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Black and yellow pom poms12/9/2023 The artist decided to reenact this uncomfortable childhood experience, thereby drawing a parallel between performing nationalism at school in her youth and performing it at Ukraine-themed exhibitions now. The artist, dressed as a cheerleader with blue and yellow pom-poms made of trash bags, dances and sings against a background of archival footage of a Ukrainian national celebration, referring to her school memories of being forced to sing patriotic songs. But one work in particular, a video performance by Iryna Loskot, caught my attention as reflecting on its own position vis-à-vis questions of nationality and representation. 1 The show, addressing the invasion yet trying to transgress the category of traumatic experience, includes works by, among others, Inga Levi, Weronika Zalewska, and Dmytro Krasnyi-works that engage with issues of the commons, migration, and imperialism. With this in mind, I went to the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońskofor the tenth edition of the Young Triennial, which, like many other exhibitions of late, consists of a joint presentation of Polish and Ukrainian art practices. And if by now these exhibitions are accompanied by a certain fatigue, endemic to the logic of the art world-ever hungry for the next big thing-it is not because they are uninteresting outside the categories of visibility and solidarity, but because no critical or interpretative effort is being made to consider them from a more nuanced perspective. It is not just the art scene that could benefit from such discussions, but also Poland’s multinational society. But what is lost in the process is any critical discussion of identity, representation, and importantly, tokenism. The exhibitions, of which a number have been staged as the war continues (I mention just a few recent examples below), are exempt from the judgement of art criticism by popular consensus, and understandably so, as their point is first and foremost about solidarity and visibility. The answer is contradictory: while they are abundantly present, their work is barely discussed outside the notion of presence alone. Before going any further, it’s important to ask how Ukrainians are currently represented in the Polish art scene. But “Ukrainian trend” are words difficult to forget, precisely because of the circumstances they were spoken in, as they touch on the relation between the atrocity of war, the urgent desire for voice and visibility, the usual logic of artistic fashions, and, above all, the painful incompatibility of these realms.Īs a Polish person and exhibition-goer, I have observed a growing interest in Ukrainian art in Poland over recent years, and in particular since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. “The most important function of memory, as Freud wrote, is to forget.” “Trend” -a word to forget, as it was spoken on the day of yet another bombing that murdered civilians, and a little more than a week after the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. “Those exhibitions that fill up galleries and museums all over Poland,” he continued, “are usually mildly interesting and represent nothing apart from being part of the current Ukrainian trend.” He then spoke of memory and archival fever, quoting Derrida, Foucault, and Freud. “But this exhibition, it is not about the war!” the philosopher declared proudly, after giving me a brief tour of the show, noting how this makes the collaboration between the Polish curator and the Ukrainian artist unique, since today everything that concerns Ukrainian art has to do with war and war alone. This essay was motivated by a conversation I had at an exhibition of work by a Warsaw-based Ukrainian artist, curated by a gray-haired Polish philosopher. Courtesy the artist and Gunia Nowik Gallery. Sana Shahmuradova Tanska, Don’ t touch my circles they don’ t belong to you, 2023.
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