San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Exhibition defies ‘cancel culture’ — and draws fire
WARSAW — An exhibition at a Polish state museum features the works of provocative artists in what organizers describe as a celebration of free speech, and a challenge to political correctness and “cancel culture” on the political left.
Some critics, however, accuse organizers of giving a platform to antisemitic and racist messages under the pretense of defending freedom of expression.
“Political Art,” which features the works of nearly 30 artists, is the second exhibition at the Ujazdowski Castle Center for Contemporary Art under director Piotr Bernatowicz, who was appointed by Poland’s populist conservative ruling party in 2019.
Since it came to power in 2015, the Law and Justice party has harnessed the country’s cultural institutions in a mission to promote conservative and patriotic values — including the art center housed in a reconstructed castle that has showcased experimental and avant-garde art in Warsaw for 30 years.
The museum says the “Political
A gallery worker cleans exhibition space at the Ujazdowski Castle Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw.
Art” show provides a space for rebellious artists sometimes shunned elsewhere. The exhibition includes works critical of the authoritarian regimes in Russia and Belarus, works by women from Iran and Yemen critical of oppression in the Muslim world, and others that use swastikas or symbols rooted in the Holocaust in an apparently ironic way.
The most controversial person included is Dan Park,
a Swedish provocateur who has been jailed on hate crimes in Sweden. In 2009, Park placed swastikas and boxes labeled “Zyklon B” — the gas used in the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust — in front of a Jewish community center in Malmo.
The Jewish community in Poland strongly protested the inclusion of Park. In an open letter to the museum director, rabbis and other Jewish representatives argued that promoting such artists offends all people in a country where 6 million Polish citizens — half of whom were Jews — were killed during World War II.
“Free expression is essential to a democratic society, but free expression still has limits,” said Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich.
At a news conference Friday, the director, Bernatowicz, said he could understand the position of the Jewish organizations, acknowledging that some of the work is provocative and controversial. But he said the Jewish representatives should see the exhibition before criticizing it.
“I am not creating a platform propagating any types of Nazi or neo-Nazi views,” Bernatowicz said. “I am creating a platform for art to be expressed.”