Polska! is introducing us to another side of the nation many of us know only as diligent migrant workers
It might be the start of our calendar year, but the UK is in the middle of a year of culture that has seen Polish visual art, music and drama in corners of the country that rarely get the attention of arts touring planners as well as the national venues.
The year will be rather more than 12 months, too, having started back in March 2009 and scheduled to run until May.
The reason, says Aneta Prasal-Wisniewska, is simple. “2009 was the 70th anniversary of the second world war when we remembered Poland standing with Britain, it was the 20th anniversary of fall of communism for us, this year is the bicentary of the birth of Chopin, our greatest composer.
“But these are all excuses. The real reason was that with a million Polish immigrants in this country, Britain needs to know more about Poland and Polish culture so that we can communicate who we are.”
Polska!, or PL! as the press material has tended to shorten it to, is a saturation exercise that began in Canterbury Cathedral with Penderecki’s St Luke’s Passion – conducted by the composer. The Barbican had the Gospels of Childhood, a mixture of traditional story-telling and contemporary theatre direction. The Sainsbury Centre at Norwich had a show devoted to Tadeusz Kantor, the legendary Dada-ist artist-performer who died ten years ago, coupled with the work of 16 of Poland’s New Wave artists.
Poland’s designers and architects were a big part of the Design Festival in the autumn, and Polish film has figured large at the Southbank and the Barbican. For the next six weeks or so, Chopin is the centre of attention at the Southbank Centre.
Visual art has been the biggest domain among more than 200 events on offer, with the first serious solo exhibition here for Robert Kusmirowski, Bunker, for which the Barbican’s Curve gallery was transformed into a second world war bunker filled with found objects from the time. The Tate has just acquired its first piece of work by Artur Zmijewski, perhaps Poland’s; most provocative artist, and he has just had a major retrospective at the Cornerhouse in Manchester. And at Dulwich Picture Gallery, whose collection was based on the national collection being put together by the last King of Poland when he was forced to abdicate, London-based Antoni Malinowski created an installation to link the 18th century with the 21st.
Modern Art Oxford is currently hosting Pawel Althamer’s extraordinary piece, Common Task, in which the 33-year-old intertwines sculpture and performance. Althamer’s has taken to travelling al over the world with groups of friends and neighbours, mostly unassociated with art in their normal lives, who become parts of his creations.
