Welcome to the catalogue for the exhibition Wa(y)st(o)ed Freedom by Malgorzata Drohomirecka at Centrala, Birmingham, UK.
6 November -25 November 2021
The W A (Y) S T (O) E D F R E E D O M exhibition showcases a portfolio of paintings created by a London-based Polish artist Małgorzata Drohomirecka, in which the artist sets out to revisit the story of Polonia, the 19th century personification of a Polish nation fighting for its sovereignty.
While male artists portrayed themselves as thinkers or warriors, women gazing from the canvases of iconic historical paintings, were often depicted as frail, incapacitated and reduced to a performative object. The independence for Poland arrived in 1918, after over a century of foreign occupation, but what about Polonia?
In her painterly collages, Drohomirecka questions the extent to which the 19th century image of women, created by the patriarchal structures that objectified female bodies as symbol of a ‘broken’ nation and embodiment of its martyrdom, influences their position in the realms of art and society today.
Juxtaposing elements extracted from historical paintings with pop culture references, stock images and kitsch aesthetic, Drohomirecka reimagines Polonia’s story from the perspective of both, the woman in the picture and a female artist who fights to regain control over the autonomy of her own existence. This newly formed herstory constitutes a possible blueprint for alternative versions of womanhood, representation, empowerment, self-determination, and ultimately, freedom.
Using subversive visual language, the artist sends Polonia and other women on a journey to heal the intergenerational trauma caused by patriarchy; simultaneously critiquing the establishment and questioning the status quo. What has actually changed since Wyspiański and Matejko created their allegorical visions of women? Has the political and cultural narrative around the female body and femininity shifted at all?
Text by Marta Grabowska
1. Polonia at the Altar, acrylic & oil on canvas, 2020
Polonia at the Altar, acrylic & oil on canvas, 2020
Polonia is the name for Poland in Latin and many Latin languages. It is most often used in the modern Polish language as referring to the Polish diaspora. However, it was also used as a national personification. This symbolic depiction of a country as a woman called by the Latin name of that country was common in the 19th Century other examples include Germania, Britannia, Hibernia, Helvetia.
In this painting, Drohomirecka juxtaposes references to various leitmotifs from both historical Polish paintings of the XIX century and pop culture. Drohomirecka stages the room to evoke the sense of the oneiric mood of the popular American drama Twin Peaks directed by David Lynch. In his movies, Lynch often refers to the subconscious, psychoanalysis, and dreams. The red room creates the atmosphere of a mysterious ritual, a meeting of a secret brotherhood or a sect.
The master of Polish historical painting Jan Matejko is seated to the right of the central figure. His likeness is extracted from a self-portrait, in which he depicts himself as a demiurge immersed in his thoughts. At his feet kneels Polonia, extracted from Poland – The Year 1863 (Polish – Polonia – Rok 1863) or The Forging of Poland (Zakuwana Polska) is an early and unfinished oil on canvas painting by Jan Matejko, painted in 1864.
Poland – The Year 1863 (Polish – Polonia – Rok 1863) or The Forging of Poland (Zakuwana Polska) by Jan Matejko, 1864
2. Polonia Practicing BDSM, acrylic & oil on canvas, 2020
Polonia Practicing BDSM, acrylic & oil on canvas, 2020
The motif of Polonia, accompanied by female personifications of Lithuania and Ruthenia from the painting of Jan Matejko appears here again. Poland is represented as a handcuffed young woman in a black dress, torn at the shoulders, with Ruthenia shown to her left as a woman in white ripped violently from her and Lithuania as a partly-naked woman lying in a pool of blood at the bottom left.
This time the three women are depicted in the convention of a film negative, unlike the rest of the surrounding scene. Drohomirecka places them in a separate layer of pictorial representation and interpretation, perhaps as a way of sublimation of meaning of their actions, as they seem to indulge in sadomasochistic practices. This, according to the theories of psychoanalysts, is supposed to liberate them from the pressure of patriarchy, from the all-powerful “Father’s Law”.
“In modern thought irony and humour take on a new form: they are now directed at subversion of the law. This leads us back to Sade and Masoch, who represent the two main attempts at subversion, at turning the law upside down.”
Coldness and Cruelty by Gilles Deleuze, Zone Books, New York, 1991
3. Polonia in the Hospital, acrylic & oil on canvas, 2020
Polonia in the Hospital, acrylic & oil on canvas, 2020
This particular likeness of Polonia is taken from an unrealised stained glass window by Stanisław Wyspiańsk, which the Young Poland artist designed for the Lvov Cathedral. The stained-glass window remained an unrealised project until December of 2020, when it was completed by the Stained Glass Workshop and Museum in Kraków, Poland.
Here the woman is transported to contemporary reality, this time to a hospital setting, packed with CCTV cameras, attributes of the 21st century, the reminder of constant surveillance that constitutes another restraint, encroaching her freedom to privacy.
The two figures standing on her sides wear what appears to be masks that were used by the doctors and medical staff during the Black Death, a pandemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. Although the painting was completed before the Covid-19 outbreak, it is impossible to point out the poignancy of the use of such masks.
The painting is inspired by Maria Janion’s book “Women and the Spirit of the Other”, in which we find the following passage: “In the myth of Iphigenia, one can see the affinity between ritual and murder. For totalitarian murder is the sacrifice of human life for the interest of the state, when the human body is bound to social institutions and privacy is subject to control. “
Polonia – project of unrealised stained-glass window for the cathedral in Lvov by Stanisław Wyspiański.
4. Polish Hamlet, acrylic & oil on canvas, 2020
“Polish Hamlet”, acrylic & oil on canvas, 2020
“Polish Hamlet” by Jacek Malczewski is a portrait of the grandson of margrave Wielopolski, a Polish politician, a member of the Polish Kingdom government in the early 1860s, who tried to manoeuvre between the interests of the invaders and the Polish population. Malczewski’s painting can be interpreted as a question of choosing the right way and the future fate of the homeland, entering a new century. This dilemma refers to the title character of Hamlet, William Shakespeare’s drama.
The women standing next to the young man are said to be Demeter and Persephone, two Greek goddesses, mother and daughter who became separated and went through an ordeal with the god of the underworld Hades before they reunited. Another interpretation states that they are personifications of Poland. One is an enslaved, tormented, suffering Polonia, the other is a liberated revolutionary who, having broken the chains, leads the country into a completely new era. But “On Drohomirecka’s painting the chains turn out to be masochistic equipment, just like the dog masks on the faces of the no longer feminine creatures that start to resemble the figures from Max Ernst’s paintings. They are the guardians of transcendence. They bring soothing darkness.” (Izabela Morska, “Polonia, Insurgent Tradition and Hip-hop”, Czas Kultury)
Jacek Malczewski, Polish Hamlet. Portrait of Aleksander Wielopolski, 1903
5. Ellenai, oil on canvas, 2019
Ellenai, oil on canvas, 2019
Ellenai is a protagonist of a poem by Polish poet and national bard, Juliusz Slowacki. She first appears in his poem, Anhelli, and later in the painting of Jacek Malczewski. Both, the poem and the painting convey a pessimistic vision of the future of Polish emigration and the fight for the country’s independence. It directly alludes to Adam Mickiewicz‘s Books of the Polish Nation and Polish Pilgrimage by employing stylized biblical prose. It portrays antagonized Polish exiles who are destined for destruction in the realities of Siberia, a place strongly associated with the martyrology of the Polish nation. It sends a messianistic message and poses the question of whether the whole nation can ever be saved by an individual or an entire generation of emigrants.
Jacek Malczewski, Death of Ellenai, 1906-1907
6. Self-harm, acrylic & oil on canvas, 2020
Self-harm, acrylic & oil on canvas, 2020
The characters in this picture are taken from the Aftermath (Polish: Pokłosie), a 2012 Polish film written and directed by Władysław Pasikowski. The fictional Holocaust-related thriller and drama is inspired by the July 1941 Jedwabne pogrom in occupied north-eastern Poland during Operation Barbarossa, in which 340 Polish Jews were locked in a barn in Jedwabne, which was later set on fire by a group of Polish males.
More info:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_(2012_film)
The Polonia in the lower right corner of Drohomirecka’s painting is taken from Ary Scheffer’s artwork titled Polonia: Allegory of fall of the November Uprising, completed in 1831
More info:
Ary Scheffer Polonia (1831). Allegory of fall of the November Uprising
7. Taking the floor, oil on canvas, 2020
Taking the floor, oil on canvas, 2020
This is “Polonia-Frankenstein”. She has been cut into pieces and glued back together. Her head is taken from Polonia by Wyspianski, depicting three generations of Poles who lived under the partitions, while her hands and torso belong to Siemiradzki’s Christian Dirce.
The bottom part of an image is an excerpt from the music video titled “Mask off” by an American rapper and singer Nayvadius DeMun Wilburn, better known under his stage name Future, and directed by Collin Tilley. Drohomiercka’s interest in hip-hop and pop culture began with her stay in New York City, where between 2005-2007 she worked as a painting assistant in the atelier of the author of Obama’s famous presidential portrait, Kehinde Wiley. During her residency in Kehinde’s studio, she saw him paint famous hip-hop artists in poses taken from the paintings of the old masters, which inspired her to look at the historical painting in a completely new light.
8. Dirce, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2020-2021
“Dirce”, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2020-2021
This new and never exhibited before painting from the series constitutes a mish-mash of the historical painting titled Christian Dirce by Henryk Siemiradzki and some visual tropes from Rhiana’s music video S&M directed by Melina Matsoukas. Matsoukas explained Billboard that the video was inspired by Rihanna’s “sadomasochist relationship with the press … it isn’t just about a bunch of whips and chains.”
More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26M_(song)
The Christian Dirce is Siemiradzki’s final large-scale history painting. It shows a re-enactment of a Greek myth – performed at the behest of Emperor Nero – in which Dirce, the queen of Thebes, is put to death by being tied to the horns of a bull and smashed against rocks. According to the writings of the Roman historian Suetonius, Nero decreed that during the games in the amphitheatre, a beautiful young Christian girl was to suffer the same fate. Here, Dirce is to be interpreted as Polonia.
More info: https://culture.pl/en/work/christian-dirce-henryk-siemiradzki
The exhibition and accompanying events are supported by Polish Embassy and Art Council England.
