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Poland’s Culture Ministry is replacing the country’s submission to the contemporary art event, which was criticised for echoing the PiS’ nationalist agenda.
ADVERTISEMENTIn a sign that Poland is reviewing the cultural zeitgeist established by its previous nationalist government, the country’s Culture Minister withdrew Poland’s entry to the Venice Biennale.
Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, who was appointed by new centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk last month, announced the withdrawal of the project “Polish Practice in Tragedy. Between Germany and Russia” in a news release last week.
Sienkewicz said he made his decision “after gathering the opinions and voices of the communities” and “analysing the competition procedures for the exhibition.”
The Polish Pavilion will instead feature the multimedia exhibition “Repeat After Me” by Ukrainian art collective Open Group, the country’s back-up submission.
The original project was put forward while the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party was still in power last autumn, in the eleventh hour before it lost control of the government.
It featured more than 35 works by the artist Ignacy Czwartos, including a painting called “Nord Stream 2” that showed ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russia’s Vladimir Putin connected by a swastika – according to the original proposal outline.
Czwartos’ work has been criticised in Poland and abroad for echoing the nationalist views of PiS and perpetuating a narrative of state victimhood, of a Polish state that was victimised in the 20th century by neighbours Germany and Russia.
The artist accused the government of censorship, saying his work was not anti-European, but simply referred to the “forces that had destroyed Europe in the past and today.”
“The selection took place in accordance with the legal procedures,” Czwartos told the Art Newspaper. “No reasons were given to justify the decision (to withdraw the submission) and, what is more, this decision is contrary to the regulations in force. I perceive it as censorship.”
When the exhibition was submitted, three members of the jury at Warsaw’s Zachęta National Gallery of Art wrote a dissenting opinion saying the project presents “exactly the opposite image of Poland, as a homogeneous unopen country focused only on itself and on speaking from the position of a victim.”
Poland’s new exhibition for the Biennale will feature a performance video with interviews of Ukrainians who have been displaced from their homes in the east and south of the country, who were asked to recreate the sounds of war as they heard them.
The video installation was first shown at the Labirynt Gallery in the Polish city of Lublin in November 2022.
Warsaw’s Zachęta National Gallery of Art remains responsible for the organisation and production of the exhibition and the management of the Polish Pavilion in Venice.
The 60th edition of the Venice Biennale, the world’s largest contemporary art event, will take place starting 20 April under the overarching theme “Foreigners Everywhere,” which curators say is meant to celebrate diversity and inclusion.
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