Page 62 - Studio International - October 1966

Polish commentary by Frank Whitford

Internationalism and the present scene

There have been frequent opportunities in the last few tion in Polish and German art.
years to become acquainted with Polish art at exhibitions It would in any case have been a formidable task to
in Europe and America. In London, for example, the isolate Poland completely from events in Western Europe.
GRABOWSKI GALLERY has staged many shows illustrating The connexions between Poland and France, for example,
all aspects of the contemporary scene in Poland. In spite have always been strong, and although exchange with
of this the situation there still remains relatively obscure. foreign countries has not been encouraged, some artists
This is partly because the Polish sections at Biennales and manage to spend some time abroad and information
other international exhibitions have been more conserva- about what is going on outside is eagerly sought after.
tive and less representative than they should have been. There has been in fact an almost completely unbroken
I was recently in Warsaw and Cracow. The time allowed line of avant-garde thinking from the 'twenties to the
me was extremely limited and in any case largely occu- present day. It provides the basis for a considerable tradi-
pied by official functions, but there was some chance to tion and is no doubt the strongest factor in the present
Zbigniew Makowski was
born in Warsaw in 1930, inquire, superficially at least, into artistic developments vitality of Polish art.
where he still lives. Makowski there. The new forms of art reached Poland mainly from Paris
who has work in the Museum It is by now recognized that, with the partial exception immediately after the First World War and in Poland as
of Modern Art, N.Y. and of Russia and East Germany, Socialist Realism has few elsewhere it was a stimulating and exciting time. There
other museums is now adherents among the artists in the Communist countries. was a new republic and a great deal of original thought
working almost entirely as a
graphic artist. His highly In Poland it never seems to have gained any foothold went into every kind of activity. In a way reminiscent of
detailed pen drawings, whatever, either officially or among the artists them- what had gone on in Russia, there was a speedy succes-
which make great use of selves. After the war non-figurative art does not seem to sion of avant-garde groupings among artists in Poland.
texts, pieces of handwritten have been suppressed and it continued to develop along Each group had a definite programme and an impressive
prose and intricate geometric lines parallel to those in Western Europe, if at a reduced name.
objects have both a medieval
and mystical quality about speed. There is no doubt that painting, sculpture, and In 1923 students and staff at the Cracow Art Academy
them. He is a highly individual graphic art are far more advanced—in the Western sense formed the 'K.P.', or Paris Committee, which encouraged
artist who belongs to no of the word—in Poland than anywhere else East of the the exchange of ideas between Poland and France, and
definite group. The work Oder-Neisse line. There is also a greater degree of liberal- a year later another group, BLOK, brought together
reproduced here is from ism in Poland than elsewhere within the Soviet sphere of artists interested in Cubism, Constructivism, and Suprem-
Makowski's last period when
he was working with mixed influence. An East German who saw Jan Lenica's short atism, and directed their thoughts toward thinking about
media and with a highly film Monsieur The with me (it allegorizes an unidentified art in relation to society, and particularly in connexion
developed sense of colour. bureaucratic state) doubted if it would be possible to pro- with architecture.
duce anything remotely like it in his country, and a quick Key figures in BLOK were Strzeminski and Stażewski.
Zbigniew Makowski look at the East German section in the Biennale of Strzeminski, author of the `Unism' theory, had worked
Relief Collage 1962
Oil on wood and collage Graphic Art at Cracow was evidence enough that the with Malevich at Vitebsk, and Berlewi, another of the
9 x 32 in. same sort of thing could be said about the relative situa- group's members, had come to know Lissitzky in Berlin.