Banners & Diaries

The word and text as a visual motive is the starting point for this presentation. Works of Polish artists presented here: Jadwiga Sawicka, Wojciech Bąkowski and Honza Zamojski are clearly located on the side of the ‘Diaries’. It does not mean that the democracy in Poland is so firmly established that is does not stir emotions or motivate to go out in the streets, but – definitely, the most interesting art happens somewhere else. Even when art communicates via messages aimed at the public space, it is much more contemplative. The artists from Poland are poets who work with ‘lyrical’, ambiguous, personal text. They no longer fight for common rights, but speak individually and very personally. The highest registers are reached at the exploration of everyday life, the simplest emotions, and most ordinary situations.

Joanna Sawicka is a classic in the ‘written’ painting genre. In mid-1990s she undertook the work on a series of paintings, in which everyday artefacts, such as clothes or cosmetics were provided comments. Most often, they were accompanied with advertising slogans – which became absurd as their context changed. With time, objects and texts separated in her work. She created series of oil paintings with messages taken from the media, written in black block letters on pastel (pink and sky blue) backgrounds. Here, the messages are dramatic and full of anxiety, which is often emphasises by lack of diacritic signs and double letters. Text comes second to the format of the painting; words end unexpectedly or are divided in wrong places, and they lose their meaning. The works refer to scandalous newspaper headlines: ‘Uciela Uciekla’ (‘She Cut/Ran’), ‘Bydlaki’ (‘Swines’), ‘Powoduje raka’ (‘Causes cancer’), ‘Dorzynanie’ (‘Finishing off’). As such, they belong to critical art and yet bear certain abstract potential and refuse to be simply categorised. As Masza Potocka stated, there is much sensitivity in these works, existential thoroughness masked with cold self-restraint. Both the modesty of expression and neutral presentation of an aesthetic phenomenon deepen the power of expression and knocks out of banality. More attention is required for the message to be received consciously. The banners presented at the exposition could be slogans used during manifestations of Pessimist Party or Association. ‘Freedom of Falling’, ‘Dynamics of Deterioration’, ‘Sadness Rules’, ‘Pain Will Not Pass’. They may be expression of social moods, but also very individual personal statements.

Wojciech Bąkowski operates on the border of several disciplines: visual arts, poetry and music. All the elements of his creative activity merge, overlap and affect each other. His concerts are autoperformative; his video works may as well be categorised as animations; poetry – thus word – is an important structural element of both. Texts in Wojciech Bąkowski’s films are often short commentaries that might be called lyrical banalities. They often accompany his drawings, and are similarly penned directly to the videotape. The lyrical ‘I’ of these works demonstrates distance towards the reality, disrespect towards good manners and political correctness. It is a hooligan, a person from the suburbs, a cross between intelligent uncouthness, sensitivity and boorishness. The “Exercises for true friends” film of 2011 exercises our patience. A very short and perfunctorily polite message, ‘Thank you for your attention and remembering of me’ appears in an extremely minimalist form between long intervals of tiring buzzing noise. This is in fact an audio installation, but its meaning lies in the ironic tone of the thank-yous. Only true friends will give you enough attention and remember what the whole thing was actually about, after long staring at the screen pulsating with nothingness.

Honza Zamojski is definitely an artist for whom text plays an important role in the artistic work. Partially, it is so because he chose to be a designer and publisher of books that constitute artistic objects, and he is particularly sensitive to the visual dimension of the text, and the text itself. On the other hand, the art that he creates occurs somewhere in-between and takes over various areas, from poetry to accounting. It feasts on contradictions and contradicts contradictions. What we may see at the exhibition is a matryoshka, a doll inside a doll, a layered situation: the systematic arrangement of ladders multiplies the letter A. It brings to mind associations with anarchy, but may also be a favourite or one of the favourite letters. The ‘AAAAA’ is best read as a reflection and from the shadow, and not the original collection of objects. Just as in the whole work of Zamojski, it hides behind a corner and avoids direct and literal reading. The technical object carefully arranged in the collection is warmed by the game of light and shadow, and truly humanised by heads drawn by the artist – which are slightly ironic and resemble emoticons. In Zamojski’s works, order meets decadence; systematics meets poetic mood, and seriousness – irony.

Monika Szewczyk