Patriot

The power of Łukasz Gronowski’s formally frugal video stems from the dissonance produced by the role assigned to the protagonist by the artist. An elegant, neatly dressed transvestite sings the national anthem. His posture and body language fit the action he is so dedicatedly engaged in. According to popular definitions, patriotism is “love for the homeland and the nation, and readiness to make sacrifices for them.” Thus, patriotism is a right and an obligation of every citizen of the state and every national, irrespective of their religion, race and social station. The situation arranged by Gronowski should not upset the viewer, but it may provoke critical reflection about whether it could happen in the first place.

According to critics, the artist explores the contemporary meanings of patriotism, testing its limits and enquiring into its operative mode and position in the social mind-set. By pointing out the fact that patriotism in Poland has very strong political and religious connotations, Gronowski seems to imply that not everyone is socially entitled to be a patriot. The transvestite, who can be read as a symbol of all marginalised social, religious and sexual groups, does not match the dominant Catholic and conservative figure of the Polish patriot. In the context of such an understanding of patriotism, appropriated by right-wing parties with a strong Catholic bent, the situation arranged by the artist is unacceptable, semantically implausible.

Thus, Gronowski asks questions about contemporary patriotism and contemporary identity, and what it means to be patriotic in the context of today’s fluid identities, which differ from the model of a white heterosexual Catholic Pole. By creating an association between a state symbol and a socially alienated figure, Gronowski suggests the need to redefine the popular understanding of patriotism described by political and religious limitations.

Izabela Kopania

translated from Polish by Marcin Łakomski