Untitled (Solidarity)

The logo of the “Solidarity” Labour Union is one of the most widely recognised motifs in the set of words, images and symbols that define the Polish identity. The logo was created in August 1980 during the strike at the Gdańsk Shipyard, where the workers rose against the communist government. Jerzy Janiszewski’s suggestive inscription “SOLIDARNOŚĆ” was inspired by the slogans expressing support for the strikers, written by hand on shipyard fencing and the walls of buildings in Gdańsk. And indeed, the script created by this designer, known as solidaryca, i.e. “Solidarity script”, brings to mind letters hastily painted with a thick brush. The characteristic shaky line of the logo, and the vertical stroke of the letter “N” transforming into the pole of the Polish flag, bring to mind an image of people marching at the head of a demonstration.

Over a quarter of a century after it has been created, the “Solidarity” logo has been used by Piotr Uklański. On the quay of the Gdańsk Shipyard he directed several thousand soldiers wearing white and red sweatshirts to arrange themselves into the word “Solidarność” and then photographed them from a great height. It is not the only work in Uklański’s oeuvre to be an effect of a collective performance directed by the artist; his portrait of Pope John Paul II created with the participation of Brazilian soldiers at the São Paulo Art Biennial (2004) is also well known. The so-called living photographs, created in the years 1915–1921 by Arthur Mole and John Thomas on commission from the American army, are worth mentioning in this context. They photographed, thousands of soldiers arranged in expressively propagandistic images, such as the Statue of Liberty or the portrait of President Wilson.

Uklański’s action has nothing to do with patriotic sentiment and his recreation of the logotype is not intended as an affirmation of Solidarity. The recorded disintegration of the image – the soldiers, who earlier stood dutifully in their places, begin to disperse and the logo loses its shape and sharp contours – is an important element of the diptych. Uklański makes an enquiry into the place Solidarity holds in contemporary Poland. Does the iconic sign still stand for living ideas – or is it no more than a signboard for a fossilised organisation? How much of the symbol which the “Solidarity” logo used to be under the communist rule still survives? Is the act of the logo’s dispersal a metaphor for the disintegration of the movement and the devaluation of its ideals?

Izabela Kopania

translated from Polish by Klaudyna Michałowicz