Struggle for freedom. Art for tolerance in Poland

Abstract

An exhibition entitled Love and Democracy was organised by Paweł Leszkowicz for the private Grażyna Kulczyk Gallery in Poznań in 2005. A larger versijon of it was shown at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdańsk in 2006. The curator gathered together various works related to the title. These included individual voices on different kinds of sexuality, love, and desire (e.g., Katarzyna Korzeniecka). Some of the artworks presented a play and change of identity (Maciej Osika). Others, more related to social and political problems, included the aforementioned photos in the Let us see exhibition, and Aleksandra Polisiewicz’s film The Re-animation of Democracy – The March of Equality Moves On, 2005 [fig. 6], which documents a rally in Warsaw supporting the banned Equality March that was brutally suppressed on November 19, 2005 in Poznań. Thus the exhibition also collected some of the earlier strategies, i.e. exploring the issue of Otherness, becoming familiar with Otherness, and destruction of identity. Within the context of this exhibition, the Other stops being an Other, and starts to be one of many of us. The exhibition showed a pluralistic vision of different existing sexualities and identities. Paweł Leszkowicz described it as “plural love stories, multiple sexual narratives, various images of femininity and masculinity”.7 In this way, the exhibition presented a new kind of social order, with a place for Others and for different kinds of desire. According to this point of view, democracy is applied as it should be: “to guarantee the peace and security of all citizens in a multi-sexual society, and to control aggression and violence”.8 This project wasn’t, however, shown in a public space. It appeared in the fairly safe space of the Gallery, and proposed a kind of “impossible Paradise” – a Utopian vision within the context of Polish reality. Again, the earlier strategies – to examine democracy, to move the borders of identities which strictly define our social order, to change the field of visibility from a monolithic to a diverse one – are important. Art for Tolerance is important in the context of a weak Polish democracy. According to Pomian, in a social order, the elimination of differences leads to an atrophy of public life, and is one of the most serious threats facing democracy.9 It is also a great threat for the arts. In his Dekada (The Decade), Piotr Piotrowski recalled a statement by Josif Brodsky: “The non-reading of poetry leads a society to an appalling level of speech skills that makes it easy prey for demagogues and tyrants”.9 If applied to contemporary art in Poland – to the existing attempts to block it, to the covert censorship of Art for Tolerance – these words take on a disturbing new meaning.