POLONIA UNCENSORED

 

The exhibition of paintings by Ignacy Czwartos in Venice is entitled 'Polonia Uncensored’. It could just as well have been called 'Polonia beyond the walls' or 'Polonia excluded'. These titles would well convey the essence of what happened to the planned exhibition in the Polish Pavilion at the 60th Art Biennale. The new liberal-left government, which won last year's elections with slogans of defending the rule of law and inclusivity, decided to exclude Ignacy Czwartos' project entitled 'Polish Exercises in World Tragedy. Between Germany and Russia’ selected in a legitimate open competition.

Art depicting the unique Polish experience of fighting against two totalitarianisms was therefore removed from the world's most important exhibition space. Perhaps those who decided this, thought that Polish experience would be too problematic for today's world, which does not want to remember a painful history, but rather focuses on building a new, happy utopia? This is not unique to Polish history; many times  Polish tragic experience had been a problem for the progressive world and also for  those Poles who have tried to keep up with progress. April, when the Venice Biennale is inaugurated, is the time of another anniversary of the crime committed at Katyn, where, in 1940, progressive communists murdered more than 20,000 Polish officers. The memory of this event was censored in post-war Poland, creating a so-called 'blank spot' in history. The memory of its victims and perpetrators has survived only thanks to historians, writers of Polish diaspora abroad.

One gets the impression of a historical repetition, so to say, because the paintings telling the story of Polish victims and their murderers, which have been removed from the official Polonia Pavilion, ended up under the roof of a Polish house, which happens to be located just outside the walls of the Gardini della Biennale, a dozen metres from the Polonia Pavilion. A Polish émigré of the time of the martial law, Marek Buczkowski invited Ignacy Czwartos' exhibition to his home in Venice. Here, outside the walls, where censorship does not reach, the viewers from all over the world will be able to get to know Czwartos' art and the message coming from his paintings in an unhindered way.

As the curator of this exhibition, I invite cordially to discover Polish history with the Artist.

Many thanks to the Polish National Foundation for its financial support of the exhibition.