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The Family of Man in Poland: An Exhibition as a Democratic Space?

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Leśniak K.

Ikonotheka

2016

vol. 26

213-238

The exhibition entitled The Family of Man, which was designed by Edward Steichen and presented for the fi rst time in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, belongs to the most famous and most controversial photographic expositions of the 20th century. Usually perceived in the light of the anachronistic, West-centric vision of humanism, i.e. as an embodiment of Modernist views on photography, it constitutes a good example of the museum’s infl uence as a Modernist “social instrument”. However, contemporary theories in exhibition studies offer a more complex interpretation. The present work provides insight into this process by referring to the views of Mieke Bal (on the “cinematic effect” of photographic exhibitions, the narrative and relational aspect of expositions), Fred Turner (on the space of an avant-garde exhibition as the realisation of the political and social idea of a “democratic personality”) and Ariella Azoulay (on exhibition space as a “visual declaration of human rights” and the fi eld for a “photographic social contract”). The primary aim of the present article is to set The Family of Man within the framework of Polish exhibition practices. The complex origins of the American project can be traced back to avant-garde experiments with exhibition space conducted in the Bauhaus movement and in Soviet Constructivism (the psychology of perception, “photo-murals”); the analysis focuses on the political and propagandistic aspects. An analysis of the above issues provides the starting point for considering the signifi cance and probable reception of the exhibition’s spatial arrangement in the milieu of Polish architects and designers as well as its Polish variant as prepared by Stanisław Zamecznik and Wojciech Fangor. It was therefore useful to refer to Oskar Hansen and his theory of Open Form, as he cooperated with Zamecznik and Fangor at the time. Models of avant-garde and Modernist “utopian thinking” are juxtaposed, thus making it possible to perceive the process of reception in the light of its effectiveness. The article also discusses The Family of Man as a model for projects with propaganda undertones, i.e. the so-called “problem-oriented exhibitions”. It mentions attempts at adapting Steichen’s design of exhibition space to the needs of the offi cial narrative in the People’s Republic of Poland. Finally, it uncovers the ambivalent nature of the infl uence of The Family of Man and the dual status of the exhibition as both a propagandistic project and as an anti-systemic space supporting the ideal of a creative, free individual.

The Post-War History of Pictorialism as Exemplifi ed by Exhibitions at the Zachęta and the Kordegarda (1953–1970)

100%

Kobylińska-Bunsch W.

Ikonotheka

2016

vol. 26

193-212

Existing academic works examining Polish artistic photography in the 1950s and 1960s are most often based on an analysis of the debates taking place within professional circles and the views of specifi c artists as expressed in the specialist periodicals that were published at that time. Such diagnoses are frequently based on a single and very particular source, namely the monthly magazine Fotografi a. The pages of this periodical project an image of an artistic society enjoying a relatively high degree of autonomy. The present study represents a different research approach, inspired e.g. by the works of Bruce Altshuler and Kenneth Luckhurst, who postulated the re-orientation of art history away from biographical works focused on the individual subject towards a discipline understood as the history of exhibitions. Following the course set by these scholars, one may come to the conclusion that an analysis of the place which photography held in the offi cial exhibition strategy implemented in the 1950s and 1960s in the prestigious Warsaw galleries of the Kordegarda and the Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions (CBWA) may provide an interesting and new contribution to the current state of research. A study based on an examination of the history of exhibitions may help to answer the question whether all forms of photography were equally approved by the authorities at a time when the rules of the cultural policy of the People’s Republic of Poland became more lenient. It also makes it possible to evaluate the degree to which autonomy and heterogeneity (features which may be associated with the magazine Fotografi a) were legitimised through presentation in a state-owned, politicised public space. Conducted from the perspective of exhibition history, the analysis presented herein makes an important shift in the signifi cance of Pictorialism – from a topic on the margins of academic interest to a harbinger of modernity, and thus a central subject in the discourse on Polish photography in the post-war period. Rather surprisingly, it appears to be the slogan that legitimised the more innovative and modern forms of photographic art in the offi cial contexts of the day.

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2 Ikonotheka

1 Kobylińska-Bunsch W.

1 Leśniak K.

2 2016

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The Family of Man in Poland: An Exhibition as a Democratic Space?

The Post-War History of Pictorialism as Exemplifi ed by Exhibitions at the Zachęta and the Kordegarda (1953–1970)