ARTUR ZMIJEWSKI "DEMOCRACIES" SCREENING AND CURATORS TALK

Polish born artist,actor and documentary visual film maker Artur Zmijewski has had a video installation showing at the Tramway called Democracies.

His films very much capture the whole of the being of the participants involved as individual and group figures in the method , as the publicity states , which demands that portrayed persons integrate their political , religious and historical beliefs and personality into a powerful single evolving work that forces them and the viewer to question profoundly the inner meaning of the subjects both internally and externally.

In this screening and curators talk the first film was KRWP which shows former soldiers of the Polish Army Guard of Honour perform a formal drill ceremony , then almost seamlessly we see them performing a dignified patriotic duty without their clothes on.Through the laughs and banter one senses not only the former proud soldiers have been stripped of their dignity , whilst giving the impression they are somehow progressing from staid backwardness to an appreciative posture which will ingratiate and somehow integrate the subjects to the outer world.This could be viewed as a representation of how the whole of Polish society has been stripped bare by exposure to the West in which the benefits of exploiting the local talent pool has benefited the West , leaving the negative scraps of capitalism , namely debt and abasement as the bitter fruit left for the Poles.

Singing Lessons II is the second film of this chronological curator perspective , it follows a choir of death children rehearsing for a live performance in Leipzig , the piece portrays the opposite dimensions of the first film as we have a heartwarming confluencial showcase when resources and ability are put at the service of bringing out the best in society and its less privileged members to create a harmonious cohesive whole to the betterment of all stratas of the community.

Them is the most unusual and stimulating part of the artwork , this brings into the same space four groups from warsaw , one represents a Catholic Womans Group , another Polish nationalists of the old school ( though young members), some Jewish students and so called freedom loving socialists with an alleged live and let live patina.The groups are then allowed to critique;debate and even adjust/deface the displays of the others , the artist seeks to show how they may interact and communicate even when faced with apparently incompatible differences of ideology , and how they may resolve it.The ironic thing is most of the intolerant , bigoted and destructive interlocutors are the so-called freedom loving libertine socialists , they go about verbally slandering , physically desecrating others displays in a wanton immature fashion , and then burning displays when they failed to rationally win their points.The other groups , to their credit spent most of the time repairing the damage to their displays and restoring symbols damaged by the tolerance slogan chanting socialists , whilst engaging in debate with the other groups in a composed dignified way.

The nest short was 80064 brings an ex-inmate of Auschwitz ( we have to remember Auschwitz was in Poland , usually guarded by Lithuanians) agrees to have his detainee number freshened up, some in the audience found the scene harrowing and contrived , the artists contention is the participant did agree to go through with it beforehand , you can judge for yourself:



Two Monuments has Polish and Irish unemployed in Dublin working to co-produce two works of sculpture that enable them to exchange views on the changing nature of Polish/Irish worker relations.What comes out is the , to the participants , barely perceptively nuanced petty attitudes of racism from the Irish towards their Polish colleagues , an odd juxtaposition in that Irish history is replete with the very experiences of migration and seeking to make a living in a hostile environment just like the Polish are going through in Dublin and elsewhere at this time.The curators did say many of the participants on the Irish side did object to the filmed representation of themselves when the inner hostility of the views came out in sharper contrast in the film than was perceived in the casual conversation format.

The last film , made this year , Artur used the philosophy and group teaching methods of the famous Bauhaus in Liverpool.The director remarked the British artists did not come forth in any numbers , only 2 volunteers , to a group art project which is common in mainland Europe.This may be due to the concept of individual enterprise has permeated our society more so than in Europe , where group solutions to problems still holds sway.The result of this is Thatchers "no society" vanity drives individualism is entrenched , this is vital to understand as the fight against cuts that can only be addressed in unison and not individual " ill fight the system my own way" passive aggressive , ultimately impotent symbolistic phyrric victories that closely resemble humiliating defeats.

There is a very apt review of the democracies display from Simons teaching Blog including a brilliantly clear understanding of his palestine segment:

In relation to this understanding of democracy, Zmijewski’s films of demonstrations against the Israeli occupation in the West Bank appear to represent something appropriately democratic. The Palestinian people of the West Bank village of Bil’in do not live in a democracy of even a liberal kind. Rather they are ruled through military law by a state that denies them the suffrage and citizenship that it gives to Israeli citizens living within the Green Line and to Jewish settlers within the West Bank itself