The artist chosen to characterize Poland on the 2024 Venice Biennale final yr says that the brand new Polish authorities’s resolution to cancel his challenge on the world’s most prestigious exhibition is an act of “censorship”.
Ignacy Czwartos was chosen by the earlier administration led by the right-wing occasion Legislation and Justice (PiS). However in an announcement issued on 29 December the ministry, beneath new prime Minister Donald Tusk, known as off Czwartos’s challenge.
Czwartos tells The Artwork Newspaper that his exhibition proposal— Polish Observe in Tragedy. Between Germany and Russia—was initially chosen in an open competitors. On 31 October, Poland’s Ministry of Tradition introduced that it might certainly current an exhibition by Czwartos on the nation’s nationwide pavilion on the Biennale.
The announcement got here at a time when Poland was ready to see what type its subsequent authorities would take, following a normal election on 15 October. Czwartos was really helpful by a jury convened by Warsaw’s Zachęta Nationwide Gallery of Artwork.
PiS emerged as the biggest occasion within the October election however didn’t win a majority; Donald Tusk has subsequently shaped a brand new centrist coalition authorities. Tusk was beforehand prime minister of Poland between 2007 and 2014, later turning into European Council president.
“The choice passed off in accordance with the authorized procedures. The decision of the competitors jury was accepted by the Minister of Tradition and Nationwide Heritage. The contract between me and Zachęta Gallery, the establishment chargeable for the realisation of the exhibition has been signed,” Czwartos provides.
“However, on 29 December, I acquired the knowledge that the brand new Minister of Tradition and Nationwide Heritage, Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, had stopped the challenge. No causes got to justify the choice and, what’s extra, this resolution is opposite to the laws in power. I understand it as censorship.” The ministry was contacted for remark.
The Polish ministry of tradition mentioned in a web-based assertion that “after analysing the competitors procedures for the exhibition… and after [gathering] the opinions and voices of the communities, accepted the choice to not implement the challenge [Polish Practice in Tragedy. Between Germany and Russia].” Poland will now be represented by Open Group, a collective that features Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, and Anton Varga.
A spokesperson for Zacheta tells us: “As per the laws, Sienkiewicz has given the go-ahead to the back-up exhibition challenge, Repeat after Me, submitted by curator Marta Czyż and that includes Open Group. Zachęta Nationwide Gallery of Artwork will stay chargeable for organising and producing the exhibition, in addition to totally overseeing the Polish Pavilion in Venice.”
In a proposal doc submitted to the Biennale, Czwartos’s exhibition, Polish Observe in Tragedy. Between Germany and Russia, was described as “a profound reflection by a up to date Polish artist on the tragic historical past of the twentieth century.”
Czwartos says: “My challenge, by means of a set of work and objects, presents Polish expertise of the conflict between two totalitarianisms: Soviet communism and German Nationwide Socialism. The challenge refers additionally to the current day, above all to Putin’s brutal assault in Ukraine. It isn’t an anti-European challenge in any respect, however reasonably it refers back to the forces that had destroyed Europe previously and at this time.”
Nevertheless, Czwartos’s challenge confronted a backlash from critics final yr who mentioned it was too carefully aligned with the agenda of the Legislation and Justice (PiS) occasion. These criticising Czwartos’ nomination included some former Zachęta employees and three members of the museum’s jury: Jagna Domżalska, Joanna Warsza and Karolina Ziębińska-Lewandowska.
They advised The Artwork Newspaper: “To us the choice to pick out Ignacy Czwartos looks like a tragic Endspiel after eight years of right-wing rule… we remorse that after essentially the most open, welcoming, transnational and complicated artwork of Małgorzata Mirga-Tas [who represented Poland at the 2022 Biennale], we transfer to essentially the most narrow-minded, ideologically paranoid and shameful place.”
