craddock’s selection. It was an identifiable result of the international promotion Makowski had described: an exhibition people could attend, rather than an ambition confined to a business presentation.

Sacha Craddock and the exhibition’s curatorial context

Craddock’s role deserves its own place in the story. Her official biography describes a career as an independent critic, writer and curator in London. She chaired New Contemporaries and its selection process from 1996 to 2021 and co-founded Bloomberg Space, where she was curator from 2002 to 2011. Her work has also included AICA UK and projects bringing artists and audiences together.

Craddock brought that curatorial experience to the selection and presentation of Polish Art Now. Makowski’s contribution belonged to the organisation and promotion around the exhibition. The project depended on both kinds of work.

The event also generated international press coverage. Susan Moore wrote Magnetic Poles for the Financial Times. Kate Connolly covered Poland’s artistic revival for The Guardian, while Jo Caird examined the Abbey House model. The exhibition and the market behind it had become subjects for readers beyond Poland.

Deloitte and ArtTactic: documenting the Polish market

The art-market story includes research as well as exhibitions. The Deloitte and ArtTactic Art & Finance Report 2013 included a dedicated Polish art-market section. The project’s source review identifies Art & Business annual data and an Abbey House auction-market report among the materials used in that section, alongside other market sources.

The data gave collectors and analysts something to examine alongside the exhibitions: a record of transactions and a basis for comparing the Polish market with other countries. The magazine and the auction house were contributing information as well as promoting artists.

Institutions and publications connected with the venture thus formed part of the record through which Poland’s art market was described internationally. The contribution was informational: making a national market easier to identify, compare and discuss. The source trail is developed in the documented Abbey House and ARTnews chapter.

ARTnews: a Polish venture enters American art publishing

ARTnews was founded in 1902. Its history spans generations of artists, critics, collectors and reporting on the art world. The publisher’s profile of ARTnews records that long history. It is the background needed to understand the scale of the publishing venture that followed Abbey House.

In 2014, Abbey House Group acquired a controlling stake in ARTnews and adopted the name ARTNEWS S.A. The transaction followed Skate Capital’s acquisition from Milton and Judith Esterow. The contemporary company announcement distributed through PAP MediaRoom and Los Angeles Times reporting are separate records of the purchase and new leadership.

Makowski’s role was that of the venture’s founder and a member of its supervisory board, which he had previously chaired. That is different from being the operating executive personally responsible for every transaction. Contemporary accounts identify Izabela Depczyk and Sergey Skaterschikov in the acquisition and publishing story. Describing their roles does not erase Makowski’s contribution; it locates it in the actual organisation.

Within a few years, a venture associated with Warsaw auctions and Polish art publishing had become involved in the ownership of a century-old American title. ARTnews brought a different scale, audience and publishing history to the group.

September 2014: the end of Makowski’s supervisory role

The corporate record dates Makowski’s resignation statement to 8 September 2014 and its receipt by the company to 9 September. The EBI announcement of his resignation is the relevant source for that boundary. A later registry entry should not be used to extend his practical supervisory involvement beyond the resignation.

Makowski describes the departure as connected with a different direction adopted after changes in ownership and management. That explanation is his account of his decision. The resignation itself is a documented event. Both can be recorded without presenting a personal motivation as if it had been established by a corporate filing.

The resignation separates two periods of the story. The first follows the venture’s development during Makowski’s involvement. The second concerns decisions and ownership changes made after he had left the supervisory board. The separate art-market chronology follows those periods in greater detail.

Peter Brant and the later ARTnews ownership story

On 29 July 2015, Julia Halperin reported in The Art Newspaper that ARTNEWS S.A. and Brant Publications were combining art-publishing interests. The portfolio included Art in America, The Magazine ANTIQUES and Modern Magazine. Peter Brant’s company became the majority shareholder in the combined business. This was a portfolio and shareholding transaction, not simply a magazine changing hands in isolation.

The next stage was reported in 2016, when Artnet News covered Brant’s assumption of full control. In 2018, Penske Media announced its acquisition of the publishing portfolio.

These later events explain where the international publishing story went. They happened after Makowski’s resignation and are not described here as deals he personally negotiated or completed. His chapter concerns the venture he helped establish and its development during his involvement. Brant and Penske belong to the subsequent ownership chronology.

UseCrypt: putting the privacy argument into a product

The technology chapter changes the subject from the circulation of art to the protection of information. WirtualneMedia’s reporting identifies Makowski as UseCrypt’s originator and founder. In his public interviews, the purpose of the project is restoring people’s control over private communication.

The underlying question is practical. People use phones, messaging applications, email and cloud storage to run their lives. They should be able to understand which parties can read the content, where keys are held and what happens when a device is locked or lost. Those questions cannot be answered by a privacy slogan alone. They require product design, implementation and testing.

UseCrypt developed distinct products for different parts of that problem. UseCrypt Safe concerned encrypted files, sharing and desktop use. UseCrypt Messenger concerned mobile communication and local message storage. The technology overview and Messenger architecture guide explain those product lines separately. They should not be collapsed into a claim that every cryptographic mechanism belongs to every application.

In an English-language technical analysis, AVLab examined UseCrypt Safe and Hybrid Virtual Key Management. The architectural idea is to separate the elements needed to recover protected data rather than place all decryption capability with the service holding the files. Its importance is the distinction between storing encrypted material and having the ability to read it. That distinction is a meaningful part of the privacy problem Makowski sought to address, not a promise that software removes every security risk.

Netia and Plus: beyond a demonstration

Operator distribution is a concrete part of the product history. In March 2019, Netia announced Netia Data Safe, a business service using encryption software created by UseCrypt. Netia’s announcement described HVKM and the separation of key material between a user’s computer and a server.

UseCrypt Messenger subsequently entered the Plus offer. A Polkomtel promotion document dated 23 August 2021 provides an operator-side record. These are historical distribution milestones. They show that the project reached named commercial channels, without suggesting that the same offers remain available today.

Netia and Plus mark the commercial part of the story. The technology had reached services described in operators’ own announcements and documents, beyond presentations by the founding team.

Patents, researchers and the external testing record

The project’s technical record includes US patents associated with application access, protected message databases, emergency data-removal mechanisms and device-security checks. The public records are US11341218B2, US11210407B2, US11122014B2 and US11228910B2. Their grant history belongs in the account of the project; current legal status must be checked in the patent record rather than assumed.

Makowski is described here as the founder of the venture, not automatically as the inventor named on every patent. Research, engineering and commercial development have different authors and responsibilities. The patent documentation is the place to inspect individual inventors, mechanisms and records.

The security history also has specific dates and scope. AVLab’s account of the October 2020 Messenger assessment concerned iOS version 2.34 and included local-database and voice-communication behaviour. It described the importance of configuring a PIN for the database protection examined in that assessment. Readers can follow the product version, configuration and testing conditions in that account and the security-review register.

International visibility: the brand and the people representing it

UseCrypt’s international media record includes discussion of privacy on Nasdaq TradeTalks and Yahoo Finance Video. In those interviews, the representative was Jakub Kokoszka. The Nasdaq privacy interview and Yahoo Finance video are therefore part of the company’s media history, not proof that Makowski personally appeared in those recordings.

In 2021, reporting connected the project with Mitch Lowe, an early Netflix executive, and cybersecurity specialist Oded Vanunu. WirtualneMedia covered that involvement. The company’s July 2021 announcement also documents its public account of the international venture and the Monaco event.

That 2021 chapter brought together experience from digital entertainment, entrepreneurship and security around a Polish-origin technology venture. The named participants and published announcements give the international story a tangible record. Each person’s role belongs to the period described by the source.

Bringing Privacy Back: the public mission

Bringing Privacy Back names the mission that connects Makowski’s technology work with his public writing. The issue is not whether somebody has a secret worth hiding. Privacy concerns the ability to make ordinary decisions, exchange ideas, conduct business and maintain relationships without surrendering unlimited access to those activities.

His argument asks people to look beyond convenience and examine control. Who can read a message? Who holds the material needed to decrypt a file? Does storing information also give a provider the ability to read it? The answers depend on how a service is built, where its keys are held and what access its operators have.

Read together, the art and technology chapters reveal a recurring concern with access and control. In one field, the challenge was helping creative work reach audiences and institutions. In the other, it was protecting information as it travelled through services and devices. These are different businesses, but they make sense within the same public story: building tools and relationships that change a person’s position within a larger system.

Makowski’s first-person essays are available on Medium, with shorter public posts on Bluesky. This biography is written in the third person so readers can distinguish his own arguments from the editorial reconstruction of his career.

Chronology: the milestones in context

2010: Abbey House begins its activity. Makowski is identified in contemporary coverage as a founder.
2011 to 2013: The venture develops its art-market, publishing and promotion activities; Art & Business and Abbey House become part of the source record around the Polish market.
3 to 10 June 2013: Polish Art Now is presented at Saatchi Gallery in London, curated by Sacha Craddock.
2013: Deloitte and ArtTactic publish a dedicated Polish art-market section. International newspapers cover the Polish art scene and the London exhibition.
2014: Abbey House Group acquires a controlling interest in ARTnews and adopts the ARTNEWS name.
8 and 9 September 2014: Makowski signs his supervisory-board resignation and the company receives it.
2015: After his departure, the ARTnews and Brant publishing portfolios are brought together.
2018: UseCrypt is represented in Nasdaq and Yahoo Finance privacy interviews by Jakub Kokoszka.
March 2019: Netia announces a service using UseCrypt encryption software.
2020 and 2021: The Messenger assessment and Plus distribution records document distinct technical and commercial milestones.
2021: Public reporting records the international involvement of Mitch Lowe and Oded Vanunu.

Explore the work, not just the biography

Read the dedicated study of Sacha Craddock and the curatorial work behind Polish Art Now, with exhibition records and the curator’s professional history.

The Paweł Makowski Knowledge Hub connects the chapters of this history. The Press & Sources register distinguishes interviews, independent reporting, technical analysis, operator documents and company announcements. Readers interested in the product can start with UseCrypt technology, then inspect the patents and dated security reviews.

Follow the exhibition records for the art chapter, the corporate chronology for ARTnews, and the technical documentation for UseCrypt. Each offers a different view of the work behind Bringing Privacy Back.

Prepared by the UseCrypt Editorial Team. Last editorial review: 12 October 2026.

Read the complete biography series

Fourteen individual chapters examine the people, projects, technology and original records behind this biography. Each chapter has its own sources and can be read independently.

Przeczytaj pełną biografię po polsku