Collection

The monumental installation Asia is an exception, since performance is the main context for Zbigniew Warpechowski’s activities. Initially, in the mid-1980s, the artist used a sheet with the word Asia written on it as a backdrop for some of his performances. The three-dimensional version which is now part of the Museum collection was first presented in 1989, as part of the Dungeons of Manhattan exhibition in Łódź (curated by Józef Robakowski). In this piece, Warpechowski adopts the language of propagandist text installations (e.g. ‘PZPR’, the Polish United Workers’ Party) which were erected in public places during the Communist period. The artist proposes a statement of his own, which he sees as a more fitting description of the Polish state of mind in the late 1980s. Warpechowski once said: „What does the word ‘Asia’ symbolise? Not the geographical region, but the empire which oppressed us for more than 40 years. Not an individual, but an entire society. We all felt like Asians."