Language of Protest in the Visual Arts and March ‘68 in Poland. The example of the OdNOWA Gallery in Poznań Cover Image

Intermedialny język protestu i Marzec ‘68 w Polsce na przykładzie poznańskiej galerii odNOWA
Language of Protest in the Visual Arts and March ‘68 in Poland. The example of the OdNOWA Gallery in Poznań

Author(s): Dorota Jarecka
Subject(s): Applied Linguistics, Sociology of Art
Published by: Associazione Italiana Polonisti (AIP)
Keywords: PERFORMANCE ART; ANDRZEJ MATUSZEWSKI; MARCH ‘68

Summary/Abstract: The events of March 1968 in Poland have been widely studied from the point of view of political and social history. Recently, it has also become the subject of cultural studies. Yet, the research in the area of the visual arts has been neglected. In the text on the performance art in Poland around 1968 I pay special attention to the connection of art and political tensions of the era with the odNOWA Gallery in Poznań as a case study. The gallery was closed down after the happening by Andrzej Matuszewski entitled Proceeding on May 1969 and the event marked the break of the artists community with the cultural policy of the socialist state. It was too early to call their position ‘dissident’. Yet, I propose a notion of ‘distrust’, taken from Stanisław Barańczak’s writings, to define the peculiar stand of the avant-garde artists in Poland by the end of the 1960s that eventually led to dissidence in the 1980s.

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 9
  • Page Range: 127-143
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Polish
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