Sienkiewicz changes his predecessor’s controversial decision. “Reserve project” at the exhibition in Venice

“The Minister of Culture and National Heritage, who currently serves as the commissioner of the Polish Pavilion, after analyzing the competition procedures for the exhibition design as part of the 60th International Art Exhibition in Venice in 2024 and after getting acquainted with the opinions and voices of the communities, accepted the decision not to implement the project curators Piotr Bernatowicz and Dariusz Karłowicz with the participation of Ignacy Trzecios. For implementation, in accordance with the regulations, the reserve project of the exhibition ‘Repeat after me’, submitted by curator Marta Czyż with the participation of Open Group (Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, Anton Varga) is submitted – according to the Ministry of Culture. .

The 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia – will last from April 20 to November 24, 2024. Its main theme is “Foreigners are everywhere”. Adriano Pedrosa became general curator.

Former Minister of Culture Piotr Gliński in the fall, he accepted the project of the exhibition “Polish exercises in the tragic world. Between Germany and Russia” recommended by the jury of the competition for Polish presentation at the Venice Biennale, curated by Piotr Bernatowicz and Dariusz Karłowicz with the participation of the painter Ignacy Trzecios. The project was selected by the jury from 24 entries qualified for the competition. “The Ignacy Trzecios exhibition, which we would like to present at the Venice Biennale, is the fruit of deep reflection on the tragic history of the 20th century,” wrote the project curators. “The tragic nature of the world – the artist tells us from the depth of his Polish experience – is its inalienable feature. The world does not consist of any simple pattern, it is full of irremovable contradictions, conflicts of interests and ideas, dilemmas that have no simple solutions,” it added.

The design of the Polish exhibition at the Venice Biennale, chosen by the previous Minister of Culture, aroused considerable controversy in the international arena. The Guardian, in a text titled “Anti-European Manifesto”, drew attention to the work announced by Trzecios, which was to depict a burning swastika, combining Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin. Parts of the Polish artistic community also protested against sending Ignacy Trzecios’ work to the Biennale.

Instead of the exhibition “Polish exercises in the tragic world. Between Germany and Russia”, the exhibition “Repeat after me” will be presented in Venice after the changes. “It is an attempt to show the cruelty of war without using drastic visual means. The video participants are civilians temporarily resettled from various regions of Ukraine to a war refugee camp in Lviv, sharing their memories and knowledge about the sounds of war. By reproducing various types of weapons, they carry out a kind of karaoke instruction which, by transmitting simple sound sequences, is still unable to convey the experience that exists nearby, the experience that has become the price for this knowledge,” wrote the authors of the project. “To bring viewers closer to the experience of witnessing the war in Ukraine, the creators use the formula of karaoke – a popular musical entertainment originating from Japan. In this case, however, the accompaniment is not well-known hits, but gunshots, cannonades, howls and explosions, and the lyrics are descriptions of deadly weapons. This is the soundtrack of war, which its witnesses try to recreate. The creators show that contemporary art does not have to be hermetic and can be close to contemporary experiences. They engage the audience in interaction and, through the form of the project prepared for the Polish Pavilion, try to break the passivity in which we find ourselves as listeners of war stories,” it added.