The Hero Dog

The connection between the two paintings of Marcin Maciejowski from Kolekcja II is somewhat surprising because in both cases the hero is a dog. However, while in the case of The Hero Dog the dog appears as a brave participant in the story presented (as we know from the caption on the canvas), in case of the second piece, Cut the Gallery’s Budget, the dog is a silent hero, though indispensible to understanding the origins of the work.

Cut the Gallery’s Budget refers to a series of events which took place on the occasion of the exhibition Pies w sztuce polskiej [The Dog in Polish Art] organised in Galeria Arsenał in 2003. Outraged by a work of Piotr Kurka under the title I Got a Doggie, a member of the city council representing the League of Polish Families [a right-wing ultra-Catholic party – from the translator] forced the removal of the work from the exhibition and demanded that the gallery’s budget be cut. Other artists at the exhibition decided to withdraw in a sign of protest. Maciejowski’s painting, showing an empty gallery hall with the very telling caption, is not only an apt comment on the situation at the time, but is also a vision of a real threat that the gallery faced then.

Maciejowski’s style is that of a specific manner of realism which could be termed critical if it wasn’t for the strict historical references connected with the term, and the absence of a clear social engagement in the artist’s statement. He draws inspiration from the iconography and language of daily newspapers and cheap high-circulation press addressed to a specific audience. His works are created on the basis of catchy media titles or, like The Hero Dog, moving “real life” stories. The text is a part of the composition and serves as the conclusion to the visual message, helping reconstruct the story told. Maciejowski exposes those aspects of the cheap photo news feeds which get lost in mass communication. The emphasis is shifted from the event – which will soon be forgotten – to the recipient, the consumer of images and information who creates, and is created by, the media content. The artist shows the mentality and the simple fascinations of Polish society with insight and distance, but without sarcasm.

Izabela Kopania