Censorship in Polish art after 1989: Art, Law, Politics by Jakub Dąbrowski & Anna Demenko

Author:Jakub Dąbrowski & Anna Demenko
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781771614696
Publisher: Mosaic Press
Published: 2019-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

(a, b) Katarzyna Kozyra, Men’s Bathhouse [L´ażnia m˛eska], 1999, video installation (stilll image), courtesy of Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation

(a, b) Katarzyna Kozyra, Bathhouse, 1997, video instalation (still image), courtesy of Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation

How To Train Curators400

The ever more frequent and brutal interventions of right-wing politicians began to bring about effects as self-censorship started to be practiced in many art exhibition venues. Significantly, on 10 March 1999, one day after the notorious intervention of the TOZ in the CSW łażnia, the Director of the Baltic Sea Culture Centre (NCK) in Gdańsk, Maciej Nowak, cancelled the opening of the exhibition of Rafał Ewertowski’s works titled Wystawa malarstwa [Painting Exhibition] planned on 12 March. The artist transformed the NCK gallery into something of a studio in which he presented a series of paintings whose titles bore reference to canonical masterpieces [e.g. The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, The Arnolfini Marriage], but which depicted erotic scenes that delivered a commentary on stereotypes in art and human behaviour. Nowak was frank about the reasons behind his decision: “... as a director of the institution, I bear the consequences related to the image of the company and responsibility for what I show to the viewers. ... My decision results from care about the influence of the exhibition on the image of the NCK and, of course, from a certain fear”.401 At the same time, the director admitted that he did not recognise Ewertowski’s works as pornographic. The paintings could ultimately be viewed at a private show. It is noteworthy that if the decision to organise a private viewing resulted from an interpretation of the provisions of the criminal code regarding pornography, then such a reaction was exaggerated. Warnings about the presentation of pornographic materials displayed in the exhibition space and an age limit of 15 would have sufficed to protect the organisers against legal consequences. Yet, we do not know – and this seems to be the key factor – if it would have protected them against politicians.

As for the liability of insulting religious feelings, even an appropriate warning would not offer a sufficient guarantee of criminal indemnity. Teresa Gołda-Sowicka seemed to have been aware of that while curating the July exhibition Wystawa sztuki Bielsko-Biała 2000 [Art Exhibition Bielsko-Biała 2000] at the local BWA. The show gathered works of more than one hundred local artists, yet the curator chose not to display three paintings by Grzegorz Madej: św. Sebastian [St. Sebastian], Leda and Duch, a zarazem ciało [Spirit, and Flesh at the Same Time]. Painted in a fin de siècle style, the works featured, respectively, a male nude pierced with arrows, an angel copulating with a female, and a sitting woman with an aureole and a naked woman on her knees, akin to a pieta. According to the painter, the BWA feared a pact in the municipal council – local politicians had already given proof of their interest in exhibitions at the gallery; it is also noteworthy that the AWS enjoyed better results in the self-government election in the Lesser Poland Province than anywhere else in the country: 47.

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