The exhibition of Polish posters did not become a sensation

Yesterday, as part of the Days of Polish Culture in St. Petersburg, the exhibition "Poster and History" - works from 1944 to 2000 - opened at the exhibition center of the Union of Artists. Kommersant columnist LEV LURIE with details. The exhibition begins with a poster by Marek Zulawski, produced during the Warsaw Uprising. Then follows a series of works that are painfully reminiscent of the period of late Stalin: a cheerful collective farmer with beets and the inscription “If you want to have such a beet, give the land lime - the sugar factory delivers defecation dirt to the beet growers for free.” Our socialist realistic printed graphics are somehow even more humane. Polish comrades were obliged to learn from their “elder brothers” in art, although the national artistic tradition - this can be seen at least from the work of Tadeusz Trepskowski in 1945 - goes back not to Moscow, but to Paris.
After the famous “Podzernik” - the October uprising in Poznan, when Khrushchev decided to make concessions to the Poles, political censorship remained in Poland, but aesthetic censorship noticeably weakened. At this time, the mediation of Polish culture between Russian and European was especially significant. Then the fashion began for the magazines "Poland" and "Ekran", the study of the Polish language, plays by Mrozek, films by Wajda, novels by Lem. Generalized forms, playing with the primitive, using pop art techniques - such freedom became available to Soviet graphic artists only in the late 1970s, and only in the narrow sphere of theatrical posters and illustrations for children's books.
During the times of Gerek and Brezhnev, Polish aesthetic influence gradually weakened. Thanks to détente, dissidents and unofficial artists, attention turns to the capital of the world art market - New York. Poland is no longer the main transmitter of world artistic fashion. The poster of that time celebrates European style. Such are, say, the expressionistic poster of the famous play “Dziady” (the work of Roman Cieslewicz), the ban of which in 1967 caused student unrest, or the circus poster of Marian Stachurski, similar to the graphics of Viktor Pivovarov. The romantic series of works dedicated to Solidarity and the posters of political parties of the last decade are also excellent. It’s only a pity that the curator of the exhibition, the famous human rights activist, Senator Zbigniew Romaszewski, did not bring to St. Petersburg the most sensational and poignant things of past years, trying to play with national myths, and above all the Catholic myth.
We look with respect and even slight envy at the creativity of former neighbors and allies who have succeeded more than ours in the capitalist world. Their ties with Europe are more intense, artists, in particular poster artists, are more in demand. But all this, as Ilya Ilf said, “Warsaw splendor, the lights of night Kovno” - the lights of Manhattan and the shine of Parisian boulevards are objectively brighter for us.
The exhibition runs until May 20.

Newspaper "Kommersant St. Petersburg" No. 81 dated May 15, 2001, p. 3

The trendsetter is now just a neighbor