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1

Disputes on Polish National Art and Polish National Style in the Inter-War Period

100%
Chmielewska A.
Ikonotheka
|
2005
|
issue 18
71-86
EN
The topic of the article are the debates regarding Polish national art and national style, which artists from the sphere of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Art (ASP) had with the broadly-defined avant-garde and the Kapists, and which took place in the years 1918-1939. This issue was an important one in the artistic discussions in Poland, one of many European national countries created after the WW I. The artistic circle which was focused round the ASP formulated a conception of national art and national style which dominated Polish official art of the entire period. These artists sought inspiration for their applied art and graphics mainly in patterns of folk art, although they did postulate to transform them in accordance with the requirements of modernity. In painting, however, they associated 'Polishness' with certain formal features which appeared naturally in the output of any artist who related to Polish natural scenery and culture. They stressed that national character is a paramount quality of art, and that it assures art's originality and attractiveness on the worldwide forum. The avant-garde artists and the Kapists, on the other hand, maintained that the task of art is to introduce universal values and to modernise the country. For the avant-garde, a national style which referred to folk art was a tool for those who would hinder the civilisational development of the country. The Kapists accused the ASP circle of conservatism, nationalism and fear of foreign influence; in other words, of having a worldview current in the period of the Partitions, during which the main task of Polish art was to preserve national identity. One of important elements of this debate was the struggle over the 'Towarzystwo Szerzenia Sztuki Polskiej wsród Obcych' (Association for Propagation of Polish Art among Foreigners), which organised state-financed exhibitions of Polish art abroad. In accordance with the notions of the Warsaw ASP artists, it supported art which possessed a clearly national character. For the avant-garde artists and the Kapists, this signified that the Association stressed Polish exoticism and demonstrated that Polish art remained isolated from the contemporary European culture.
2

SEX AND SUBVERSION IN THE ART OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF POLAND (Seks i subwersja w sztuce PRL-u)

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Leszkowicz P.
Ikonotheka
|
2007
|
issue 20
51-85
EN
The article presents an analysis of the seditious usage of sexuality in the art of the Peoples Republic of Poland (PRL) and in relation to this criterion proposes to distinguish the alternative history of modern art in Poland after 1945. The starting point of the analysis is the sadomasochistic explosion in the drawings by Jerzy Nowosielski dating from the first half of the 1950's, which were conceived as an act of rebellion against the totalitarian rules of Socrealist imagery, against the authority and prudery. Next, the works dating from the 1970's are discussed: feminist media interventions by Natalia LL and body performances by Jerzy Beres and Ewa Partum. These lead towards the counter-culture body art and action art in the circle of the Galeria Repassage; the homosexual character of the performance by Krzysztof Jung is particularly accentuated here. Stress is put also in the influence of the sexual revolution on the independent filmmaking by directors belonging to the Amateur Film Clubs (AKF). Artists' subversive attitude to sexuality is analysed in context of governmental censorship, which repressed artistic expression through accusations of pornography; examples of exhibitions censored on these grounds are enumerated. The author points out the importance of the official aesthetic theory, enforced from the 1960's onward, which took part in creating the artistic system known as the 'Socialist Modernism'. The thesis is proposed that the Socialist Modernism was defined in opposition to pornography. The category of pornography included works of art which used sexuality subversively by introducing the element of desire and physicality and radicalising the contact with the recipient. The contrast between art and pornography was of crucial importance both to the official aesthetic theory and to the acts of censorship. The rules of the anti-pornographic Socialist Modernism were set out in the 1965 text by Stefan Morawski, which is analysed in the article. Morawski's traditional attitude is contrasted to the counter-culture theory of blurred boundary between art and pornography, introduced in 1969 by Susan Sontag; the author of the article agrees with this theory. As subversive to the socialist ethos and artistic regime, the author considers art which in times of the PRL approached the forbidden area of pornography by its directness in depicting body and sex, including genital nudity. Another element of this gender and sexual revolution is constituted by works transgressing the hetero-normative patriarchy supported by the authorities both in the PRL and after political breakthrough of the late 1980's. In this manner, sexuality was a means of political commentary as much as expression of individual freedom and intimate life. In conclusion it is pointed out that the satirically and vulgarly pornographic character of art created in the 1980's, in the output of Lódz Kaliska and Gruppa, became an expression of rejection of the old rules in the period of transformations in the political and social system. It was also an expression of the opposition to the emergent conservative ethical and patriotic ideology promoted by the Church, then newly come to power, and the political groups affiliated to it.
3

TENDERNESS IN THE SHADOW OF ESCHATOLOGY. 'FAMILY SCENES' BY ANDRZEJ WROBLEWSKI (Czulosc w cieniu eschatologii. 'Sceny rodzinne' Andrzeja Wroblewskiego)

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Wroblewska M.
Ikonotheka
|
2007
|
issue 20
17-35
EN
This article concerns the figure of Andrzej Wróblewski (1927-1957), one of the leading Polish painters of the 20th century. The fiftieth anniversary of his death is an occasion for new analyses of his output. The authoress concentrates on the 'family scenes' produced by this artists, recalls Wroblewski's fascination with the works by Chagall and draws parallels between the output of those two artists. In September 1948 Wróblewski published a separate article on Chagall in 'Glos Plastyków'. In that text, he particularly stressed the fantastic suggestiveness of Chagall's paintings, their emotional hold on the recipient, and their artistic quality. He wrote: 'For Chagall, each and every painting is a beginning and an end to the artistic career. It is supposed to act in isolation, like a Gothic cathedral, not in a series like today's blocks of flats. Every time, to construct a good painting (...) is (...) the aim of the entire life'. A comparison of Chagall and Wróblewski's works brings interesting reflections. First of all, it demonstrates that the two artists had in common an abiding interest in the motif of a loving couple, which formed a key element in the output of both. Moreover, Chagall stated that what interested him in art was the 'fourth dimension', i.e. the spiritual one: in his perception a painting was to give a spiritual shock to the viewer; Wroblewski's point of view was similar. By drawing comparisons, however, not only similarities, but also differences are usually found; the case of those two artists is no exception. The works by Chagall are in their majority nostalgic, slightly sentimental reconstructions from memory of the world of the artist's childhood and youth. And considering the chronology of their creation, they are simultaneously a vision across which the long shadow of the Holocaust falls, although on the surface the author appears to ignore this, as if trying to erase the painful recollections from his memory. Wróblewski's practice is different: he melancholically keeps returning to the war experiences seen as the private history defined by the trauma of his father's death; a dead man is the key figure of his oeuvre. Chagall reconstructs the instances from life, whereas Wróblewski in the language of art retells the moment of death, as if he wanted to understand its significance and identify himself with the dead or dying father (cf. the fact that the protagonist of his paintings often has his own face). Both Chagall and Wróblewski seem to have been prisoners of their own past, but they had different attitudes to this past. Chagall and Wróblewski are similar, however, not only in the motifs of their works, but also in their poetic intuition thanks to which their private, archetypal universe of personal experience was in both cases expressed in an anti-narrative, emblematic formula. Both trusted their own vision and went against the contemporary aesthetic canon which focused on the cult of modernity, a cult characteristic both for artistic life of Paris in the 1920's and 30's and for artistic life of Poland in the second half of the 1950's.
4

ARTISTS, AMATEURS, PROFESSIONALS. THE GENESIS OF INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIAL ROLES OF PHOTOGRAPHERS IN POLAND AFTER 1945 (Artysci, amatorzy, zawodowcy. Geneza instytucji i rol spolecznych fotografow w Polsce po 1945 roku)

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Wroblewska M.
Ikonotheka
|
2007
|
issue 20
7-15
EN
The institutional framework for the photographers' work during the period of the People's Republic of Poland has not hitherto been a matter of any in-depth research, despite the fact this framework significantly influenced the attitudes and social rôles of this creative group. In the years 1946-1947, the circles of photographers initiated the inception of institutions which redefined the place of photography in the field of artistic output. This redefinition took the form of a change of status and social rôle of its creators in the newly established Polish state. The institutions in question were the Polish Association of Art Photographers and the Polish Photographic Society. Thus, creators of photography conducted the formal division of their circle into the sub-groups of artists, professionals and amateurs and defined the status and functions of each sub-group. Inception of those institutions solidified the division both in the sphere of aesthetic programmes and in the competences of their members. The most significant changes concerned the tradition of amateur photography. The interwar years were a period of rapid development of this field of creativity, as photography was no longer accessible only to the small élite and became more widespread. After the war, in defining the rôles of a professional photographer and the artist, the creators in this field of art referred to this tradition. The art was often termed 'photographics' (fotografika in Polish); this word was coined by Jan Bulhak as an expression of his attachment to the aesthetic tradition found also in his theoretical texts.
5

DISCOURSIVE SPACES. CONCEPTUAL ART IN 'AKUMULATORY 2' GALLERY (Reprezentacja, podmiotowosc, nieobecnosc. Sztuka konceptualna w Galerii Akumulatory 2)

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Nader L.
Ikonotheka
|
2007
|
issue 20
99-116
EN
'Akumulatory 2' Gallery functioning in Poznan from 1973 was a pivotal space for conceptual discourse in Poland. Working through the notion of privacy influenced by the thought of Wittgenstein and deontology, it created a heterotopia - a space neither public nor private - a base for conceptual critique of representation, illusion and subjectivity. At the same time conceptual works exhibited in the Gallery intervened and transformed key notions of artistic discourse in Poland in the 70s annihilating the well-known oppositions such as private/public, autonomous/politically engaged, concept/object, mental/bodily. Conceptual art understood as a position of a discoursive subject developed in 'Akumulatory 2' transgressed the communicational schemas and highly ritualized reality of Poland in the 70s slipping away from the authoritarian scenario.
6

THE ATTRACTIVE BANALITY OF 'CONSUMABLE ART' BY NATALIA LL (Atrakcyjna banalnosc Sztuki konsumpcyjnej Natalii LL)

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Jakubowska A.
Ikonotheka
|
2007
|
issue 20
7-15
EN
The article is an analysis of the reception of 'Consumable Art' by Natalia LL. The work is a series of photographs and films made in the years 1972-1975 featuring women consuming bananas, frankfurters, custard and starch jelly. The work was achieved in the neo-avant-garde circles and was in those circles perceived as 'an exploration of morphological potential of the sign and the capacity of the medium' (Andrzej Lachowicz). Simultaneously it functioned in the sphere of feminist art, into which it was included in the 1970's by female researchers of Western Europe. In the present article the authoress conducts an analysis of the ambivalence resulting from this inclusion, which is caused by, among other factors, the incompatibility of Western discourse to Polish situation. It is also pointed out that it is only in the second half of the 1990's that the feminist discourse appears in the declarations of the artist herself and of some critics, which is related to the shift, observable in their texts, of 'Consumable Art' from the area of conceptual art to the area of body art. The authoress enters a polemic with some elements of those interpretations, e.g. those referring to the critique of consumerism, and proposes to concentrate on the work by Natalia LL as one referring to erotic desire and female pleasure as issues which had no proper place in the mainstream culture (in the case of Natalia LL, the culture of the People's Republic of Poland). In this context the author recalls the contemporary pastiche of Natalia LL's work, 'Spróbuj tego!' (Try this!) (2006) by Karol Radziszewski.
7

CONFLICT AND CONCORD. 'CZEREJA' IN THE ATELIER OF GRZEGORZ KOWALSKI (Konflikt i porozumienie. 'Czereja' w pracowni Grzegorza Kowalskiego)

100%
Sienkiewicz K.
Ikonotheka
|
2007
|
issue 20
183-200
EN
In the 1990s, the atelier of Prof. Grzegorz Kowalski in the Department of Sculpture of the Warsaw Academy of Art educated artists which have long been counted among the leading Polish creators. Among them was Artur Zmijewski, who as a student began to publish 'Czereja'. In the years 1992-1998 six issues of the magazine appeared, initially as a Xeroxed fanzine and later as a full-fledged magazine in print. 'Czereja' was almost in its entirety devoted to 'Kowalnia' (the Foundry), the artistic output of its students and graduates and the artistic tasks they had been assigned. It is a trustworthy reflection of processes characteristic for 'Kowalnia', e.g. the process of abandoning of the traditional sculptural medium in favour of performance, photography and video, and a reflection of discussions conducted in the atelier. The magazine illustrated also Prof. Kowalski's teaching method, which he termed 'teaching through partnership'. This method, based on the experience of his own masters Oskar Hansen and Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz, accentuated the students' individuality, their freedom in expressing their worldview and freedom in the choice of means of expression, and the 'primacy of human experience over the work'. Kowalski repeatedly stated that in his atelier the teachers were learning concurrently with the students and he stressed the 'two-way flow of artistic impulse'. 'Czereja', therefore, contains records of some exceptionally interesting polemics between Prof. Kowalski and Artur Zmijewski concerning e.g. the question of interpretation and overinterpretation. Kowalski stressed the communicative function of art and the clarity of artistic message, whereas Zmijewski emphasised the role of the recipient's subjective interpretation. A special place in the magazine is given to the account of the 'Personal and Common Space', Prof. Kowalski's assignment based on nonverbal communication conducted through artistic means. Similarly to numerous works by Prof. Kowalski's students, the 'Czereja' magazine was a matter of considerable controversy among the professorial staff of the Warsaw Academy of Art.
8
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THE FIGURE OF THE HORSE IN POLISH CULTURE. NOTES FROM PRIVATE HYPOLOGY (Figura konia w kulturze polskiej. Zapiski z prywatnej hipologii)

100%
Melbechowska-Luty A.
Konteksty - Polska Sztuka Ludowa
|
2009
|
vol. 63
|
issue 4(287)
151-158
EN
A panoramic attempt at depicting the motif of the horse in Polish post-partition art, which featured the ethos of chivalry, struggle and heroism as well as tradition, customs and work associated with the gentry manor house and the countryside. Another component was the enormous sentiment and even love for the horse, the only creature to be endowed with a soul. The Polish mythology of the steed revealed a specific type of historical memory supporting the feeling of national identity, of great significance for generations living during the partition era. Artists resorted to traditional images of past centuries, created heroic narrations about the deeds of famous men and celebrated battles and knightly duties; here, horse and man are heroes enjoying equal rights.
9

THE GHETTO IN PAINTINGS BY MAREK OBERLÄNDER AND IZAAK CELNIKIER (Getto w obrazach Marka Oberlandera i Izaaka Celnikiera)

88%
Lachowski M.
Ikonotheka
|
2007
|
issue 20
37-50
EN
This article is an attempt to review the output of Marek Oberländer and Izaak Celnikier, two artists associated with the 'Arsenal circle', in the context of poetry of modernity and figuration typical for the period of the political 'thaw'. Their output from this period can be viewed as particular evidence of deliverance. The main topic of both Oberländer's and Celnikier's paintings was the experience of war, and especially the representation of the ghetto. Nevertheless, they treated this subject in a diametrically different manner. In the case of Oberländer, an orderly process of simplifying can be observed, leading to synthetic representation modelled on photographic document. This process culminated in the monumental forms in the painting entitled 'Branded'. Human figures in it were created in an expressive, rough painted matter, which accentuated the state of isolation and depersonalisation of the human being in the face of annihilation. Celnikier, in turn, referred to the world of symbols and religious representations through which he rendered the dual structure of his paintings: real scenes were imbued with religious connotations, while the compositional order was delineated by spheres of light and darkness. Celnikier's ghetto had the dimension of an individual experience and an universal, cosmic message at the same time. The artistic output from that period is a crucial material for identifying and interpreting the artistic and existentialist tensions of the period of the 'thaw'. On one hand, this output forms a part of the 'modernisation' current, while on the other it is the expression of individual stance. In the analysis presented in this article, particular meanings are attached to the brutal, expressionist formula of the works of those two artists, meanings referring to the struggle with one's own memory and the attempt at re-socialisation after the bitter war experience. The attitude of those artists is analysed in the context of Freudian notions of 'melancholy' and 'mourning'. Art is viewed as a kind of tool in negotiating between the problem of individual participation in the traumatic past and the problem of setting up one's reality anew. In this manner, modern artistic form becomes a problematic frame for the traumatic memories and self-identification of Jewish artists during the period of the 'thaw'.
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