248 Dirk Gebhardt Slanted 28—Warsaw - Goethe · 2016. 11. 16. · super super. KATARZYNA MARCIN...

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FONTARTEWASZ FA typeface2016Places of Origin: Polish Graphic Design in ContextDesignMarch in Reykjavik Poster

The Wild West, A History of Wrocław’s Avant-Garde2015 Zachęta National Gallery of ArtBook

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Kosmos wzywa! Cosmos Calling! 2014 Zachęta, National Gallery of ArtBook accompanying the exhi-bition Cosmos Calling! Art and Science in the Long Sixties

Miss Swiss 2 2014 Pro Helvetia and Fontarte Editions Exhibition Catalog for Piktogram Gallery

artur frankowski magdalena frankowska

ARTUR MAGDALENA

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Artist-run initiatives and galleries2015SZTUKA CIĘ SZUKABook

Across realities, Wojciech Bruszewski2015Arton FoundationBook


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The M-Z Route—exhibition 2015Hanna Kokczyńska, Jacek Majewski, Marcin Romaniuk, Monika Piekoszewska, Joanna PamułaNational Museum of Poland Spacial and Visual DesignBook 8th Art & Fashion Forum Chic Geek 2014 Jacek Majewski, Hanna Kokczyńska, Mikołaj Molenda, Studio Bridge, Jacek Kołodziejski, David Błażewicz, Rafał Grobel, Stary Browar Promo Campaign for Fashion and Technology Festival

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KATARZYNA MARCIN

NOVIKIInstitute for Advanced Study Warsaw 2016Identity and Poster

katarzyna nestorowicz marcin nowicki

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NOTHING TWICE 2015Cricoteka, CracowExhibition Identity and Book

The Make Yourself at Home Guide to Warsaw2016Anna Ptak, Rani al Rajji, Christiaan Fruneaux, Edwin Gardner (Monnik)Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski CastleSubjective Guide to WarsawBook→ see also p. XX ff., XX ff., XX ff.

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SYFON STUDIOURSZULA

FILIP

POST / ERA2015 / 2016Institute of Design Kielce Poster series 70 × 100 cm

urszula tofilfilip tofil


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50/50/50201650 posters of 50 graphic design-ers for the 50th anniversary of International Poster Biennale in Warsaw


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EDGARBĄK STUDIO

edgar bąk studioedgar bąk studio

The Anatomy of Love2016Centrum Nauki KopernikPoster

ATypI conference 201660th annual conference of ATypIPosters


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edgar bąk studio

BREATHE2014Piotr Holub, Pawel Marcinkowski, Michal PawlikMamastudioMarbling Project

Autor Rooms2016Magdalena Ponagajbo, Konrad SybilskiHotel Identity


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JACEK UTKODe Morgen2014In cooperation with Arne DepuydtRedesign of the Belgian daily Newspaper


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De Morgen2014In cooperation with Arne DepuydtRedesign of the Belgian daily Newspaper


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Pollywood2016Blue Bird Publishing houseBook and Poster, B1


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zerkaj studio

Poster Expo with Andrzej Wróblewski painting2015The Art of Poster Gallery / Modern Art Museum WarsawPoster, B1, Offset

Wine holiday Janowiec 2015Malopolska Wine producers association Poster, B1, Offset

Ryszard Kajzer—posters Bits & Pieces Gallery2015Poster, B1, Bits and Pieces


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�OSŁAW British Steel 1980 Judas Priest CD Cover


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XX Muzeum Jazz Festival 2015Ostrów Wielkopolski / PolandPoster


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G�ZEGORZ

Warsaw Calling2015Theatrical Poster


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TR Warszawa Theatre2015–2016Posters


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Janek Koza

Janek KozaDawid RyskiPiotr Socha

Agata KrólakOla Niepsuj

Tomasz WalentaTymek JezierskiAgata Nowicka

Agata Dudek

Typeface: Polish Dirty News, designed by Piotr Wozniak (066.FONT)

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Agata DudekAgata Nowicka

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→ 251Slanted 28—WarsawEssay→ 251 Pierwsze pokolenia 1900–1945

PIERWSZEPOKOLENIA1900–1945

PIOTR RYPSON

essay

Poland in the early twentieth century was not featured on the map of Europe, be‑ing parceled into three partitions and subject to various political, economic and cultural influences. The most liberal of these areas was the Austrian partition, and Cracow, the former capital and seat of Polish kings, served as the symbolic center of this supposedly non‑existent country, with a significant part of Poland’s artistic, literary and publishing activities being concentrated in that city. So it is no sur‑prise that the vast majority of pioneers of twentieth century design, such as the later to be discussed Karol Frycz, Wojciech Jastrzębowski, Bonawentura Lenart, Adam Półtawski and many others that could not be fitted in this volume (Edmund

Bartłomiejczyk, Antoni Procajłowicz, Ludwik Misky, Zygmunt Kamiński, Władysław Skoczylas) came from Cracow or at least

were educated at its Academy of Fine Arts.

Shaped in an environment steeped in the symbolism and works of Art Nouveau, these young artists were entering adult life at the beginning of a new century. For this generation, the best indicators of the new aesthetic currents were the English Arts and Crafts movement, and especially, thanks to its direct cultural and admin‑istrative proximity, the Wiener Werkstätte, founded in 1903 by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser. In Cracow, work on artistic issues had already been under‑way at the end of the previous century. The Polish Society of Applied Arts (1901) along with its main organizer, the critic Jerzy Warchałowski, was examining is‑sues of “design” in arts and crafts and applied graphics, though with still no clear connection with industrial production1. The activities of the armir (acronym standing for Architecture, Sculpture, Painting and Crafts) Group, supported by the Science and Industry Museum, and the rise of the Cracow Workshops (1913) crys‑tallized the artistic environment of those seriously involved in graphic design, among whom were such eminent artists as the renowned book arts connois ‑ seur and practitioner Bonawentura Lenart, the extremely versatile Wojciech Jastrzębowski—painter, graphic artist, letterer and creator of bas‑reliefs and tapes‑tries, or the painter, graphic artist and stage designer popular two decades later, Zofia Stryjeńska. However, the Cracow and Warsaw publishing centers were insuf‑ficient for a more dynamic development of graphic design—what was needed were state‑funded public service commissions and modern, capitalist advertising. These

two driving forces were only launched a dozen or so years later, with the advent of the reborn Polish state.

Poland reappeared on the map of Europe in 1918. The architects of the new state faced the mammoth task of merging three culturally different territories devas‑tated by war, lying within borders that had undergone alterations and revisions by force of arms, ethnically very diverse and shaken by internal and external de‑stabilizing forces. The search for a national style undertaken at that time was closely associated with the birth of the new state. Intertwined in this process were more conservative tendencies, represented by the above‑mentioned Cracow

The graphic artists and designers pre‑sented in this article belong to the first three generations of artists, who were to set the directions and paths of development for graphic design in Poland. The first of these are artists born in the eighties of the 19th centu‑ry, the second—those who came into the world in the following decade, while the third group comprises de‑signers born in the 20th century. This distinction is not for the sake of any bookkeeping order—its importance stems from the great acceleration of Polish history in the first half of the twentieth century. Despite the fact that mere decades separated them, each of these generations began their creative careers and professional

work under very different circumstances.


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environment, with the aspirations of the Formists group that were shaped during the First World War. In short, as Piotr Piotrowski put it using the terminology of Rogers Brubaker, there had been an attempt towards “nationalization of modern‑ism.”2 In that first decade of independence, neither Bunt—the Poznan–Berlin soci‑ety of expressionists nor, inevitably, the Jewish expressionists of the Jung Idysz

group achieved such a position as the Formists or the Rytm group, created following their breakup (1922), which included,

among others, Skoczylas and Kamiński.

Tytus Czyżewski—cover. Tytus Czyżewski, Zielone oko. Poezje formistyczne. Elektryczne wizje, Gebethner i s‑ka, Cracow: 1920.

As Piotrowski summed up that process, “such modernism—‘soft’ and filtered through the tastes of the middle class, with its eclectic combination of folklore, classicism and modernity—met the expectations of the new Second Republic. It re‑mained in line with the new state’s national policy.”3 The representatives of this circle obtained the first major government contacts for the design of postage stamps and banknotes, and were elected to key positions in cultural institutions and art schools4. This formation’s crowning success internationally was the award‑winning Polish pavilion at the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925, the popularity of which consoli‑

dated the modernist‑nationalist tendency in Poland for many years to come. The ethno design formula’s popularity in Poland to this day

may testify to just how effective this strategy proved5.

Cracow quite quickly lost its position as the leading cultural center of the country, being usurped by Warsaw, the capital and thus the seat of the most important gov‑ernment offices, and soon to become not only the political, but also the economic center of Poland. The work of the Cracow based art circle was suddenly labeled passé by its antagonists and the younger generation, seeing it as a continuation of Art Nouveau and folk deco. For that circle’s members themselves, it was a search for new forms of expression; as Jastrzębowski himself wrote: “We were fighting against rubbish, the imitation of past styles and the use of so‑called folk motifs.”6

Along with Warsaw’s graphic artists, such as Edmund Bartłomiejczyk and Józef Tom, they were at that time creating a decorative style, but one that evoked homely motifs, quite quickly seen as conservative traditionalism. Offering their talents to

state institutions, they were treated by the more radical artistic circles as representatives of official state art. This generation at the same time

constituted the first induction of art and graphic design educators in Poland.

The second generation presented in this chapter—those artists that were born in the last decade of the 19th century—made their debut in an already independent Poland. Freed from the obligation of striving for a national art form, they repre‑sented a broad range of political attitudes and chose extremely different paths of

development. Mieczysław Szczuka and Teresa Żarnower became involved with the communist movement and produced refined propaganda graphics, modeled on Soviet productivism; Władysław Strzemiński and Henryk Stażewski created con‑structivist art in the spirit of works having complete autonomy, like Henryk Berlewi, initially closely associated with the expressionist trend in Jewish art. In turn, Tadeusz Gronowski and Stefan Norblin, who were primarily devoted to de‑signing book and magazine covers and posters, were representatives of a genera‑tion already strongly entrenched in the new market realities of the Second Republic, providing professional graphic design services for a new middle class,

and also becoming involved in the modernization of graphic design,though conceived in quite a different way.

Tadeusz Gronowski—poster for to-To magazine, 1925

They all began their purely artistic and design activities in the none too favorable environment of a country plagued by poverty and galloping inflation, torn by growing political conflict. Poverty and inflation hampered the development of the advertising market, with publishers going bankrupt or hoping to sit out the market collapse. It was the stabilization of the currency in 1924–1925 that finally released the country’s economic dynamics. The proliferation of cheap pocket‑book series (beginning with Biblioteka Groszowa, a penny library) and other publishing

STEREO,SUPER

QUALITYOLGA

DRENDA

K67s appear all over— Warsaw, Lodz, Koszalin, Legnica, Częstochowa.

They are considered modern and tasteful. The local papers inform one about this with satisfaction. K67s and similar, later models produced by the Kami company find various uses: from an ordinary newsagent’s kiosk, through to a kebab bar or even a security guard’s or police officer’s booth. The modular kiosks are treated as a means to cure the chaotic urban space, hence in 1991 an original Polish project appears—Mini Menu—small, white‑and‑red pavilions made of laminate, fully equipped, some

even with gardens.

Booths, kiosks, camper vans—rough‑and‑ready solutions. Small‑scale architecture, street furniture.

The beginning of the war in Yugoslavia stops the export of kiosks to Poland. Those brought here earlier fade in the sun and become the canvases for their owners’ in‑ventions, which often follow the rules of horror vacui. Covered with letters cut from adhesive plastic, and later the increasingly aggressive adverts of mobile phone providers, their color draining away, they are eventually abandoned and buried under a growing layer of dust. Like the homeless FSO Syrena cars from a few years before, Yugoslavian kiosks often go up in flames. A puddle of melted

plastic leaves the impression that a standoff with a Terminator took place.

Kami booths, made in Lodz, even become a focus of anger in the new millennium. Their temporary, makeshift nature causes annoyance; plastic turns from a symbol of modernity into an eyesore. Activists from the “Group of Certain Persons” demand removal of the kiosks from city centers. The authorities announce a contest for a new kiosk, which will “refer to Lodz’s Art Nouveau past;” this is no surprise, as in the new century one must boast pre‑WWII heritage in order to carry the seal of good taste. Meanwhile, students from the University of Lodz and Justus Liebig University in Giessen turn the Kami into a time capsule and even transport one—fitted with a

One can often find them in photo‑graphs dated 1989, 1990 or 1991—

they seem to haunt the frames: Niewiadów‑brand camper vans

turned into makeshift grocery shops or fast‑food bars serving zapiekanki

(open‑face grilled baguettes) and Polish‑style hot‑dogs with mush‑rooms, sometimes simply named

“stuffed buns.” These sunlit scenes are captured at the height of the food

poisoning season. The TV warns of an epidemic, advises one to avoid milk, ice cream and—God forbid—

eggs. “Salmonella, I don’t love you,” sing post‑punk band Klaus Mit Foch

(after splitting with original singer Lech Janerka, who will become a

punk poet in the mode of Julian Cope).

Later, Yugo‑kiosks appear on the streets. Picture this: a stream of people move down the pavement—blonde perms, denim jackets. Every now and again someone stops, leans over a shopping stall. The red roof of a K67 kiosk stands out from the blue‑and‑grey crowd. This neat modular booth, designed by the Slovenian Saša J. Mächtig, is a 1960s project, but it materializes in Poland in the middle of the transformation period. After introducing “Wilczek’s bill,” which liberalized the private enterprise laws, as the streets are crowded with makeshift huts peddling a hodgepodge of items, the city authorities give an ultimatum to the vendors: you can sell your cassettes and sweets, but only in a “clean Yugoslavian kiosk.”

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TV showing video footage, recordings of Lodz’s soundscape, a radio, net curtains, a folded seat and a poster of Pope John Paul II—to Germany, both as a souvenir and an

ironic example of traditional Polish handcraft.

But before all of this happens, the Polish transformation slowly gathers pace. The kiosks serve as an alternative to the makeshift market stalls, and the fast‑food bars compete with the scruffy, state‑owned eateries. Melancholic synthesizer melodies rule the public ear. Rock critics despise these songs for “disco mules,” but the average Pole chooses mixes played by TV DJ Marek Sierocki: of Italo disco, Dieter Bohlen, C.C. Catch, Sandra; their songs blast out from boomboxes and circulate nationwide in the form of compilations, for example those sold by a businessman from the town of Łomianki near Warsaw—Wojciech Brzezicki. To each of his tapes he adds a clause: “B.W. is a trademark of Wojciech Brzezicki Music Laboratory,” and the symbol of a crown with the words “Fono‑Audio‑Video” inscribed on it. His compilations, all named Eurodisco, carry distinct cover designs. On a background of basic colors, there’s usually a soft‑porn photo, the B.W. Records logo, and a technological invoca‑tion: STEREO, SUPER QUALITY. A few covers stand out from this pattern, such as Eurodisco 13 / 90 with the ALF character instead of a topless model, or 15 / 90 with its heartfelt appeal: “If you care for your country, vote for Wałęsa.” Brzezicki will soon be followed by other crafty businesspeople using a similar template—the “Zibi Disco Service” compilations, or those released by labels such as Marvel and Sawiton. Eventually, B.W. himself will come to focus on charity work in the 1990s, participat‑

ing in a humanitarian convoy to Sarajevo, and sending donations to poverty‑stricken children

in the Bieszczady Mountains.

One of the compilation‑based labels is called BRAWO. It’s possible that you’ll spot its logo on a Yugo‑kiosk in the photographs. The owner, Leszek Dziugieł from the town of Mrozy, likes to stress the advanced nature of his enterprise, described as a

“professional duplication studio:” “Only BRAWO tapes will make your time pleasant due to guaranteed recording quality and the choice of musical repertoire”, the covers announce. The content’s class is supposedly assured by a “music consultant;” some‑times, it’s the mysterious “K. Zieliński,” but also a genuinely famous radio DJ, Marek Niedźwiecki, host of the cult Channel 3 Top 40 countdown. Later, he’ll admit to being deceived: “Now I know it’s piracy. But two years earlier, things weren’t as obvious. For a year, I prepared ambitious pop mixtapes for them, similar in style to the music

I play on the radio. When I realized they signed Sandra’s tapes with my name, I broke up with them,”

he explains.

The problem was that the legal chaos of the early 1990s made such activities perfect‑ly legitimate, and publishers even contributed payments to the Association of Polish Authors and Composers (none of which were ever seen by the original artists). Journalist Wojciech Soporek writes a guide on how to bootleg Lambada, a major hit. “It suffices to obtain a street vendor’s license and register yourself with the Association of Polish Authors and Composers. And here we go: we have to buy, at an old price, a few thousand pre‑recorded tapes (clean ones are more expensive) from an official publisher, with some unmarketable stuff like Kołobrzeg Military Song Festival, Iwona Niedzielska or others. Then, we make a copy from our own ‘original material.’ The original material is usually a rented compact disc, sometimes recorded from the radio,” he explains. The press also publish the “Confessions of a Pirate”—recollections of his pioneering years. “As you remember, there were no blank tapes on sale in the early 80s, but there were cassettes for kids or releases by our notable stage singers. Nobody wanted those. I bought them in bulk, removed the captions on the cassette with acetone, and threw the official covers into the bin. My tapes simply had black and white photos on the cover. How did I record them? I put a master tape, made from a Western record, into a Polish stereo, to which six to ten other tape recorders were connected. I tweaked them a little, so the sound from the master tape would go through each recorder”, recalled the anonymous publisher of Elvis, Boney M. and Polskie Orły (Polish Eagles)—a bawdy folk band, one of the forefathers of the looming

“disco polo” genre explosion.

Soon, new technologies allowed for more than the “garden shed” productions, and the sound of the cassette from the tenth recorder in a row would finally become free of noise. Around 1992, the master tape was commonly replaced by a CD, usually a

bootleg itself, bought at budget price from Thailand, and the number of stereos simultaneously duplicating the same material rose to a few dozen.

Bookshops, music stores, video rentals and department store halls become the homes for “tape recording venues,” perfectly legal enterprises. Official music distributors such as Tonpress, Wifon and Polskie Nagrania work slowly and in too‑small runs, while listeners hungrily demand new music. Wholesalers (semi‑legal labels which


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Me: OK. Ahem ... .

Spirit Animal.I was walking through the park. The redolent, base scent of ginkgo trees akin to a few thousand sperm samples gone spoilt wafted through the park. It was a good

day to be the God of the City.

“Fuck craft,” I thought to myself quite randomly. Like, really randomly. I’ve ad‑vised a few thesis students through their years‑long grapplings with conceptions of design and craft. I offered readings on Hannah Arendt, John Sennett and Kenya Hara amongst indeterminable others, and tried to pepper our conversations with bits of sagely‑seeming advice. One of my go‑to’s was the translation of the Japanese term “kirimomi,” a metaphor for craftspersonship. An actual kirimomi is a hand drill—a simple smooth, thin and pointed wooden dowel. By rubbing one’s hands consistently and at protracted length, one can become a true master of one’s craft,

drilling deeper and deeper into it.

And I stood amongst a bunch of stinky‑ass trees and thought to myself, “Who wants to use a hand drill in the age of affordable desktop laser cutters and a pre‑fabri‑cated ‘maker’ systems? It’s totally antithetical to contemporary societal leanings.” And I breathed in that gnarly, noxious, soupy aroma and watched someone walk by wearing one of those assorted Helvetica + ( ) tee‑shirts and I was stoked that

someone still does, even if it wasn’t that guy.

Rat: Sounds familiar. . Me: Come over here, babe. It’s not that bad. .

Rat: Thanks, honey. .

Good night, Jen. Give my regards to Łazienki Park.

Hugs, Ian

NotesSo where did you think I was going with this? Most proper graphic deign writing doesn’t have talking rats, excessive stuff about old loves and suggested approaches to creative writing. If you

were thinking that, then you got the point: most graphic design writing today is boring. Within, I tried some strategies that are antithetical to what we assume “good” design writing is:

1. Use an odd form, e.g. a letter.2. Make it personal.3. Or seemingly personal—most of this is fictive.4. Throw in some incredibly painful true things.5. Be crass, but honestly so.6. Fuck good. Bring the weird.


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A Letter ...

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THE POLISH EXHIBITION OF GRAPHIC

SYMBOLSRENE WAWRZKIEWICZ

In May 1969 the Polish Exhibition of Graphic Symbols opened at the

gallery of the Union of Polish Artists and Designers (ZPAP) at

11 Mazowiecka Street in Warsaw. This was the first display of

contemporary logotypes in Poland’s history and as such an event that

charted a new course in Polish applied graphic design.

Towards the end of the 1960s two recognized graphic design artists,

Stefan Bernaciński and Jan Hollender, drew up a conceptual plan

for an exhibition devoted to Polish graphic symbols. The idea was

enthusiastically received by deign circles, and received the approval of

the Communist authorities. The Union of Polish Artists and Designers

(ZPAP) was designated the official organizer, and an organizational

committee was appointed, as well as a qualifying jury comprising the

cream of Polish contemporary designers: Andrzej Heidrich, Jan

Hollender, Tadeusz Pietrzyk, Karol Śliwka and Stanisław Töpfer.

Hollender was appointed chief commissioner of the exhibition.

Preparations for the show began in 1968, and towards the end of the year a call for submissions was announced. Artists and designers could submit symbols created between 1945 and 1969 in three categories: logos designed and executed; designs entered in state competitions; and updates, i.e. designs for proposed changes or mod‑ifications to existing symbols. Artists were to send in their works in the form of hand‑painted and plotted 50 x 50‑cm display boards. Of the 814 symbols sent in, the competition commission selected 335 which were shown at the exhibition and thereby entered the Polish design canon.

The First Polish Exhibition of Graphic Symbols was officially opened in May 1969. The vernissage was attended by designers, members of ZPAP, representatives of several industry‑related ministries, and a large public audience. At the opening state medals and diplomas were awarded to artists including Tadeusz Pietrzyk, Karol Śliwka, Leon Urbaniec, and—posthumously—Wojciech Zamecznik.


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The exhibition showcased the best of Polish contemporary design—logos for facto‑ries, enterprises, state institutions and cultural events, as well as original designs and competition entries that were never executed. Among the logos on display were those of Pekao—Państwowa Kasa Oszczędnościowa (the State Savings Bank); the fashion house Moda Polska, which had a chain of fashion stores throughout Poland; CPN (Centrala Produktów Naftowych, the state petroleum distribution en‑terprise); Dom Handlowy “Telimena” (the Telimena Department Store); and a new symbol for PKP—Polskie Koleje Państwowe (Polish State Railway) that was never rolled out. The authors of the works exhibited included both the best Polish graphic artists of the day, such as Ryszard Bojar, Roman Duszek, Jan Hollender, Emilia Nożko‑Paprocka, Karol Śliwka and Leon Urbański, and others not associated with

logo design, such as the master of the Polish poster design school Henryk Tomaszewski, the author of the logotype for the

publishing house Wydawnictwo “Czytelnik.”

The First Polish Exhibition of Graphic Symbols attracted great contemporary in‑terest, in both design circles and the broader public. It toured several Polish cities, including Wroclaw and Poznan, and was even taken abroad, to countries including the German Democratic Republic. It was instrumental in taking interest in graphic design to a higher level and in bringing the new field of applied graphic design to a wider audience in Poland. In subsequent years design projects began to grow be‑yond individual logotypes to extensive visual identification systems such as the comprehensive designs for the Union of Electronic Industry Enterprises (UNITRA)

and for the Polish national airline Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT. The first such uni‑fied, complex visual identification package was created in 1967 for CPN by Ryszard Bojar, Jerzy Słowikowski and Stefan Solik. As such, the 1969 Polish Exhibition of

Graphic Symbols, the brainchild of Jan Hollender and Stefan Bernaciński, had an undeniable impact on the development

of Polish graphic design.

OWZG 1969. Photo by Tadeusza Cialowicz.

Since the end of the 1960s, however, no subsequent exhibition or publication has been produced that would provide a comprehensive overview of the development of Polish graphic symbols and visual identification, which from a contemporary perspective seems astonishing given both the approval of the contemporary au‑thorities for the initiative of the Bernaciński‑Hollender duo and the fact that it opened up a new chapter in the history of Polish graphic design. Most paradoxi‑

cally, since 1989, i.e. since the political transformations in Poland, the First Polish Exhibition of Graphic Symbols has fallen into

almost complete oblivion.

Tools, 1969. Photo by Hanna Jakobczy.

In 2014 Patryk Hardziej, a student of the Faculty of Graphic Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, did his diploma project as a book on Polish modernist sym‑bols, entitled Polskie znaki graficzne [Polish graphic symbols]. This project elicited an enthusiastic reaction in Polish graphic design circles, in part due to the fact that

LOVE IN RUINS

IWONA KURZ“All of them are young, and their memo‑ries span no further than ruins”—wrote Adam Ważyk in A Poem for Adults (1955) pointing at the process of erasing the past of Poland in the new communistic realm. The task was relatively easy as the end of the war left Warsaw—after the ghetto up‑rising in 1943, the Warsaw uprising in 1944 and the methodic destruction by the German troops—in rubble. The City space and its architecture stand for one of the most important dimensions of love rela‑tions in Warsaw after WW2. The city and the affects of its inhabitants were closely tied with a knot of stone. The love narra‑tions tell the story of relations that were impossible because they were situated in a city collapsing into ruins, or in a city lacking private apartments because it had been ruined. The counter‑image con‑sists of modern build ings promising a “happy ever‑after” within the socialist family and—after 1989—a consumption candy packed in glass walls. “Glass hous‑es,” the myth of transparent, hygienic apartments avail ‑able to everyone, the myth built upon the legend of Crystal Palace, turned into corporations head‑quarters and a new promise land of big media and not so small money (“let’s not

talk about money”).

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→ 249 Love in Ruins

1.The first, and still prevailing, still circulating image—as in The Canal (1957) by Andrzej Wajda or City ’44 (2014) by Jan Komasa—is the image of lovers on the ground zero of a non‑existing city, in the post‑apocalyptic landscape. Love is their last breath, or perhaps, their one that lasts until after death. They seem like zom‑bies, severely wounded, blinded by gas, raped and already dead, but they still cling to each other in a mortal embrace. This Polish version of romanticism, a legacy of the great literature of the first quarter of nineteenth century, included appear‑ances of ghosts and phantoms and invited all dead to the common circle with the living. It did not need a real setting for the great affect of love in which Mother

were transformed into Lover, but then all the females had became Homeland (female noun in Polish).

Still from Warsaw 44, the movie directed by Jan Komasa, 2014.

2.These ruins were supposed to be forgotten, and the new city was to be constructed on rubble (and partly out of them, as in the case of the new stadium). Socialist real‑ism imagination did not want any pain or trouble, and it hid the rubble out of view. The modernist part of contemporary Warsaw rose tall, and the romanticism of con‑struction superseded the romanticism of bloody fight. There were workers and “girls”—whom to love? The choice of the man on the painting Figures (1950) by Wojciech Fangor—a painter who designed seven new metro stations in Warsaw (2014)—seems confirmed and final. He holds tightly his strong colleague, both leaning firmly on their spades. The girl in white dress and yellow sunglasses is in‑terposed as a stranger, an alien from some outskirts of the Western world. But their gazes reveal a desire, don’t they? A longing for consumption rather than pro‑duction? For so‑called femininity? The picture painted in the very heart of socialist realism seems ambivalent from a contemporary point of view as it underlines the idea of gender equality based on undoing gender differences. Perhaps the proper

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Homeless lovers in Eighth Day of the Week (1957) by Aleksander Ford had chance to spend one night in the Department Store (later on called Smyk). The huge win‑dows of this modern building (1948) mirrored promises of a new world (a world of goods). The dream was limited in itself. And the movie, based on a story by Hłasko, was put off on a shelf, acknowledged as too dark a picture of the socialist reality. The characters of Innocent Sorcerers (1960) by Andrzej Wajda explored fashion‑able cafés and used stylish props as a scooter, a tape recorder and a flat at Chmielna Street. These young, though stylish ones, depicted themselves as a bit cynical, a bit deprived of strong feelings. Love seemed impossible in the city after totalitarian war and totalitarian ideology attack. Warsaw became post‑affect or post‑pathos

city. Sometimes in the background, the careful spectator mig

4.In the sixties and seventies TV series and comedies made a love nest out of block of flats in modern style. The favorite parts of Warsaw were the new housings, for ex‑ample around Senatorska Street (in War at Home, 1966), or “Żoliborz Orchards”(in Broiled Squabs, 1966), and “Behind the Iron Gate” (in Being Forty, 1975, displaying also the very city center and the construction of the Central Railway Station). The interiors were made out of things designed by “Ład” (Orderliness) Association. The society of “little stabilization,” as sixties were nicknamed, had little dreams and little chances to fulfill them, but movies offered a nice façade for all possible (to speak out) problems. The movies depicted availability of progress and normality. There was one condition: flats were “given” to married couples and success of get‑ting your own apartment was strictly connected to a romantic story ending with a visit at the civil registration office. Sometimes—as in A Man from M–3 (1968, dir. Leon Jeannot)—a flat comes first (in a tall building at Smolna Street), yet it will not

be allowanced without a wife. Should she be nice and able to cook ...

In the seventies common living under one roof failed more and more often. Young couples living with their parents and/or other members of the family could not stand them—and themselves. Family crisis rose on the base of lack of your own room. So called moral concern of Polish cinema in the decade included fight over ideological differences in approach toward socialist state and over adultery. Stanisław Bareja’s comedies grasped the moment in which one cannot get rid of their wife or husband from the flat in which a spouse had been registered, or you

get divorced to be allowed to keep two flats.

The Palace of Culture and Science symbolically dominated the city’s landscape. Though ideology was obviously hollow in these days, the power stood strong enough. Or it seemed so. TV series Alternatives Street 4 (again by Stanisław Bareja, already in 1983, but broadcast in 1986) depicted a post‑ideological land‑scape of

modernization failure: collapsing flats full of glitches.

slogan would be: let’s not love each other, let us love the city we are building. And let’s wear the same uniforms as in the final scene of Mariensztat Adventure (1954)

by Leopold Buczkowski, where eternal “Gender War” was sublimed in the competition of both gender bricklayers.

Wojciech Fangor, Figures, 1950, oil on canvas, 100 × 125 cm, Museum of Art in Lodz.

3. Yet it’s hard to love without a roof over one’s head, especially in a cold continental climate. In the mid fifties, on the wave of political “thaw” pictures again displayed ruins, still un‑re‑built. Streets became flooded with girls like the one on Fangor’s painting: well‑dressed, seeming smart and living to non‑socialist patterns. They were called “kociaki” (kittens? a bit of skirt?). Yet, as Marek Hłasko, stylish writer of the time put it: There was no place for their love. Ten years after the war the

available flats were congested with people and / or threatened with collapse.

ht see ruins.

Still from Ósmy dzień tygodnia (Eighth Day of the Week), the movie directed by Aleksander Ford, 1957.

248 Dirk Gebhardt Slanted 28—Warsaw - Goethe · 2016. 11. 16. · super super. KATARZYNA MARCIN...

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