And Europe Will Be Stunned: The Polish Trilogy

The album is a synopsis of the ”Polish film trilogy” by Yael Bartana. A photographic history of these three films has been supplemented with essays by Ardella Azoulay and Adi Ophir, Boris Groys, Jaqueline Rose and Joanna Mytkowska.

Sławomir Sierakowski, founder of "Krytyka Polityczna", standing inside the empty and destroyed 10th-Anniversary Stadium on the eve of its demolition, gives an impassioned speech to the Jews who used to live in Poland and calls them to return.

He calls out to 3.3 million Polish Jews exterminated during the World War II: “Yes! Today we know that we cannot live alone. We need the other, and there is no closer other for us than you! Come!” In Bartana’s second picture, the Jews respond to the appeal by building a kibbutz (following the example of the first Palestinian settlers) in the Warsaw precinct Muranów, right next to the Monument of the Ghetto Heroes.

Similarly to Nightmares, Wall and Tower refer to the aesthetics of Zionist propaganda painting of the 1920s and 1930s. During its production, the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland is brought into existence – its logo depicts the Polish eagle inscribed into the Star of David. The last link of the trilogy And Europe Will Be Stunned is the film entitled Assassination. In form, this picture is reminiscent of socialist realism mass-events, and is an account of a fictive funeral of the Movement’s leader (in this role again, Sławomir Sierakowski), assassinated by circles objecting to the return of Jews.

Yael Bartana’s trilogy was successfully presented in the Polish national pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2011.


 


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