In 1989 Poland opened to the West and turned to the capitalist system. This symbolic year is treated as a date of regaining of freedom after communist period. However, after 1989 there have been appearing new threats for freedom. One of these threats is connected with power of conservatives and Catholic Church. Poland is predominantly a Roman Catholic country. According to the Statistics, about 90% of the Polish population has been baptized. The Church plays a great role in public life and influences on politics. The results of activity of Polish right-wings politicians are among others: the ban of abortion that functions in Polish law from 1993, the lack of good public education on sexuality and discrimination in different fields of social life, there is a big scale of homophobe among others. There is also a pressure of people and groups related to rightwing parties and to radical wing of Catholic Church (ex. “Radio Maryja”) not to show controversial art. Thus many of exhibitions have been closed or repealed.

In Poland, in common awareness contemporary art is perceived as something scandalous, excessive and, at best, as the individual statement of a blasé artist. Viewers have not in any way been taught or prepared to perceive modern works. Consequently, art is approached in a non-reflexive way and the only knowledge obtained in this field comes from the media which present art almost exclusively in the context of the scandals. Therefore, as a society we are vulnerable to the manipulation of right-wing politicians who “track down” all these scandals only for the purpose of being recognized as the defendants of “national and Christian values”.

The lack of proper artistic education and the marginalization of art make art an easy target for pseudo and auto-censorship. This leads to the discontinuation of exhibition, for example “Ja i AIDS” (Me and AIDS) in the Stolica Cinema in Warsaw in 1996, and “Dogs in Polish Art” in “Arsenal” Gallery in Bialystok, and to the exclusion of individual works, for example Serrano’s “Piss Christ” during his monographic exhibition in the Centre of Contemporary Art in 1994, Zbigniew Libera’s “LEGO- Concentration Camp” which was meant to be shown at the Venice Biennale in 1997, but was withdrawn by the curator of Polish Pavillon; Rafal Jakubowicz’s “Arbeitsdisciplin”(2002) which, contrary to earlier plans, was not exhibited in Arsenal Gallery in Poznan and in the last time: David Černy’s “Shark”, which was moved off from exhibition “Shadows of humor” in Gallery BWA in Bielsko-Biała. There are also examples of censoring art: in 1999 Gallery AMS chose Katarzyna Kozyra’s “Bonds of Blood” to be presented on billboards and then covered works in fear of negative reactions. Works have been also destroyed, for example Robert Rumas” “Hot Water Bottles” in Gdansk in 1994, Maurizio Cettelan’s “La Nona Ora” (1999) by right-wing member of Polish Parliament Witold Tomczak in Zachęta Gallery in 2000 [fig.1] and Piotr Ukanski’s “Nazis” by actor Daniel Olbrychski also in Zachęta in 2000.

The most absurd example is, however, the court case of Dorota Nieznalska. She was accused of offending religious feelings in her work “Passion” and was put on trial in 2002. The artist analyses in her work the construction of masculinity and its meanings in contemporary Poland, which is a catholic country with a consumer culture. “Passion” (2001) was composed of a movie showing a man exercising his body in the gym and of a cross-shaped object with a photo of male genitals as kind of symbol, pars pro toto masculinity. This work depicted contradictory ideas of masculinity: training one’s body, one produce a new kind of masculinity with “passion”. The reference to Christ passion offended the Catholics who – instead of asking about the meaning of her work – accused her of offending their religious feelings. In 2003, after a year of trial, the court in Gdansk sentenced the artist to six months’ of community services for offending religious feelings. The Court of Appeal overruled this sentence and in 2005 new trail started. It is still lasting.

Some artistic institutions are also being closed down. This happened to Galeria Prowincjonalna in Slubice and Galeria Wyspa in Gdańsk after presenting Nieznalska’s “Passion” in 2002. The general unfavorable attitude towards art leads to many instances when private galleries lose their leased premises. This happened, for example, in Kraków after exhibition posters by KPH (the Campaign against Homophobia) and in Ostrów Wielkopolski before the opening of Dorota Nieznalska’s exhibition in 2003. These are not of individual Cases, but rather a part of the general “which-hunt” against contemporary art, particularly art which relates to social critique, feminism and gay and les activism. It is getting more and more difficult to display works which are in opposition to mainstream thinking and which relate to complicated social issues. It must, nevertheless, be clearly stated that the artists who do not deal with these issues today cannot be certain that their work will not be the subject of attacks at some point in the future.

Hence the managers of formal galleries prefer to present works which are neutral in their outlook, works which are rather formalistic and sometimes even works of low artistic value, only in order to avoid the unpleasant consequences of displaying the works of “unpopular” artists. This is why the art curators and organizers of artistic life subject their work to auto-censorship under the pressure of the so-called “defendants of morality” who create the illusion that they speak on behalf of the whole society. By demanding for exhibitions to be closed down pr stopping the funding for specific galleries, the adversaries of contemporary art want to limit the broad public’s access to it and deny people the right of individual judgment, since these judgments are usually implied by suggesting that contemporary art is immoral and pathological. In this context it is interesting how the opponents of art have already managed to “condition” the artistic world and how their requirements and bans have been absorbed by gallery managers and directors who more than anything else fear being accused of insulting somebody’s religious feelings. Those who subject themselves to auto-censorship do so to defend the institutions they represent from the possible attacks and accusations that the art they exhibit is not complaint with the taste of the broad public.

The art adversaries’ most commonly exploited argument is that art offends religious feelings. Any art which initiates a discussion about Polish Catholicism and the impact of the Church on people’s consciousness is considered dangerous. This also relates to sensitive issues like intolerance and social exclusion. The opponents assume that art should be complaint with the views of the majority and that there exists areas which are inviolable to artists. As Krzysztof Pomian says about problems with art and democracy in Poland: “The accusations of blasphemy which are so often heard in our country today are an obvious abuse. Nobody is forced to visit galleries which display works that apparently offend their religious feelings. Everybody has to right to call for boycotting these works or to even organize protests. But hiding behind the defense of religious feelings and involving state institutions in the process is not the same as the defense of one’s own feelings. It is an attempt to use police methods in banning others from expressing their own feelings. And even if these feelings oppose religion or are even ironic towards it, such feelings have the right to exist in democratic country just as much as religious feelings” .
It is worth remembering that both artistic freedom as well as freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Polish Constitution. However Polish society has problem with its democracy, with understanding of the democracy idea.

The approach to art that I have described is a symptom of limiting the citizens’ democratic rights, a process which does not permit the full development of a civic society with a mature political awareness, which can make its own choices and judgments, and which does not avoid sensitive and controversial issues. This approach to art is inscribed in broader political context. The “which-hunt” in Poland does not track down art only. It is also keen of ridiculing sexual minorities and feminists who demand changes in the anti-abortion law. Right-wing and catholic circles do not limit themselves to attacking art. In their opinion, insult to religious feelings can be found everywhere: in films (for example: Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ”, 1998 and Pedro Almodovar’s “Bad Education”, 2004), on billboards and magazines covers as well as in Tolerance and Equality Marches. Threatens for democracy shown also last year so called "Poznan events" on 19 November 2005 - first the prohibition of the March of Equality by the authorities and then the brutal pacification of the peaceful demonstration by the police. It demonstrated that Poland is a place where constitutional law is not always fully respected. Public insults to sexual minorities remain without any consequence whilst all the discussions concerning the equality of rights and tolerance are silences and blocked.

This situation forces to reflect on the role of art in context of democracy. According to Krzysztof Pomian, “Contemporary art, albeit not only art, stimulates our awareness of the fact that democracy requires diversity in relation to groups, politics, ideas, and religions and so on and that democracy requires disputes” . According to him, in social order elimination of differences leads to an atrophy of public life and this is one of the most serious threats that democracy is faced with. It is also a big threat for art.

Piotr Piotrowski in his “Dekada” (The Decade) recalled a fragment by Josif Brodsky: “The non-reading of poetry leads a society to an appalling level of speech skills which makes it easy pray for demagogues and tyrants” 9. If we refer these words to contemporary art in Poland, trials of blocking it, kind of hidden censorship of art for tolerance, they take on a disturbing new meaning.

Izabela Kowalczyk

1. Krzysztof Pomian, ‘Sztuka nowoczesna i demokracja’ (‘Contemporary Art and Democracy’), in: „Kultura współczesna”, Nr 2 (40), pp. 35-43.
2. Ibidem.
3. Piotr Piotrowski, Dekada. O syndromie lat siedemdziesiątych, kulturze artystycznej, krytyce, sztuce – wybiórczo i subiektywnie (The Decade. Selectice and Subjective Remarks about the 1970’s Syndrome, Artistic Culture Culture and Critique), Wydawnictwo Obserwator, Poznań 1991, p. 80.