Introduction

The "Rejected Heritage" project, organized by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, was born out of the emerging interest in the art of the 1980’s, both in the world and in Poland.

Curators, publishers and gallery owners and managers have begun to resurrect Polish art of the 80’s, though the scale of their efforts is still far from satisfying. The usual form which the process takes is that of a repetition of the hierarchies, divisions and terms which were binding in those times. Our intention, however, was to return to the 80’s and adopt a more critical approach in viewing the categories then established.

The 1980’s was a very special decade in Poland. The foundation of Solidarity and then the imposition of the martial law by the communist authorities brought changes not only to the political situation but also to the broadly understood social awareness. Artists too joined the process, by asking about the place of art in the symbolic system, but also about its relations with authority, about the possible activities and, most importantly, about the moral stance of the artist.

The questions, doubts, and expectations gave rise to an alternative art circuit, which was independent from the state exhibiting institutions. On the one hand, it was the current of exhibitions organized under the patronage of the Catholic Church, which had a specifically recognizable national and patriotic character and, on the other, the so called art of the young or New Expression art, which distanced itself both from the regime, as well as the Church.

Regardless of the changing fads, trends or generations of artists, the questions which had been very acutely posed in those times, still remain very much open today: What is the place of the artist in the society? How to define artistic autonomy and how to use it? Can an artist remain independent from social and political changes? What is the risk an artist has to bear by actively engaging in these processes? These issues seem to be of particular relevance today, as has been best proven by the programme of the 7th Berlin Biennale curated by Artur Żmijewski.

On the other hand, we should bear in mind that the 1980’s was a time when the new system of Polish art as known in the 1990’s was just being outlined. It meant the ever more important position of curators, a developing art market and an increasing role of private galleries which were new institutions altogether. To what extent the attitudes created then have been influential in terms of the present institutional standing of art?

When planning our research, we first thought of the organic work that has never been performed. A series of working meetings resulted in a conference open to the public. The conference, however, has not helped to create a synthetic image of Polish art of the 80’s. On the contrary, the often heated discussions have revealed the extent to which the art history discourses are entangled in the current political disputes, which are often times quite distorted. Not shirking from unmasking the political stance of an art historian and problematizing the complicated and difficult relations between the now and the historical experience, we have nonetheless decided to shift the accents in the present publication.

The on-line presentation of the materials resulting from the «Rejected Heritage» project, is a compilation of analyses, reports and discussions. It starts with a presentation of the leading personalities of the art milieu of the time, shedding a new light on these figures – on the one hand, the “pre-curator” Janusz Bogucki, organizer of church exhibitions, author of the anticipated concept of the merging of the “sacrum of art” with the “original sacrum” (Dorota Jarecka), as well as the first important Polish art merchant, Andrzej Bonarski, with his long-term business visions and sights into the future of art laying in the purchasing power of the middle class (Łukasz Gorczyca). In the discussion at the conference, the concepts offered by the two researchers have been confronted with the ideas of the actual participants of the analysed situations – Bonarski and the wife and collaborator of Bogucki – Nina Smolarz.

Another series of papers have been devoted to the extent, to which the art of the 1980’s was aware of being different and how it can now be perceived from the vantage point of today. Attempts at its definition have been made throughout the entire decade. One such attempt entailed a questionnaire, discussed here by Aleksandra Ściegienna. We have juxtaposed it with an analysis of the efforts of the authorities aimed at regaining trust and support of the artistic circles. Karol Sienkiewicz sees a symptom of these efforts in the establishment of the Centre for Contemporary Art, while Luiza Nader sees it in the submergence of the historiography of the time in the current artistic processes, and offers her interpretation of Wojciech Włodarczyk’s book on socialist realism to prove her case.

The publication also includes a number of more detailed elaborations on important events of the decade (Construction in Process – Aleksandra Jach), as well as milieus (Wrocław – Piotr Stasiowski, Zielona Góra – Wojciech Kozłowski, Wyspa in Gdansk – Dominik Kuryłek, Ewa Małgorzata Tatar), publishing projects (Tumult – Dominik Kuryłek, Ewa Małgorzata Tatar), and places where Polish artists could meet Western art (Alexandra Alisauskas).

When working on the project, we would constantly mix up the title “Rejected Heritage” with “Heritage Forgotten” or “Heritage Regained” – as if we couldn’t really decide what is actually the deal with the art of the 1980’s. Has it been intentionally abandoned, or incidentally forgotten in face of the overproduction of new material, or has it been regained, if only in a small part? We were not, however, seeking so much a coherent picture of Polish art of the 80’s, as we were interested in looking for moments which could prove its relevance.