Radziszewski also introduced a similar style in his diploma project House – Block – Street (Dom – Blok – Ulica, 2005). The project was conceived as a triptych, consisting of three actions carried out in three different spaces: private – the artist’s parents’ house, semi-private – in a block of flats, and public – in a street. In his parents’ house, he covered some of the walls with the floral pattern of a curtain whose image was preserved in childhood photographs. The third part was a partly illegal action, during which Radziszewski hung photocopied images of Jesus Christ in the streets of Warsaw. The happening was documented on film.
Public and private
The permeation of the private and public space and the tensions arising between them had become a significant element of many projects by Radziszewski. In 2005, he realized two exhibitions, each of which tackled the subject matter in a different way. The first of them was Office (Biuro), which took place at the Information Library of the Warsaw’s Zachęta National Gallery of Art. The artist installed an office of a Białystok company at which his parents worked inside the Gallery’s room. Radziszewski also created painted copies of wall calendars and promotional materials, highlighting the role these objects play in turning the workspace into a more friendly, homely place.
In the same year, Radziszewski opened the exhibition Fags (Pedały) in an apartment in Warsaw’s district of Żoliborz. The show comprised a number of works that the artist had created since 2002, tackling the subject of homosexuality. 'Together, they become a kind of declaration' – Radziszewski said of the set.
The first part of the exhibition was a literal coming-out of the artist – a long picture with the text ‘I am a fag’. The oldest work in that exhibition was a photographic diptych God Hates Fags: God Loves Everyone, Even Niggers (Bóg Nienawidzi Pedałów: Bóg Kocha Wszystkich, Nawet Czarnuchów), produced at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, at Grzegorz Kowalski’s studio. The titular slogans were written on the artist’s forehead and cheek. Most of the works in the show were small-format paintings from the series Man – Object of Desire (Mężczyzna - Przedmiot Pożądania), documenting the process of eroticisation of the masculine body in popular culture. Among the re-painted images, one could find an image of a nude Brad Pitt captured by a paparazzo, Arno Breker’s sculpture, or a still with the cartoon character Johnny Bravo flexing his muscles. The artist placed a quote from the same animation on a pink wall: ‘Man, it must be great being you watching me!’. The choice of a private apartment as the location of the exhibition was not accidental – on one hand, the setting was pointing to the enclosed gay environment, and on the other – to the role of grassroots movements in the efforts towards social emancipation.
Homosexual and erotic themes
The exhibition in Żoliborz was one of the elements of the emerging trend in Polish gay culture, whose most famous manifestation was the book Lubiewo by Michał Witkowski. Radziszewski was the author of Polaroid photographs illustrating the special edition of the book. The provocative DIK Fagazine, a magazine edited and published by the artist, could also be classified as part of that movement.
The gay and erotic themes have also been recurring in the artist’s later works. At the beginning of 2006, Radziszewski made the video-diary Plus/Minus, documenting the difficult moments of waiting for HIV test results. At the beginning of the filming process, the author wasn’t yet aware of the test’s results. The soundtrack was formed out of telephone conversations of the artist confessing doubts regarding the test and a newly started relationship. Radziszewski received the First Prize in the Samsung Art Master competition for this video.
Across Practices and Themes
The gay and family issues present in the artist’s oeuvre came together on the occasion of the 2007 exhibition I Always Wanted (Zawsze Chciałem) at the CCA Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw. The show exposed a certain tension between these two problems, two parallel worlds, for which it was almost impossible to meet. Inside a space resembling the interior of a private apartment, Radziszewski presented his project House (Dom), a part of his diploma work, complemented with some new videos. One of them featured Radziszewski and his grandmother singing the song Praise the Flowery Meadows (Chwalcie Łąki Umajone) – she was sat in a private home, while the artist performed in a professional recording studio.
In another video, the woman crochets a pink balaclava for her grandson (Fag Fighters: Prologue, 2007), probably without suspecting what purpose the hat was going to serve. In the dark exhibition rooms, a collection of videos was shown, among them films presenting activities of a fictional group of gay anarchists called Fag Fighters (wearing pink balaclavas).
When nominated for the Views 2007 Award, Radziszewski created a reading room devoted to his artistic output, also containing documentation of the production process of the project itself, to which he once again invited his family.