FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| VISUAL ART When I was a kid growing up in Calgary, I used to visit a secondhand book store, where, high above the creaking shelves and piles of musty books, someone had neatly displayed several front covers of the publication, Poland. I was reminded of those wonderful magazine covers when I attended the exhibit of 27 Polish prints curated by the internationally recognized printmaker Malgorzata Zurakowska. This isn't folk art or ethnic art (although Poland's rich decorative legacy is evident in a lot of prints). Nor is it a cross section of Polish printmaking; rather, it's Zurakowska's attempt to show us what makes Polish printmaking distinctly Polish. Illuminations was originally presented at Sightlines, the mammoth symposium on printmaking and "image-culture" held in Edmonton last fall to mark the 25th anniversary of the U of A's printmaking department. Despite its compact nature, Illuminations is a diverse exhibit. It includes among other things, Stanislaw Fijalkowski's modernist "Talmudic Study" which addresses the spiritual qualities of abstract art; Jacek Sroka's "erotic grotesque," (a wacky looking Nosferatu character); and Henryk Ozog's colorful neo-expressionist '80s etchings. But as Zurakowska explained in her gallery talk, Polish art doesn't exist in a vacuum and is inextricably tied to Polish history. Ewa Zawadzka's subtly-toned Black Landscapes, for instance, are not just compelling architectonic forms or mysterious passageways; they also represent the pollution-ravaged buildings of her homeland. Curator Zurakowska - who emigrated to Canada and currently teaches art at Carleton University - describes Poland's tragic history as two centuries of "wars, uprisings and occupations." It's not surprising, then, that some of the strongest works in this show are the strange "metaphorist" prints depicting political malfeasance or social repression. Metaphorism can be linked to the "sour despair and mordant wit" of "literature of the absurd," which is also deeply ingrained in the Eastern European psyche. In art, it's what would happen if Heironymus Bosch drew political cartoons for a daily newspaper. Jacek Gaj's classic metaphorist print "Ladders," features a crush of pudgy hairless figures fighting over an infinite number of ladders. The 1967 linocut remains a timeless comment on bureaucracy, human aspirations, or, as Zurakowska wryly notes, '90s corporate culture. She points out, though, that even with its bizarre dreamlike imagery, metaphorism should not be confused with surrealism which is appropriated from the subconscious. Metaphorism is purposefully and specifically symbolic. Zurakowska believes the consumerism and commercialism that followed democracy to Eastern Europe unfortunately caused a decline in metaphorism and other Polish genres, however, she's optimistic there will be a revival. |