Filmoteka Muzeum

Kisieland is a record of Karol Radziszewski’s meeting with Ryszard Kisiel, a representative of Polish homosexual underground in the 1980s and the editor of the independent uncensored zin Filo. The film revolves around an archive that has so far remained hidden and consists of dozens of colour slides documenting photo shoots organised by Kisiel with his friends in a private apartment.

Seen from the aesthetic and thematic perspective, the photographs engage in an interesting dialogue with works by Jack Smith and Nan Goldin, the representatives of New York’s underground art scene in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Kisiel created the images at the turn of 1986 as a direct response to the “Operation Hyacinth” launched by the Polish Communist police within which the Security Service was gathering information about homosexuals in Poland. Kisiel found himself amongst the victims of the operation.

Radziszewski’s film is an attempt at a different manner of describing the underground culture and activities in the 1980s as seen from the perspective of outsider amateur practice that features motifs repressed by both the artistic avant-garde and the cultural mainstream of Poland under Communism.
 

Year: 2012
Duration: 30'00"
Language: Polish (english subtitles)
Source:

© collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

WORKS FROM THAT ARTIST IN THE COLLECTION