Ignacy Czwartos

Polonia Uncensored

★★☆☆☆

Curated by Piotr Bernatowicz
On until 17 May 2024

Czwartos’ pseudohistorical paintings were to be Poland’s official Biennale entry until a change of government last winter thew them on art history’s scrap heap. That they now hang in a pop-up outside the Giardini walls proves that the deposed populists care as little for art as the liberals who again control Poland’s art scene.

These images claim to tease the nation’s sore historical blind spots. Czwartos’ canvases laud Poland’s 20th-century martyrs in a bleak colour palette. Leaders of the national armed resistance who perished in the Nazi occupation and anti-communist activists killed by their own state peer from the walls like paper props in a school re-enactment.

Litigating old crimes is on point in this Biennale. Why, then, were these well-known stories disqualified from the decolonial orgy? Czwartos stepped too far by shaming the abusers in his historical diorama. Next to a named SS soldier, he painted Putin and Merkel, thus suggesting that this history is also the very present. He may not be wrong. His painting, however, proves little, and his sign-writer’s hand loses art history’s bet just for now.


notes and notices are short and curt exhibition reviews. Read more:

Asami Shoji et al., Gestures of Resistance at A.I. ★★★★☆

Asami Shoji et al.

Gestures of Resistance

★★★★☆

The figures appear as though in x-ray and helplessly foretell their own ends.

Jennifer Bartlett, In the House at Pippy Houldsworth ★★★★☆

Jennifer Bartlett

In the House

★★★★☆

“Sky”, “roof”, “31”, a mantra turns into paint.

Liam Gillick, The Sleepwalkers at Maureen Paley ★★★☆☆

Liam Gillick

The Sleepwalkers

★★★☆☆

Gillick’s practice lacks obviously consistent character, save for it is sparseness of means and the ungraspability of its referents.

Wilhelm Sasnal at Sadie Coles ★★★☆☆

Wilhelm Sasnal

★★★☆☆

Only in flights of anger does this vision come close to becoming believable.

Haegue Yang, Leap Year at Hayward Gallery ★★☆☆☆

Haegue Yang

Leap Year

★★☆☆☆

The funfair is shuttered, long live the fair.

Oh, the Storm at Rodeo ★☆☆☆☆

Oh, the Storm

★☆☆☆☆

This exhibitions is trying to explain the concept of ‘crazy paving’ to a blind man. It’s impossible to tell where a work ends and the wall begins.

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