We have to see the relationship between what is being said and how it’s being transmitted. For people to open up and come closer to those who are conveying difficult truths, it may be easier through a spectacular project. So there is a function of the spectacular here, an artifice that is more acceptable because of its aesthetic quality.
- Krzysztof Wodiczko
The Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko rarely exhibits in Poland. Actually, I believe his projection at the famous Zacheta national gallery was his second appearance in Poland (he hasn't been living in Poland for a while now).
Here is a report I received from my mother (yes, my mom):
I think it was an excellent piece of work. Cariatides - young women holding up the building - were created by a projection of film on the Gallery pillars. And they talk, they talk about the violence of men towards them. Without pathos, without sentimentalism. Some women are older, some younger, some sob, other are rather cold. The projection shows them in pairs, or at times the same woman is projected on both pillars. Each of these couples has a dramatic form of expression, they were directed, but not too much, there is a rhythm in what they say, sometimes the words of one woman are a comment to the words of another. There is no fix rule, nothing is repeated, the whole thing lasts 20 minutes.
But it's a pity, a great pity that it wasn't created in a more busy place, one that would be seen from the crowded bus stops, or at some train station; the formal idea were the Cariatides and that's where the choice of the Zacheta building came from [it's a neo-classical building with large columns in front of it], but this way the main objective of the showing is putting it in Wodiczko's portfolio and the comments of critics, and this way the work becomes accompanied by some falsehood. Because if the final filmed monologue is an appeal to women - not being able to count on help from outside - to be careful and not raise their sons as future bastards, as this is the only thing they can do and this is the only chance for a change in the next generation; so if this is the message of the work, then if it is seen by a group of +-300 people, in their vast majority amators of contemporary art, then doesn't the mountain give birth to a mouse?
NB: Unfortunately I don't have any images of the Zacheta event. The pictures are from Wodiczko's previous initiatives. Here is an interesting interview with the artist.
