She Modernist

She Modernist is a continuation of deliberations undertaken by Julita Wójcik in Falowiec [Wavy Block] (2005–2006) and Osiedle XXX-lecia PRL [The XXX-lecia PRL Housing Estate] (2007), crocheted miniatures of the longest housing apartment block in Poland (located in the Gdańsk district of Przymorze), and of a housing estate in Gniewino, originally earmarked for the staff of a nuclear power plant which was to be built on Lake Żarnowieckie. All these works are bound with a common element: the architectonic heritage of communist times. In her art, Wójcik comments thereon in a manner free of critical reconciliation, focusing on the human dimension of gargantuan construction complexes instead. The artist chose an apartment block forming part of Zaspa, a housing estate, as her She Modernist protagonist. As in the case of the aforementioned projects, the block was raised during a wave of modernisation processes typical of countries behind the iron curtain at the time. Excess-scaled complexes were then a crucial component of the modern construction boom.

She Modernist is a recording of an action organised by Wójcik on the 90th anniversary of Bauhaus (1919), an art college focusing on the creation of functional architecture that recognises human emotional needs. The six-channel projection shows the artist repainting – again and again – concrete slabs suspended on apartment block balconies. Wójcik used paint in the same colours as those applied to buildings of the Siemensstadt housing estate in Berlin, raised in the years 1929–1931 by Der Ring architects (many of whom were connected to the Bauhaus) with Hans Scharoun at the helm.

The action makes reference to a practice common in communities of Polish housing estate residents: to give individualized features to a standard-issue flat. Efforts by tenants to beautify balconies clashed with the original vision of the designers, giving witness to the fiasco of Modernism in its communist version. The aesthetic dimension of minimalism was overshadowed here by factors economic in nature, ultimately leading to the dehumanisation of architecture. She Modernist is a work revealing the different faces of modernism: wonderful designs by Hugo Häring or Scharoun on the one hand, and their Eastern bloc cousins thrice removed on the other. Concurrently, She Modernist comments on the human need to remain autonomous, and on attempts to escape life in uniform surroundings.

Izabela Kopania

translated from Polish by Aleksandra Sobczak