Articles & Essays   Book Reviews Creative Writing

Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

 

Volume 14 Number 2, August 2013

___________________________________________________________________

The Contemporary Public Camp Art in Poland

by

Anna K. England

University of Wroclaw

 

Abstract

This paper will focus on the phenomenon of camp art exhibited in public space in recent years around Poland and its potential to produce new ways of thinking about both camp and public space. The most interesting for research seems to be the convergence of camp, public space and Polish-ness, bearing in mind the burden of history that Poland carries and the homophobic attitude of its citizens. Examples of camp art include sculptures by Igor Mitoraj exhibited in Poznan, Cracow and Warsaw in 2003 and 2004, “The Pink Luminescent Stags” by Hanna Kokczynska and Luiza Marklowska introduced to the public space of Warsaw in the August 2004 and “Obelisk” created by Maurycy Gomulicki during the summer of 2010 in Poznan.

 

 

Text

The phenomenon of camp art exhibited in public spaces around Poland in recent years has the potential to produce new ways of thinking about both camp and public space. The most interesting for research seems to be the convergence of camp, public space and Polish-ness, bearing in mind the burden of history that Poland carries and the homophobic attitude of its citizens. What then makes public camp art in Poland unique and specific in terms of objects, sensibility and so on? In which forms did this art appear and what reception did it receive?

 

Homophobia in Poland is widely known and seems to be the most characteristic feature of the country. In 2009 Czech artist David Cerny created a satirical portrait of European Union called “Entropa”, where Poland is covered with potato fields and priests raising the rainbow flag. In 2011 Polish artist Julita Wojcik created installation “Rainbow” from three thousands of artificial flowers, which - as a symbol of tolerance and optimism - was erected in front of European Parliament in Brussels to mark Polish Presidency. Year later the installation was transported back to Poland, enlarged to 16000 flowers and placed in one of the most popular roundabouts in Warsaw - Saviour Square (Plac Zbawiciela). Since that time it was three times on fire and few months later only a sad, half - naked construction remained. It is significant fact especially if perceive rainbow as a symbol of sexual minorities.

 

My main attention in this paper will be focused on three projects produced by four artists, as they show different kinds of camp in various public spaces and have a different vision of the role of art in public spaces.  Camp is not the only phenomenon that is hard to describe; public art itself is a complex, controversial, misinterpreted and difficult to define discipline. “Over forty years since public art was coined as a term, it has yet to be clearly defined in any art history text. This is partially due to the relationship between public art, architecture, and urban design” (Cartiere, 2008, 8). Additionally, the variety of continually evolving terms used within public art creates the greatest difficulty: interventions, interdisciplinary or political activism, site-specific works, community-produced projects, contextual and social practice art. “Public art” can appear temporary, be seen as: political activism, service art, performance, earthworks, community projects, street furniture, monuments, memorials or “plunk” and “plop” art. It can be a single object or a streetscape, placed in urban centres, suburbia or rural regions. Due to Percent-for-Art initiatives_[1] public art works are often seen by critics as commercial art or art produced by committee (Cartiere, 2008, 8-9).

 

Although there are many disputes over what defines public art, it would be impossible to discuss any artwork considered as public, without at least presenting its working definition. Cameron Cartiere and Shelly Willis developed such a definition in 2005, describing public art as an art outside of the museum and galleries, fitting within at least one of the following categories:

 

1. in a place accessible or visible to the public: in public

2. concerned with or affecting the community or individuals: public interest

3. maintained for or used by the community or individuals: public place

4. paid for by the public: publicly funded. (Cartiere, 2008, 15)

 

Suzanne Lacy in her book “Mapping the Terrain,” published in 1995, stressed the need for different forms of criticism for socially engaged public art. She coined a term “new genre public art” for a “visual art that uses both traditional and non-traditional media to communicate and interact with a broad and diversified audience about issues directly relevant to their lives” (Cartiere, 2008, 4). She also proposed, “to look closely at what exists within the borders of this new artistic territory” (Cartiere, 2008, 15): this is what I will be researching here. The other term, which will need to be discussed before entering the territory of public art, is the phenomenon of camp itself. In Polish culture, camp is still a relatively unknown term and subject, familiar mostly within the academic environment. To date there are around seventy articles published in Polish journals and on-line magazines, and most mention camp on the margins of other issues like gender or “queer” (for example “Not a Whole Art is Queer”, an interview with Pawel Leszkowicz for the on-line magazine “Artmix” in 2010). There has been one conference in 2006 dedicated to camp called “Campania. Phenomenon of Camp in Polish Culture” (“Campania. Zjawisko campu we wspolczesnej kulturze”) and a collection of articles published as its result two years later. The first publication on the subject of camp appeared in Poland in 1979 and it was a translation of the famous “Notes on Camp” by Susan Sontag in the “World Literature” (“Literatura na swiecie”) periodical. The camp-boom started after 2000, when most of the papers were published, the majority of which were based on the work of Western researchers (mostly English and American).

 

There seem to be as many definitions of camp as there are critics and theorists - some tried to disconnect camp from gay culture and politics and place it within a pop context (Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp”); others were taking the opposite step, reclaiming discourse of camp and placing it strictly within “queer” culture and labelling it as political and critical (Moe Meyer’s “Introduction” and “Under the Sign of Wilde. An Archaeology of Posing”), and yet more argue that although camp is not so strictly “queer” and political, it is gay’s phenomenon and nobody else’s (Andy Medurst “Camp”). In this paper, however, camp will be seen from many perspectives and as areas of agreement, which for David Bergman are:

 

1. Style that favours “exaggeration”, “artifice” and “extremity”.

2. Tension with popular culture, commercial culture or consumerist culture.

3. Marginality - camp recognizes a person from outside of the cultural mainstream.

4. Affiliation with homosexual culture, or at least self-conscious eroticism. (Bergman, 1993, 4-5).

 

But camp is not so easy to pin down even with a set of criteria, unreachable by presenting a single definition and equally hard to talk about, which Christopher Isherwood already admitted while making the first attempt to describe camp in his book “The World in the Evening” in 1954. Decades later Fabio Cleto, following Patrick Mauries, declared that camp is “an impossible object of discourse, a word - and by that, an ethic, an aesthetic, a savoir-vivre - that exceeds description, and refers to a certain violence” (Cleto, 1999, 3). Yet such discourse exists and the more critical texts appear, cutting the facets of the camp-diamond, the more precious it becomes_[2]. The other important aspect of camp is its humour, which Bergman did not mention in his criteria and which is one of the three main “ingredients” of camp for Esther Newton, next to incongruity and theatricality. “Camp is for fun; the aim of camp is to make an audience laugh. In fact, it is a system of humour. Camp humour is a system of laughing at one’s incongruous position instead of crying” (Newton, 1972, 109).

 

Camp is contesting so called “high art” and turning itself into a conscious appreciation of kitsch aesthetic, because “… camp is a conscious response to a culture in which kitsch is ubiquitous” (Scott Long, n.d. citied in Bergman, 1993, 4). Maybe that is why camp was placed (or placed itself) on the margins - to have a broader and better view into the world. As the phenomenon of camp is still rather unknown in Poland, many artists (like Kokczynska and Marklowska) produce it unconsciously, describing it as an attitude towards well-known kitsch. They make camp, but are not aware of it or simply do not perceive their works as camp (Gomulicki). There are also artists, whose works do not intend to be camp but became so in the eye of the public. One such body of work, exhibited in a public space in 2003 and 2004, were sculptures created by Igor Mitoraj, a Polish artist born in Germany in 1944. His monumental, neoclassical sculptures caused a big sensation in Poland when they were installed in Poznan’s and Cracow’s most important public spaces - old markets - and at the courtyard of the Royal Castle and Castle Square in Warsaw. They modelled antic and renaissance sculptures and were mostly focusing on fragments of men bodies, including genitalia and bottoms. Such giant, uncovered anatomy in public places caused objections from the audience, who called it pornographic. Words of criticism, although with different arguments, were also heard from the contemporary art environments, seeing his objects as kitsch serving politics and business.

 

But to call such objects simply “kitsch” may not be enough. Pawel Leszkowicz described it as “sophisticated gay camp” and a “Pierre et Gilles of public sculpture” (Leszkowicz, 2005, online). “Classic male nudes in Western culture were throughout centuries a code for homosexual art, which allowed male artists to explore and aesthetise men's bodies and placing them in the centre of the beauty canon” (Leszkowicz, 2005, online). The question of homosexuality and camp has been broadly explored, causing many disputes between critics and theorists, especially after pioneering “Notes on Camp”, where Sontag wrote: “Nevertheless, even though homosexuals have been its vanguard, Camp taste is much more than homosexual taste. Obviously, its metaphor of life as theatre is peculiarly suited as a justification and projection of a certain aspect of the situation of homosexuals. (The Camp insistence on not being "serious," on playing, also connects with the homosexual's desire to remain youthful.) Yet one feels that if homosexuals hadn't more or less invented Camp, someone else would” (Sontag, 2001, 290-291). But the admiration for the male nude and the use (consciously or not) of the homosexual code simply could not be enough - according to Bergman's criteria - to be camp. Mitoraj’s sculptures are also lacking Pierre et Gilles consciousness, as well as theatrical, exaggerated and ornamental decoration. What could, however, make these sculptures campy is the comedy of the context and reception which they received.

 

 A bombastic tour around Polish cities, an exhibition of gigantic nude men right in the centre of the most homophobic country in Europe and the fascination of the ruling elites unknowingly admiring objects presenting homosexual beauty is indeed peculiar. For an “uninitiated” tourist it could even be seen as a groundbreaking step with the help of art and government’s blessing towards introducing sexual minorities into a public space_[4]. Such public displays of commercial artists’ works put on by the ruling elite can only make the bystander with an eye for camp laugh at the incongruity, which subversively makes the unbearable, bearable. Only then, with a conscious look, the sculptures of Mitoraj could be perceived as camp, which undermined the oppressive social order. Such actions clearly accentuate Polish phobias and complexes of a country being lost between East and West_[5]. Without that subversity it may just be called kitsch, but then again - is kitsch enough? The second object, or rather objects are “The Pink Luminescent Stags” by Hanna Kokczynska and Luiza Marklowska, a “City Amusing Project” of the Bec Zmiana Foundation from Warsaw. The three stags were introduced to the public space of the city centre’s part called Powisle (Near-the-Vistula) in Warsaw in August 2004 and were funded by a private company. The authors, two students, declared that they wanted to bring a bit of optimism and lightness to the residents of Warsaw and these stags really brought a note of light-heartedness into a capital with its past martyrdom, busy crowds and modern architecture. They were very popular and quickly became a symbol of new Warsaw, as they “alertly look into the future and have a light of the sunrise inside (Anonymous, Bec Zmiana Foundation, online)”.

 

The artists emphasised that they wanted to “play with kitsch” and such connotations are visible in both the form and colour of these objects. The stereotypical interpretation of “stag on the rut” and the symbolism of the pink colouring was cheering up passers-by, engaging them in a dialogue with “bad art”, which for Susan Sontag was very uplifting. “The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating. The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy; in the constant exercise of his good taste he will eventually price himself out of the market, so to speak. Here Camp taste supervenes upon good taste as a daring and witty hedonism. It makes the man of good taste cheerful, where before he ran the risk of being chronically frustrated. It is good for the digestion” (Sontag, 2001, 291). Although these artworks are not actually very gay, the pink colour adds its part being a symbol of love, desire, eroticism, cheerful mood, fun and excitement; a colour of youth being so much celebrated by homosexuals. “Tickled pink” actually means to be happy.

 

In the Polish history Powisle was a place where the bloody and unsuccessful November Uprising (Powstanie Listopadowe) against the Russian Empire started during the Partitions of Poland. It was also largely destroyed during WWII, like most of Warsaw, during another massacre carried out by the Third Reich, the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Before this it was a place of alarming poverty, so - broadly speaking - a place with a sad and bitter history, like most of Warsaw.  In such context a group of frivolous pink stags is a sign of not so much breaking up with the past, but disconnecting from its celebrated martyrdom and focusing on developing a brightest future. The energy of past fights and the failing uprising, which cost the lives of so many people, are channelled into creating a more relaxed future with hope for love, not drama. This camp installation became a symbol of a new Warsaw and, consequently, a whole new Poland.  Pink, vitality, sensual pleasure, touch and desire are the basis of the last example of public art placed in the old market square, next to the figure of Saint John Nepomucene, in the city of Poznan during the summer of 2010. A three and a half metre high obelisk made by Maurycy Gomulicki resembling a chess figure, ice creams, chewing gum, a set of balloons or a palace's balustrade with its ornaments. It intended to be a happier alternative for students to meet than the nearby historical whipping post, a symbol of abasement and punishment (Gomulicki, 2010, online).

 

The whipping post is of a late Gothic style, with the figure of an executioner with a sword in one hand and a whip in other placed on the top of it. It was funded from fines paid by maids abusing modest rules of dressing, and presenting themselves in excessively elegant dresses (so to some point it was also a punishment for being a subversive dandy, a cult figure for camp). Whipped criminals, often with cut hands or ears, were then banished from the city. The present post is a replica and the original is in the Historical Museum of Poznan. By making this slightly perverse, phallic and less horrifying alter ego of the whipping post, where tears of pain became rather tears of laughter, so characteristic of camp, the artist created a clear contrast, confronting the bitter past with the state of the present. The artist himself is a walking piece of art, often wearing pink clothes in order to break gender stereotypes. Actor Mikolaj Grabowski, while adapting the genial and highly critical “Diaries” by Witold Gombrowicz into a stage play, said: “Polish are having the Polish Disease …. We are still following the picture of mythical Pole. I got the impression that turning into direction of rhetoric >>godfatherlandish<< made people closed and paralysed their modern thinking. Because even the most sensible person is helpless in front of raised cross. It made us lost of our sense of humour. Particularly in Warsaw, where at every corner there are >>pilgrims<< so it is hard to catch up a distance. Please remind yourself our condition during communism time - our laugh was destroying the communist system …. Sense of humour saved our lives. Gombrowicz says: I treat live seriously, Poland, my presence in the world, but at the same time I have a great distance to all of this which is saving me from pathology” (Grabowski, online).

 

Camp seems to be a good strategy for smuggling vaccinations against Polish Disease, hoping to elevate “a human above its misfortunes” (Gombrowicz, 1997, 32) and a conscious way of breaking stereotypes so accurately presented in Cerny’s installation. The kitsch - like style of many camp art works seems to be a good strategy to deal with those problems, because what looks like kitsch usually cannot address important problems. For most people kitsch is for fun and does not have neither ambitious nor inconvenient messages to send. Maybe that is why Abraham Moles called it “the art of happiness”, because usually where are ambitions there are also disappointments.

 

Camp objects in a kitsch costumes have a clear - although hidden - mission to fulfil: become accepted and much loved part of public space. Once the funny face of camp is accepted, a broader discussion regarding not so funny problems (discrimination, homophobia, lack of tolerance and equal rights in Polish society) hopefully will follow.

 

The consciousness of camp reminds the wisdom of jester, who is the only person worth to listen, when the times are crazy and built upon an absurd - not only because “camp is always in the future” (Core, s. 15), but because it is also a “lie that tells the truth” (Philip Core’s book title).