artist, sculptor

Marek Aniołkowski

I understand that you believe that an artist should take an active part in the evolution of society, comment on, criticize, share insights, take responsibility. Have you ever come out with your art to meet these expectations?

Yes, I made such an attempt. A few months ago, a dispute heated by the government's decision flared in the hearts and minds of fellow citizens. The Abortion Act divided an already polarized society. The reaction was spontaneous and massive. Thousands of people were forced into civil disobedience and took to the streets during the pandemic restrictions. The streets of Warsaw have not seen such crowds since the heyday of Solidarity. During this time, I completed the obligatory semester assignment in the studio at the Faculty of Sculpture. It was a full-scale study of the female nude made in the technique of ceramics. A furiously orange, conspicuous female figure in a classic Contrapposto was created. Despite its screaming shell, the sculpture was hollow as an ancient amphora. Sensing the social moods, I spontaneously decided to extend "life", giving it a new character through public confrontation. I decided to conduct an experimental sculptural event.

On the evening, when the streets of Warsaw were crowded with hundreds of thousands of angry and determined women, I decided - as an artist - to enter the crowd. We left the closed walls of the Academy and went on a journey, me and she - my Pandora, Ishtar, Kassandra and Aphrodite. On the threshold, I became merely her companion. It was the sculpture that interacted with the passing groups of people, I became only an observer hidden in the shadows. The sculptural event began when we left the Academy. The public transport journey in a city overwhelmed by strong emotions has already provoked direct reactions among metro passengers. The climax was yet to come. After leaving the "Świętokrzyska" station, we were greeted by a crowd, shouting noise and anger from hundreds of throats. We entered the middle of a flowing river of people. Young, old. Lawyers, apprentices, salespeople, employees. The overwhelming majority were women. Representatives of all social classes. They had one password.

The event consolidated the work and the recipient. The ceramic dead figure stood in the crowd and began to live. I passed the women I passed the markers prepared in advance so that they expressed on the surface of the sculpture what they feel, what they think and what they want to convey to the world. Here and now. I gave the function by changing the sculpture into a painting canvas, but it was the recipient who gave the sense.  That place and time became a kind of stage, a conversation between the actors of the performance, where on the one hand there was an agitated crowd, and on the other, an empty female shell slowly filled with emotions. The sculpture has become a vessel, a page in a chronicle, but also a kind of catalyst. Words and emotions remained on its surface, yet the sculpture remained empty.

The slogans have faded, the enthusiasm has faded, the law has entered into force and the record of that day remains the sculpture and the emotions of the moment poured onto it, supplemented with film documentation of that event.

So your action was a position, a subjective comment?

Yes and no. I would prefer to avoid answering questions that arise about political and religious opinions. What is important to me in my art and what I would like to emphasize as an artist is Freedom. A very extensive and complicated topic. For centuries, we have been accompanied by questions: What is freedom? Is it worth being free? Is it easy to be free and is full freedom possible at all?

In our culture, it seems to be of paramount importance. But in my opinion, we are everywhere surrounded by prohibitions, orders, rules, a system of punishments and rewards, ready-made patterns of conduct. In my opinion, an attempt to challenge this reality as a whole is doomed to failure, because the consequence will be expulsion from the margins of society, ostracism and loneliness. On the other hand, the passive and uncritical surrender to the variables imposed on us limits our ability to perceive, introducing an apparent illusion of security. It makes our sense of humanity lazy and sleepy. The role and duty of an artist is to wake up society through the prism of his works. The world we live in is different than before. The imminent climate catastrophe, omnipresent globalization bringing more and more effective tools of social surveillance and new methods of control have become our everyday life. Societies are infected with the cognitive dichotomy. Polarization and literalism are diseases that affect the modern world. One would like to say that we are slowly starting to live in Orwell's 1984. In our times, the “Animal Farm” has become not a warning, but a textbook. The role of the artist in society is all the more important. Infecting with metaphor, art, noticing shades of gray, noticing the context and sensitivity - these are the values ​​that the artist is obliged to share, and it is possible through the link that his works are. It is obvious that being responsible for your choices and the decision brought by freedom is a difficult and demanding thing. It is a path full of mistakes and dead ends. But only by going in this direction will we maintain our humanity.

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