Paweł Althamer's Draughtsman's Congress at the 7th Berlin Biennale
Żmijewski and Warsza's vision for the 2012 Biennale of Contemporary Art in Berlin is one without fear, an art world intricately tied with politics and not afraid to stand up for the rights of its citizens
Żmijewski's body of work is centred around social experimentation, which he sets up and documents, but does not attempt to control. Rather, he allows natural social forces to take effect and follow their course, which demonstrates the exceedingly tendentious nature of many human behaviours - even the most horrifying examples of the lengths people will go to inflict domination, humiliation, pain and death upon others based on even the most minute differences between the oppressor and the oppressed - differences large and small, ideological or purely physical. Often, the shock value of the image overwhelms its message, drawing intense reactions and angry protest. In his piece, Karich spells out a laundry list of the artist's more anguishing projects, such as documenting the process of a former concentration camp victim refreshing the prisoner number tattooed on his hand, urged to do so by Żmijewski himself, or his Tag video which depicts a group of naked people frolicking in what later turns out to be a gas chamber. The latter work was quietly removed from a major exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau museum last year. Side by Side. Poland - Germany. 1000 years of Art and History presented a timeline of cultural ties and breaks between the two neighbouring nations through the works of major German and Polish artists over the centuries up through today. A month after the exhibition opened, the video was removed in late October after members of the Jewish community complained about the work, justified by this brief statement from Museum director Gereon Sievernich: "Out of respect for the victims of concentration camps and their descendants the Royal Castle in Warsaw, our partners and the Martin-Gropius-Bau have decided not to show the piece in the museum".
Fresh on the heels of that unfortunate incident - made all the more unfortunate because of the museum's reluctance to stand behind its choice to exhibit the work in the first place and its quickness in succumbing to protests in order to avoid a fuss - now Berlin quavers as critical voices begin to sound, casting doubt on whether the choice of Żmijewski as Biennale curator was a valid one. His appointment has the support of Germany's National Cultural Foundation and comes with a cash fee of about two million euros. The selection of an artist, rather than a professional curator, is a surprise in itself, albeit a forward-thinking move that has often been promoted by the likes of Jens Hoffmann. Żmijewski is not the first Pole to curate the Berlin Biennale - Poland's Adam Szymczyk teamed up with Elena Filipovic in 2008 - yet he is the first artist, from Poland or otherwise. The goal of the Biennale, now approaching its 6th edition, is to present the most experimental, avant-garde and progressive movements in a fast-paced hub of the art scene. Żmijewski's hands-on, in-your-face approach to his subjects - politics, society, history, reality and power - is guaranteed to shock and titillate. It is sure to get people talking. The only question is, will he go too far? How much of an influence will Żmijewski's own beliefs and practices impact the works presented and the character of the event itself?
Earlier this year Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine published Swantje Karich's lengthy feature on Artur Żmijewski and his strategy of provocation. By pushing the boundaries of contemporary art, Żmijewski draws a great deal of attention from the industry and the public, inciting, of course, a considerable degree of criticism in the process. Karich uses harsh, uncomfortable language to describe the experience of "enduring" Żmijewski's video works over the years, from his Repetition project in the Polish Pavilion at the 2005 Biennale in Venice - a documentary of the re-enactment of Stanford Professor Philip Zimbardo's 1971 experiment on human behaviour in prison conditions - to Them at Documenta in Kassel in 2007 - another social experiment in which representatives from conflicting social groups (conservatives, patriotic Catholics, nationalist Polish youth, leftist socialists, democrats and freedom fighters) are brought together in a workshop setting that essentially forces them to interact and react to one another. The result is often shockingly brutal and unexpected, leaving an imprint on the viewer that is the trademark of the artist's practice.
Żmijewski has often expressed dissatisfaction with the present, a frustration with the dissonance between politicians and the public. He employs the mechanisms of political propaganda to fight against it, to make a statement on freedom and oppression. He draws out painful unresolved issues of the past - such as the Holocaust, an uncomfortable subject for Germans especially - and uses a blatant approach as a sort of shock therapy - forcing those on both sides of the divide to face up to its truths and attempt to overcome guilt and resentment, propaganda and truth.
The context of Polish-German relations will certainly be a major focus of the Berlin Biennale this year, particularly with regard to the aftermath of Thilo Sarrazin's 2010 book on Muslims in Germany, entitled Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany Does Itself In). The book asserts a dangerous premise that German culture and heritage is being compromised by the influx of Muslim immigrants, who purportedly have a lower IQ and higher birth rate than the native population. And yet this premise has been received with a considerable amount of enthusiasm and acceptance among the general population who have purchased over 1.5 million copies of the book. And in spite of politicians and opinion leaders expressing their revulsion at the blatantly racist, eerily fascist, beliefs expressed in the book, the book keeps on selling, pushing many to aver that these concerns are indeed shared to some extent by many Germans, no matter how politically incorrect such opinions ring out. Sarrazin lost his post at a major bank, but has since gotten to work on another book, this time on the European debt crisis.
Courtesy of KW Institute of Contemporary Art
At the Biennale, Czech artist Martin Zet takes the Nazi associations further, proposing a recycling project for the book, drawing a parallel to the Nazi campaign to burn books that did not fit their ideology. Zet has called for the donation of copies of the book, yet he has not yet announced what he plans to do with these copies. Nonetheless, it is taken as a form of censorship and met with its own company of critics.
In an interview with Daniel Miller on the Berlin Biennale blog, Zet says that it was never was his plan to burn the books and adds, "I must say I am fascinated by the imaginations of the people here. Everyone had this incredible fantasy – of 60,000 books in flames! It shows stranger and more interesting things than I expected..."
Frankfurter Allgemeine's Swantje Karich asks outright, "What does Artur Zmijewski want from the Biennale?" He surmises that for the artist, it is a "tool" to give rise to these pressing issues, highlighting idealistic actions such as Antanas Mockus', the former mayor of Bogota, project to trade arms for toys in the city to reduce casualties. According to Karich, what fascinates Żmijewski the most is "suffering". The role of Żmijewski as curator of one of the art world's most significant events is indicative of a steady lean towards political activism in contemporary art. Artists are the new activists - once again. Poland's place in recent history makes it a lively target for many projects, as well as a point of reference for new spheres of political interference, as pursued by both local and international artists, from Zbigniew Libera and Krzysztof Wodiczko to Israel's Yael Bartana, whose ... and Europe will be stunned movement represented Poland at the Venice Biennale last year. At the Biennale, Bartana is organising the First Congress of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland, a theoretical movement that calls for Poland's expelled Jews to return and regain their place in Polish society.
In an interview with Adam Mazur for Biweekly.pl (Art's Inner Lie), Żmijewski called attention to the obstacles placed upon curators by the practical concerns of art institutions. Yet he insists that he is "not an outsider", adding,
Placing me outside the system enables people to think that "he’s an outsider, unconstrained by the same obligations, he can do what he wants. He’s working with miracles, so even if today everything is blank and bland, tomorrow Żmijewski’s gonna drop by and conjure up a whole new reality for us." Meanwhile, I’m in the exact same place as you are, the same place as Kathrin Rhomberg, the curator of the previous Biennale. What distinguishes me is the fact that I’m not playing for keeps, I’m not looking to be hired as a curator again.
Katrina Dybzynska, Protests Against New Loans, Greece, 2011
The works presented at the Berlin Biennale revolve around the ideas of Protest across the world, from Occupy and Spring movements to anti-government and ACTA protests across the US, Europe and the Arab world. Artists include Katrina Dybzynska (Economic protests in Greece), Beata Małyska (Anti-government protest in Warsaw), Jakub Szafrański, Protest of the Mazowsze State Folk Group of Song and Dance in Poland), Karol Kaczorowski (Between Palestinian Territories and Israel), Tomas Rafa (Restore #OccupyDC after Police Intervention, "Gorilla" Protest against Corruption in Prague, Slovak Spring, Bratislava, Slovakia, American Spring), Christian Sauer, (Occupy Berlin), Maria Es (Anti-Nazi propaganda protests in Germany), Zofia Waslicka (ACTA Protest in Warsaw), Madalina Paunica, Romanian Spring, University Square, Bucharest). Żmijewski also invited the residents of the Aida Refugee Camp near Bethlehem to present their Key of Return project. The key, which weighs almost a ton and measures about nine meters in length, was made of steel and installed at the entrance of the camp as critical manifestation of nonviolent expression and a means of overcoming victim portrayals. The key represents the hope that Palestinian refugees of 1948 and 1967 had upon leaving their homes that they would return. Sixty years on they are still refugees, but the symbol of the key remains as the belief in the "right of return". As of the 23rd of April the key stands as part of the Berlin Biennale exhibition. Several weeks before the Biennale opening Bureau Mario Lombardo hosted the Happy New Fear action in shop-front windows in Auguststraße in Berlin-Mitte which asks how written statements shift according to their context. It asks what happens to the election slogans of political parties when their context is removed and they appear in a window with the logo of the 7th Berlin Biennale. Paweł Althamer hosts a Draftsmen’s Congress which encourages people to join a discussion through images - drawing, painting, collage and other techniques - on politics, society, religion and the state of the world. Joanna Rajkowska presents Born in Berlin - A Letter to Rosa and Final Fantasies, two very intimate projects that bring very personal, often painful experiences, into the broader social context.
See more on Born in Berlin and Final Fantasies
In an interview with Martin Conrads for the Goethe Institut about the open call launched in November 2010 for artists to submit proposals for the 2012 Biennale, Żmijewski expressed the belief that "we should do something with art, in art, that should ensure an atmosphere in which political opinions can be exchanged openly". Since then, Żmijewski has proved that he is serious about his quest for an open debate on politics with the announcement of a staggering collaboration last December. Żmijewski has invited members of Russia's politically-driven Voina group (named for the Russian word for 'war') to join him in curating the Biennale. Oleg Vorotnikow, Natalia Sokol, Leonid Nikolaev and Natalia and Oleg's two-year-old son Kasper Sokol are the most talked-about activists in the world - and yet they call themselves artists and the world, a the very least the media, appear to approve.
Voina, source: www.berlinbiennale.de/blog
Voina calls itself a "street collective of actionist artists who engage in political protest art". They describe their activities as anarchist and militant, directed against "philistines, cops, the regime". The group, founded in 2005, is based in St. Petersburg, and has been persecuted by the authorities ever since, with a reported 20 criminal investigations on record into the group's activities. There are close to 200 activists around the world associated with the group's activities and some of them are in police custody. They use the media's fascination with the group to their advantage to draw attention to such injustices as the unlawful sentencing of opposition party member Taisiya Osipova to ten years for alleged drug trafficking. Their global network has brought about an international solidarity action for artists and group members persecuted with posters hung guerilla-style in public places all over the world.
Their activities run the gamut of lawless pranks that use the symbolism of the art world to wreak havoc on the semblance of order the Kremlin is bent on maintaining. These range from a jog across the roof of a car belonging to one of the President's personal guards with a blue bucket on the activist's head (the colour blue symbolising privilege in Russian culture) to make a statement on the nature of privilege in Moscow or painting a huge penis a huge penis on Litieny Bridge, located opposite the Federal Security Services (at the former KGB headquarters) in St. Petersburg to celebrate Che Guevarra's birthday. As the drawbridge opened to let a passing ship through, the phallus rose in a declaration of total irreverence and hatred towards the institution and its activities.
Żmijewski published his interview with Leonid Nikolaev, aka Leo the Fucknut in the Krytyka Polityczna (publication date 05.01.2012) weekly in which Voina activist explains that
In Russia we have a huge problem with the Militia. The Militia should protect people, defend the weak. But it's the other way around. The Militia oppresses people, extorts money, robs and threatens them. They arrest people on the basis of falsified evidence. People are locked up to improve statistics on fighting crime. This is why confessions are forced out with torture, beating, electric shock. A lot of people are in jail. We have limited rights, where the punishment does not fit the crime. The Militia is also used to suppress political protest. The goal is to instill fear into people. Ours is a caste society. An officer of the Militia has more rights than the average citizen. The action with the Militia car was to show that even a small group of people can create a resistance. To protect the weak, the Militia is unnecessary, sometimes it even deserves a beat down.
Leo has been arrested numerous times, most recently on New Year's Eve as he joined a massive group protesting electoral fraud. Six hours after his arrest, he escaped, but not before he was beaten, witnessed the exchange of a bribe and other examples of inefficiency and lawlessness at the police station.
"VOINA has a job to do Russia," surmises Zmijewski, "they have no fear." They have single-handedly taken on Putin and it seems they are in it for the long haul.
Leo maintains that the group's victory is "unavoidable" because ultimately their "strength lies in the truth". Is the art world ready for the truth that Żmijewski and VOINA are gearing up to deliver?
Żmijewski and Warsza led a conference at Warsaw's Museum of Modern Art in mid-March to discuss his goals for the Biennale and he expressed his belief that the goal of all the projects that are to be presented this year is to reference to political history in a substantial way. To see how art and culture can function in the political sphere and impact politics and political history, how artistic intuition and strategy can affect reality in the long-term.
The Berlin Biennale starts on the 27th of April and lasts through the 6th of July 2012. For more information on artists and events, see: www.berlinbiennale.de/blog
Author: Agnieszka Le Nart