The Neighbourhood: New Art on the Block

Павел Альтхамер, "Брудно 2000", Варшава, фотография публикуется с любезного позволения Фонда Галереи Фоксал, default, Paweł Althamer, 'Bródno', 2000 Warsaw, photo: courtesy of the Foksal Gallery Foundation, The Neighbourhood: New Art on the Block

#architecture

#visual arts

Sculpture, painting or performance – designers and residents of large blocks of flats have long known that art fits the block developments, tames the geometric blocks, and integrates the residents. There are many proofs of this.

Eleven floors, five separate stairwells, a few hundred apartments, in each: two, three, four residents. This is one of the typical blocks built in the 1970s. Thousands of similar residential buildings exist in Poland, but this one became a work of art just for a moment. In February of 2000, thanks to one of its residents – the artist Paweł Althamer – the block at 13 Krasnobrodzka Street, the residential district of Bródno consisting of large blocks of flats, became the space of artistic activity, whose co-creators were the residents themselves. Althamer persuaded them to turn the lights in their flats either on or off at a specific time. Thanks to this, the number ‘2000’ flashed on the massive facade of the block. No big deal, right? In order for this project to be successful, it was necessary to involve nearly 200 families, many of whom do not have any contact with one another on a daily basis, and what is more, rarely are any of them interested in art. Paweł Althamer, known for his passion for ‘moving art out of the gallery,’ persuaded his neighbours to act together in this action amongst people and with people, which resulted not only in the form of an extraordinary projection on the facade, but also a great event in which 3,000 people participated.

Йенс Хаанинг, «Брудно», 2012 год, фото: Бартош Ставярский / фото публикуется с разрешения Варшавского музея современного искусства — Jens Haaning, 'Bródno', 2012, photo: Bartosz Tworzyrski / courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

Less than 10 years later, the same artist initiated a sculpture park in a large, but not very diverse, residential estate park of Bródno.

Olafur Eliasson, "Negative Glacier Kaleidoscope", 2009, photo: Bartosz Stawiarski / courtesy of the Modern Art Museum in Warsaw — Olafur Eliasson, 'Negative Glacier Kaleidoscope', 2009, photo: Bartoszotworski / courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

Thanks to the cooperation of Althamer, the Targówek District Office, and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Sculpture Park was created – a project that will endeavour for years to come, through which the inter-urban green area is enriched with new works of public art, sculptures, and installations of artists from various corners of the world. The works, varied in content and form, did not change the recreational character of the park, instead making it an open-air exhibition of contemporary art that is open round the clock.

Political sculpture The appearance of works of art on housing estates is not an invention that belongs to our time. During the socrealist years, sculptures and bas-reliefs adorned buildings as well as public spaces, displaying the propaganda messages appropriate to that time (hence figures of miners, steel workers, farmers, teachers – the new working class) and simply decorating the residential areas.

'Boys with a goose' in Tychy, photo: City Hall of Tychy

On the A and B estates in Tychy, built before the small settlement turned into a modernist city organised in a geometric order, many public sculptures were created – such as the delightful Little Bears or the dynamic composition of Boys with a Goose. Standing on the axis of the A estate, Murarka [sculpture of a female bricklayer], a worker, holding a trowel and a small model of a building, is still today one of the symbols of the city and probably the most photographed object in it.

Przekupka dłuta Barbary Zbrożyny (Warsaw Tradeswoman by Barbara Zbrożyna), photo: M. Dąbrowski

Similar sculptural realisations can be seen in Warsaw’s Mariensztat district – erected just after the Second World War, a small, picturesque housing estate, stylised as an idyllic town. Its ambience is co-created by, amongst other things, a sculpture of the ‘Warsaw Tradeswoman’ by Barbara Zbrożyna or a fountain supported by figurines of laughing children, the work of Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz.

Artist versus modernism When in the 1970s, Polish cities began filling themselves with similar complexes of large blocks, within artists the idea was born to give some personality to these monotonous living spaces with works of art. Thus, the program ‘humanization of urban space’ came into existence, within which open air sculptural landscapes were organised, the effects of which remained between the blocks as a hallmark, decoration, as well as an element eliminating anonymity and uniformity of the blocks of flats. One of the largest sculpture complexes preserved to this day is located in Warsaw's Saska Kępa, on the estate on Międzynarodowa Street. Amid several dozen of works, there are abstract and realistic works, of metal, concrete, and various types of stone.

Sculptor Marek Jerzy Moszyński is finishing his sculpture entitled 'Lew' (one of two), which will stand at 6 Puszczyka Street, 1977, photo: Grażyna Rutowska, audiovis.nac.gov.pl (NAC)

A very similar project was initiated in 1977 in the capital city’s Ursynów District. Here, the open air sculptural park took place under the care of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers, and it had its own commissioner – the sculptor Ryszard Stryjecki. A dozen or so sculptures can still be found among the small blocks of the first Ursynów estates of ‘Jara,’ ‘Stokłosy or ‘Nutki.’ The sculpture Boy on a Horse by Władysław Trojan, standing on Cwil Hill – a popular recreation area – is one of the most recognisable elements of Ursynów.

A rider on a horse, Ursynów, photo: Jacek Turczyk/PAP

Sculptures built on residential estates during the People's Poland years, fell into disrepair – their artistic values and social values were undervalued. Only recently some of them have been renovated. The Bielańska Shell had the most luck – which not only regained its glow, but also became a symbol of the entire area.

Thumbnail — Bielańska Shell, photo: Maciej Czerski

Designed along with the estate in the 1950s by Kazimierz and Maria Piechotka, it was an attractive, abstract element of the local playground. Never reconditioned, it fell into ruin, until its charm was appreciated by the culture animator and activist, Anna Brzezińska-Czerska. She convinced neighbours of the idea of repairing the Shell, got money as part of the participatory budget, invited architects from the Centrala Group (who perfectly well understand modernism) to cooperate with her, but also local activists, creators of the Urban Sports Alley – and gave the Bielańska Shell a new life. The sculpture again adorns the playground, but above all, it gained notoriety throughout the city – its artistic value even increased along with the renovation.

Taming the blocks

When in the winter of 2000 Paweł Althamer was discussing the details concerning displaying ‘2000’ on the facade of the block, hardly anyone thought about the fact that the space of the blocks in the new reality should be diversified, tamed, individualised. In 2008, on the facade of the block on 17f Pilotów Street in the Zaspa district of Gdańsk, where Lech Wałęsa lived in the 1980s, a mural was created commemorating the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to the former President. This effort was a reference to the action that took place in the same estate 11 years earlier, when within the framework of artistic activities on the occasion of the millennium of Gdańsk, several blocks were covered in paintings. Since 2009, the Festival Monumental Art has been regularly organised on the residential estate Zaspa; many well-known artists have created their large-format works for large-panel block buildings, and the Monumental Art Collection has over 60 large-format paintings. For many years, the Gdańsk residential district of large blocks of flats has been a major focal point on a tourist’s map – constant groups of foreigners, connoisseurs of murals, can be found wandering between the blocks.

Monumental Painting Festival - Monumental Art 2012 – [Image Gallery]

Embeded gallery style

display gallery as slider

In 2011, the well-known rapper L.U.C. started addressing the blocks. Together with Sokół, he recorded the song Pospolite ruszenie [Mass mobilisation] in which he criticised the ugliness of Polish block developments, especially those decaying under pastel paint as well as chaotic and ugly advertisements.

L.U.C. said:

'My creative style is rather twisted, hence why I do not consider myself to be an aesthetic authority. I do not want to impose anything, but only invite to the debate and to search for cures for the diseased facades and the variegated chaos of our cities in general and encourage people to react to the quickly spreading phenomenon in Poland's residential block estates’ - that he himself called 'colourful leprosy.' The project 'Pospolite ruszenie' [Mass mobilisation] was to support the subdued, appropriate to the scale and place projects of block renovations, to make residents aware that it is worth taking care of the aesthetics of the immediate environment, and the promotion of the ideas of young artists.

Get to know your block Between 1973-1979, on the southern outskirts of Warsaw, Janusz Nowak, Piotr Sembrat, and Jerzy Kuźmienko designed a residential estate located in a former village, on a green, hilly terrain. Even today, the estate Służew nad Dolinka is one of the most neighbourly places to live, which does not mean that its residents should not be helped when it comes to understanding the surroundings better. In 2011, the Odblokuj Association [Unblock Association] (whose president and co-founder is Marlena Happach, currently the chief architect of Warsaw) set up a pavilion there, being a 1: 1 scale model of the M-3 flats typical of this housing estate.

In the pavilion and its surroundings meetings, workshops, activities for young and old were organized throughout the summer – all aimed at integrating the residents, expanding their knowledge about the housing estate, and about designing common spaces. Similar installations, being a pretest to the debates and meetings, the Odblokuj Association also created on two other Warsaw estates – Muranów and Rakowiec.

The estates – regardless of whether they were built from large-panel blocks or the new and gated ones – often act as a field of activity for the designer, educator, and culture animator Iza Rutkowska. The large estate was one of the places where Rutkowska planted a huge, soft bear.

'Przytulanka' (Cuddly toy) by Zofia Rutkowska, photo: artist's materials

The large ‘cuddly toy’ encouraged reactions, intrigued, but also disturbed the geometric order of the residential estate. Iza Rutkowska also developed special costumes, in which she dressed the participants of the ‘Live Fence’ project. By dressing as thujas, people were supposed to better understand how the modern craze for fencing – separating themselves from their surroundings – was destructive to human ties and social relations.

Art is raising prices

Art helps in making a space more familiar, building a sense of identity and community, stimulates and activates. And also... raises the prices of the flats. Modern developers know this perfectly well, who eagerly place works of well-known artists in newly built housing estates. The investor who built the Idea Residential Complex in Gdańsk ensures that his project was created in cooperation with a group of Tri-city artists. He says:

IDEI was created by renowned artists – painters, graphic artists, photographers, sculptors – whose works enrich the facades and common parts of the residential complex.

The next stages of the development of the residential complex gave them their ‘styles’ (neoplasticism and street art), highlighted by the works of collaborating artists.

The developer who built the Żoliborz Artystyczny [Artistic Żoliborz, trans. AD] estate in Warsaw went even further with his attempts to integrate art into housing architecture. Here, the streets bear the names of well-known artists (from Kalina Jędrusik Street to Czesław Niemen Square), the yards and courtyards are filled with small architecture, created by artists and designers, and the facades were decorated by graphic artists as well as painters. Piotr Młodożeniec created a mural inspired by the poems of Jerzy Ficowski, Rafał Dominik – a neon in honour of Krzysztof Komeda, Olga Wolniak (who is in charge of the creative supervision of the entire estate), who painted a monochrome mural in the memory of Hilary Krzysztofiak.

Artistic Żoliborz, photo: developer's promotional materials

Neighbourhood art can have different faces. It can criticize and embellish, spur one into action, integrate as well as intrigue, but its most vital role is certainly to give individual character to spaces that are too often deprived of individualism. Works of art help one identify with their surrounding area, to learn to like and appreciate it, get to know neighbours, do something together with them. And so it may turn out, that residential blocks are actually not such a bad place to live.

Translated from Polish by Agnes Dudek

Language English

iza rutkowska

paweł althamer

murals

contemporary polish art

Soviet Block

contemporary art