Sztuka jako narzędzie propagandy? Biennale i sympozja na tzw. Ziemiach Odzyskanych

Abstract

Art as a propaganda tool? Arts biennials and symposia in the so-called Recovered Territories

Nowadays, biennials are one of the most significant means of endorsing and distributing art – one of the tools that democratises it, but also increasing commercialises it. In Poland, from the 1960’s till the mid 1980’s, annual meetings, the so called open-airs, as well as symposia and biennials, established themselves both as a unique tool for fashioning the new Polish identity, and as the laboratories of the avant-garde, created in the realm of propagandistic oppression. Paradoxically, the authorities were eager to support conceptual art that, in their understanding, was to become a showcase of these “lands without history.” Along with the Wrocław’s Symposium in 1970, the Open-airs in Osieki, Spatial Biennale in Elbląg, and the Symposium of the “Golden Grape” in Zielona Góra may be treated analogously with contemporary large exhibitions such as Documenta or the Venice Biennale, as a specific form of promotion and modernization of these lands, but also of the politicization of art. Through the analysis of these open-air meetings and symposiums, I show both their innovativeness and their role in the process of shaping artistic life in Poland, as well as the significant influence they had on shaping the key artistic currents in the Polish art of this period. In the same way, I explore the political dimension of the contemporary “mega-exhibitions”, their role in establishing the artistic canons and in the marketing of art.