WARSAW.- On June 26, two exhibitions open at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw: In the Very Bowels of Changes: Surrealism and Antifascism, and Ways of the Black Spread Over the White Land. One offers a new look at Surrealism, its ever-relevant ideas and struggle for liberty and equality. The other explores Poland’s relationship to Blackness and Sub-Saharan Africa in times of the Polish People’s Republic. The two combined take viewers on a brave, multicultural journey through different continents, countries, and places with a common cause: opposing violence and fostering solidarity on an international scale.
¡No pasarán! Freedom to all, unwaveringly
Since its emergence in the 1920s, Surrealism has confronted a number of political movements that contradicted the ideals of equality and freedom. Surrealists would condemn Europe’s colonial project, organize themselves against fascists, fight in the Spanish Civil War, join the resistance during World War II—to be denounced as “degenerate” by the Nazis, face internment or persecution, flee Europe to escape extermination or, as was the case of many, die on the battlefields or in camps. Their resistance was art itself. Through poetry, painting, photography, collage, and exhibition-making they strived to expose flaws in the supposedly rational language of the supposedly rational civilization of the West.
As fascism gained ground in Europe, Nazification of Germany progressed, World War II and colonial wars broke out—Surrealists wouldn’t budge; the movement’s protagonists remained radical in their ideological and political choices. At the same time, these upheavals resulted in extraordinary encounters and a truly global solidarity: linking Prague with Coyoacán, Mexico; Cairo, with the Spanish Republic; Marseille, with Martinique’s Fort-de-France; Puerto Rico and Paris, with Chicago; and London, with New York. Surrealist thought and action have had an all-encompassing simultaneousness to them. Accordingly, the exhibition unfolds as a map rather than a timeline. The intent here is to present Surrealism as an international movement invested heavily in society and politics—in line with how its members perceived it.
As an artistic and political movement, Surrealism had an international reach and internationalist beliefs. Rooted in art and literature, it cherished much wider ambitions: to revolutionize society and redefine life itself. Today, we are again living in times of turmoil and, regrettably, we see that Surrealists’ most urgent demands—those of freedom and equality—remain unsatisfied. Accordingly our exhibition, rather than just recounting the past as distant history, is also an important lesson for the present, says Magda Lipska, one of the curators.
First presented in Munich, the exhibition now grows in Warsaw to include an additional chapter in Surrealist history, one written in Poland: it is the international collection of the a.r. group, which was assembled in the early 1930s and brought together works of such Surrealists as Max Ernst, Kurt Seligmann, and Hans Arp. We also revisit Poland’s art around 1948, drawing inspirations from Surrealism’s anti-colonialist and antifascist stance to deal with experiences of war and Holocaust. Exiled Polish artists are featured too: Franciszka and Stefan Themerson as well as Teresa Żarnower, adds co-curator Dorota Jarecka.
Surrealists demanded absolute freedom, and wanted it to permeate every section of society. Emancipation, to them, meant life liberated from any imperative on the part of the state, the nation, the church, or the bourgeoisie. And it was this openness about the political and the artistic being linked together that attracted many emancipatory movements to Surrealism. The student demonstrations of May 1968, post-war anti-totalitarian campaigns in Eastern Europe, and even the Black Liberation Movement in the United States were all inspired to an extent by Surrealist methods and beliefs. The exhibition traces these struggles as it attempts to revise the widespread preconception of Surrealism as a style in painting only meant for representing dreams, fantasies, and magic; doing away with the notion of a Surrealist canon, once again it poses this provocative question: “What is Surrealism?”
The genre most represented on display is painting, dating mostly to the first half of the 20th century; but there’s also sculpture, film, and photography. Another essential part of our exhibition is the archive: a large collection of publications, photographs, manifestos, and documents that both relate to Surrealists’ commitment to fight fascism and demonstrate their support for the anti-colonialist cause. Viewers will encounter Lee Miller, Joan Miró, Dora Maar, René Magritte, Inji Efflatoun, Yves Tanguy, and Katarzyna Kobro, among other artists, adds Magda Lipska.
Our relationship to Blackness: exhibition Ways of the Black Spread Over the White Land
The perception of Black cultures and African diasporas had long been shaped by images of slavery and Western European colonialism. After World War II ended, Africa’s pursuits of independence gained traction, and the eponymous Black began to spread indeed over the Polish “White Land.” At the time this was happening, socialist efforts to modernize were being made on both continents, supported by faith in the ideas of decolonization and social as well as political change. The exhibition Ways of the Black Spread Over the White Land looks at Poland’s relationship to Blackness and Sub-Saharan Africa throughout the country’s Eastern-Bloc era of 1945 to 1989. Works on show revive the memory of relations that have been set aside since democratic transition began, at the same time showing their influence on Poland’s art and culture of the time.
In the exhibition, facts, fictions, and fantasies tell a story, full of contrasts, about escaping the centrally planned actuality—that same reality whose politics had paved the way for African diasporas to emerge in Poland in the first place. Complexities of individual histories, their many-sidedness and ambiguousness are perhaps reflected best in the metaphorical notion of “vibrancy.” In physical terms, vibrations are impulses that travel to one’s body directly from an object that’s trembling, shaking, wobbling, or otherwise agitated. In a similar way, artistic expressions of the time were brought about by the concurrence of Cold War fought by the world’s powers and decolonization processes unfolding in African countries. One example of this vibrancy of ideas and attitudes can be found in the radiant tapestry by Barbara Grądzka-Łowkis, titled Afryka and dated 1970. In it, greens, yellows, and ochres gravitate towards the central splash of interlaced pinks and reds, with a single black line wandering in between. This abstract composition references the idiom of Africa as perceived in Poland, and by Poles. Multiethnic and geographically diverse, despite its cultural richness the African continent has been—and often still is—associated visually with sun, with its flora, or with the characteristically red laterite soils. By reviving now the marginalized memories we might inspire a new way of understanding Blackness and making sense of the past relations with Sub-Saharan Africa; and in doing so, new ideas and alliances may emerge, ones that stand up to the challenges and crises of today’s globalization, says the curator, Oliwia Bosomtwe.
Visitors to the exhibition at MSN will see works by artists based in Poland and in Nigeria, as well as by graduates of Polish art schools hailing from Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya, among other countries. It is an opportunity to explore past relations, once nurtured but eventually overshadowed by political transformation. Pieces are included in which Polish artists drew in various ways on traditionally Sub-Saharan forms, or referenced anti-colonialist and anti-racist causes—such as Jazz by Erna Rosenstein, Colonial Exploitation by Władysław Strzemiński, painting by Jonasz Stern titled Black Land, Oskar Hansen’s sketchbooks, or Paulin Wojtyna’s sculpture Bandung. The African art on display spans from a mask of the Nago people to the most celebrated names of Nigeria’s Modernism: Jimoh B. Akolo and Bruce Onobrakpeya.
Polish artists made a particular mark in West Africa when sculptress Alina Ślesińska designed a monument to Kwame Nkrumah, first president of independent Ghana. Taking the form of a giant sword with Nkrumah’s head on top, it was destroyed in 1966—and has been recreated as part of the installation One man does not rule a nation, which is also presented at the exhibition. Conceived by Max Cegielski and Janek Simon, this critique project puts Ślesińska’s work into perspective by placing it in a number of historical contexts. Concluding the narratives of close encounters with Africans is a 1986 assemblage piece by Krzysztof M. Bednarski, Out of Africa.
Some three thousand African students attended universities in the Polish People’s Republic. Having completed a year-long course in the Polish language, which was given in Łódź, they ended up in different cities around the country. Although Poland’s art schools were seldom preferred by Africans, we do present works by two African-born graduates of Academies of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Kraków respectively, painters Hailu Tsigi and Worku Goshu. Experiences of Africans who won scholarships to Polish universities are also covered in short documentaries shot by graduates of the Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź.
International collaborations
With the exhibition In the Very Bowels of Changes: Surrealism and Antifascism, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw continues to work with the world’s most prominent cultural institutions. The show, originally titled But Live Here? No Thanks: Surrealism and Anti-fascism, premiered at Munich’s Lenbachhaus where it was curated by Stephanie Weber, Adrian Djukić, and Karin Althaus. And this year, too, Lenbachhaus will present to their viewers the exhibition Maria Jarema: Cracked Modernism, put together by Natalia Sielewicz and Érica de Chassey (Beaux-Arts de Paris) for its current presentation on MSN’s second floor. The exhibition In the Very Bowels of Changes: Surrealism and Antifascism was also developed in collaboration with Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź.
