| POLISH
ART 1955-1985
BRIEF OVERVIEW
Polish art of
the post World War II decade–marked by postwar trauma, stagnation,
isolation, and a desperate attempt to define its new language–from
1949 to 1954 was trapped by the rigorous premises of the officially
imposed socialist realism, which vanished almost immediately after
Stalin's death. In 1955, an exhibition of young artists called Against
War, Against Fascism, held at the Warsaw's Arsenal building, became
a symbol of the nation's artistic breakthrough from the Stalinist
era. The date is still important, even though the exhibit failed
to propose a counter-program or any integrated artistic vision for
the future. In 1955, in addition to the Arsenal show, Polish artists
started to re-establish their contacts with Western Europe, America
and the other parts of the world. Various illustrated journals,
magazines and exhibition catalogs that reached Poland, as well as
personal travels and contacts gave Polish artists the desired, but
still very limited, access to the Western artistic ideas.
In a desperate search for a new artistic vision, many rather ephemeral
groups came to life between 1955 and 1960, including "Group
55" in Warsaw, "Group R-55" in Poznan, "Group
St-53" in Katowice and "Castle" in Lublin. The "Cracow
Group II" was set up in 1957 as a continuation of the pre-war
avant-garde "Cracow Grup." Of many influential new galleries,
the most famous ones were the "Crooked Circle Gallery"
in Warsaw and "Krzysztofory" in Cracow. The interests
of these Polish artists ranged from pure geometric abstraction,
through non-geometric abstraction influenced by the increasingly
popular Structuralism and Informel, to figurative art based on intricately
complicated visual metaphor. Some of the most original, independently
promising and innovative artistic offerings from the 1950s unfortunately
came from those who died prematurely: Wladyslaw Strzeminski (1952),
Wladyslaw Cwenarski (1953), Andrzej Wroblewski (1957) and Maria
Jarema (1958), to mention but a few. Jadwiga Maziarska, Wladyslaw
Hasior, Tadeusz Kantor, and Jerzy Rosolowicz were among those who
independently anticipated in Poland what was still to be explored
or discovered in the West.
During the two focal decades of our exhibition (1960-1980), the
development of Polish art was very dynamic and multidirectional.
In the early 60s, most of the artistic associations of the 1950s
(except the "Cracow Group") disintegrated and the artistic
life concentrated around several important galleries such as "El''
Gallery in Elblag, ''od-Nowa" (Anew) in Poznan, "Foxal"
and "Wspolczesna" (Contemporary) in Warsaw, and "Mona
Lisa" in Wroclaw. The artists were able to catch up slowly
with the world's art mainstream, but isolation was still a serious
problem.
The initially strong but somehow shallow fascination with abstraction
in the late 1950s, in the 60s gave way either to a more in-depth
involvement with it or a return to objectivity and figuration, and
the early interest in the painting of
matter evolved into organic structuralism and abstract expressionism.
Also, the intellectual trend, which was intended to serve as a bridge
between an artistic thought and science, became popular among Polish
artists. Its proponents, rooted in the tradition of the prewar constructivist
avant-garde, especially in Warsaw and Lodz, believed that the cognitive
element was supremely important in contemporary art. By prompting
the public to think, the artists aspired to contribute to the broadening
of human horizons and imagination. Interestingly, some of the popular
Western trends had never been truly adapted to the Polish sensibility–pop
art and photo-realism among them–but Polish artists experimented
widely with other trends and tendencies. Many artists played an
intellectually involving game on the edge of conceptual art, creating
works rich in philosophical reflection and innovative language.
Others explored different tendencies, which manifested itself in
a variety of forms, ranging from a synthetic vision expressed in
strictly geometric shapes, through analyses of the cognitive potential
of the human mind, to reflections on the relationships between structures
existing in nature and elements of the civilized world. Some artists
documented reality and commented on it; others tried to analyze
art itself, particularly its language, and to explore the visual
and psychological impact of signs. All these attempts in various
areas of artistic penetration led to metaphysical, ontological,
or existential reflection. A wide experimentation with new media–characteristic
of the time–intended to enrich the objective visual language
in order to free it from potential aesthetic prejudices.
Most of the truly innovative forms of expression in Polish art between
1955 and 1985 were born on the borderline of different branches
of art, or art and other human activities. It applies to the exquisite
painterly qualities of Polish poster, to Jan Hasior's art in the
late 1950s, and to Magdalena Abakanowicz's and Roman Opalka's original
ideas from the 1960s. Also, to the same category of the successful
borderline experiments belongs the genuine Polish avant-garde of
the 1970s. It includes the short films by the Film Form Workshop
in Lodz, the ritual performance of Jerzy Beres, and–maybe
the most important Polish phenomenon–the internationally acclaimed
visual theater represented by Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeusz Kantor, Leszek
Madzik and Jozef Szajna. (The
Catalog)
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