Abstract
For years, galleries in Poland ran scared of violent protests staged by the religious right.
The prosecution of the artist Dorota Nieznalska for ‘insulting religious feelings’ is the longest-running affair in a long line of attacks on artistic expression that have come to typify certain political attitudes in Poland. The complaint against Nieznalska was lodged by three Gdansk residents and a group of local members of the far right-wing political party Liga Polskich Rodzin (League of Polish Families, LPR), who were offended by her installation ‘Pasja’ (The Passion) shown in Gdansk’s Wyspa Gallery. The work consisted of two pieces: a video projection showing a man practising bodybuilding and the object of controversy – a suspended metal cross with a photograph of male genitals.
Without having seen the exhibition, the LPR members, including MPs Gertruda Szumska and Robert Strak, nevertheless claimed they were ‘criminally offended’ by the installation’s combination of male genitals and a Christian symbol – the cross. Despite Nieznalska’s apologies and explanations that her intention was not to offend anyone, but to draw attention to questions of masculinity and suffering, representatives of the party continued to attack the artist through the media and in demonstrations in court, where they displayed national flags and religious images.
In January 2002, after the scheduled closure of the installation, members of the LPR forced their way into the gallery, demanding to be shown the work. The incident was covered by media who had been invited to witness the scene by the gatecrashers. The artist was subsequently charged with breaching Article 196 of the Polish Penal Code. This prohibits anything likely to offend religious feelings or that publicly insults objects of religious devotion.
Given that the lawsuit invoked under Article 196 appeared to conflict with the Polish constitutional right to artistic freedom, the attack on Nieznalska inspired a nationwide debate on freedom of expression. Academics, artists and journalists, as well as engineers, programmers, businessmen, clerks and students, were among the 1,500 signatories to an open letter defending the artist. ‘The conviction of Dorota Nieznalska on the charge of insulting religious feelings is shocking proof that the fundamental statute of the Polish Republic is not respected in a country that until recently seemed to be a symbol of freedom. Civic freedoms are not established in order that they may serve one ideology. We all have the right to live and function in this country and to express our own views freely. Every culture needs its own sphere of freedom, incorrectness, difference. Art is one such sphere.’ The letter points out that LPR ‘is attempting to impose an ideological vision of a religious state on Polish society’ which ‘is not homogeneous’. ‘We demand respect for freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Constitution of the Polish Republic,’ the letter concludes.
Nevertheless, on 18 July 2003 the artist was found guilty and sentenced to six months of restricted liberty and community work. The court rejected the option of a fine on the grounds that this would be an inappropriate penalty, given the popularity and recognition Nieznalska would gain as a result of the publicity given to the trial.
The court need not have worried. In the wake of the lawsuit, the Academy of Arts in Gdansk, which had hosted Wyspa for 12 years, closed the gallery; it was unwilling to confront the religious uproar in the city. At the end of 2002, Jacek Kolodziejski, director of the Data Gallery in Ostrow Wielkopolski, announced his intention of mounting an exhibition of Nieznalska’s new work. Only days after his announcement, the proprietor cancelled the gallery’s tenancy contract and asked Kolodziejski to vacate the premises immediately. On 29 April 2004, however, the Gdansk Court of Appeal agreed to a retrial.
In 2001, two directors of major contemporary art institutions were forced to resign, again largely the result of a religious controversy. The ‘papal’ incident in Zacheta Gallery, in which the MP Witold Tomczak, also a member of the LPR, vandalised the sculpture ‘La Nona Ora’ (The Ninth Hour) by Maurizio Catellan, was grotesque. He issued an official letter demanding the dismissal of Anda Rottenberg, the director of the gallery. According to Tomczak, this ‘civil servant of Jewish origin’ should be obliged to mount exhibitions suiting the tastes of the Catholic, taxpaying majority. Unwilling to participate in a debate on this level, Rottenberg, a woman with an international reputation in the art world, chose to resign.
For the opponents of Catellan’s work, the critical factor was not the artist’s intention but the unacceptable, for them, presentation of the Pope. Suggestions that public money should not be spent on ‘niche’ art have been issued also towards Aneta Szylak, founder and director of the Laznia (Bathhouse) Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdansk. Szylak has made the Bathhouse into an original and ambitious exhibition space and put Gdansk on the contemporary art map. Nevertheless, Gdansk officials questioned the gallery’s exhibition programme on the grounds that it frequently included pieces critical of the Polish cultural model that were seen as an attack on traditional and religious values.
Unwilling to change Laznia’s profile, Szylak initiated a discussion on the independence of art institutions in the local media but was finally ousted by the city council which accused the director of misapplying Laznia’s budget. Before Szylak was cleared of all charges, a new gallery director had already been appointed.
Yet another show that offended several MPs was Irreligia: the Morphology of the Non-sacred in Twentieth-century Polish Art, which took place in Brussels in 2001. The exhibition, organised by the private gallery Atelier 340 Museum, was an overview of art works questioning the function and position of religion in contemporary culture. It included around 150 works by Wladyslaw Hasior, Bronislaw W Linke, Jaroslaw Modzelewski, the Lodz Kaliska group, Robert Rumas and others – including Dorota Nieznalska. Several of the works, including Nieznalska’s ‘Absolution’ and Grzegorz Klaman’s ‘Emblems’, were exhibited in the church of Notre Dame de Lourdes. The Pauline Fathers of Jasna Gora issued a statement of protest against the exhibition, which included a painting by Adam Rzepecki depicting the Blessed Mother of Jasna Gora with a Duchampian moustache. Complaints directed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were raised in parliament by LPR MPs Witold Tomczak and Zofia Krasicka-Domka. They insisted that the ‘disgraceful’ show be closed immediately and urged the ministry to initiate legal proceedings against both artists and organisers. Several Catholic organisations backed the protest: Akcja Katolicka (Catholic Action) proposed ‘immediate closure of the exhibition and an assurance that it is never shown anywhere else’.
In a tactfully balanced response, the minister of foreign affairs, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, conceded that some works in the Brussels show might have been shocking and disrespectful towards Christian symbols but argued that the exhibition, featuring pieces dating from the 1920s to the present, included many valuable works and had therefore gained the support of local authorities. He appealed to the authors of the protest to allow the public to evaluate the exhibition and reminded them that ‘the most severe judge of a work of art and one whose objectivity can be trusted is the viewer’. Nevertheless, the exhibition has never been seen in Poland and Kazimierz Piotrowski, head of the Krolikarnia Gallery, a division of the National Museum in Warsaw, who co-organised Irreligia as a private curator, has been pressed to resign.
Perhaps the most unexpected conflict arose around the project Let Us Be Seen, a photographic collection of portraits of young homosexual couples by Karolina Bregula. These were to be displayed in a gallery and on billboards in several cities as part of a gay visibility project run by the NGO Campaign Against Homophobia. The project was supported by Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, the government minister responsible for equality between the sexes. The Cracow Burzym & Wolff Gallery exhibited the portraits in April 2003. The LPR and its youth division, Mlodziez Wszechpolska, attempted to sabotage the project: billboards were painted over or destroyed; the Burzym & Wolff Gallery was evicted from its premises. ‘Our aim is a moral and national renewal of the young generation and a war on doctrines promoting lawlessness, liberalism, tolerationism and relativism,’ announces Mlodziez Wszechpolska proudly on its website.
Polish intellectuals again rushed to the defence of the project: ‘The latest events connected with the campaign Let Us Be Seen have shown the scale of intolerance, fear and internal censorship in our country,’ wrote Zygmunt Bauman, Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, Julia Hartwig, Jacek Kuron and 20 others. ‘Censorship, especially internal, endangers the truth.’
The LPR, bent on stigmatising unorthodox views, is more radical than dignitaries of the Church, who have not condemned Nieznalska’s Passion or the Let Us Be Seen campaign. Not all Church officials support the actions of the League. Father Krzysztof Niedaltowski told Gazeta Wyborcza he considered Nieznalska’s work immature, but criticised the League who, in his opinion, are taking advantage of the Church for political ends. ‘It is the Church who will have to cope with the consequences of this,’ he said. Many practising Catholics feel obliged to declare that they were not offended by the artworks.
But, so far, the League, backed by the more confrontational tactics of Mlodziez Wszechpolska, is winning the battle. After a rash of dismissals in major art institutions, gallery directors and curators are tired and afraid of making uncompromising decisions: they are running scared of problematic art for fear of yet another political demonstration. The League, which gained a staggering 16 per cent in recent elections to the European Parliament, understands democracy as a system in which only the opinions of the majority are worth respect. The statement that public officials should not spend public funds on art that does not respond to ‘popular demand’ has become a tiresome refrain that no longer surprises anyone.
Similar considerations motivated the Polish section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) to launch a Free Artistic Expression Committee in January 2004. In April, the Wyspa Progress Foundation, backed by the AICA, announced the creation of an archive documenting instances of censorship in contemporary art. ‘The present situation of artists and art curators is unacceptable,’ says Aneta Szylak, a member of both organisations. ‘We are gathering documents and all available materials to provide information on attempts to censor. I’m afraid the tendency to create political demonstrations out of art shows is on the rise.’ The archive is being created in Gdansk.
In 1999, Professor Witoslaw Czerwonka of the Gdansk Academy of Fine Arts wrote to Gazeta Wyborcza: ‘The attempt to cut down Laznia’s autonomy on the grounds of the “elitism” of its programme is a worrying signal. Initiators of such acts should be reminded of similar acts in the not-so-distant past. Slogans such as “Art for the masses!”, “Degenerate art!” and “Promote national art!” leave a nasty taste in the mouth.’