Filmoteka Muzeum

Satisfaction revolves around the motif of eating potatoes from a full plate with a one-toothed fork against the soundtrack of the eponymous track from the Rolling Stones. Sosnowski pursues an allegorical interpretation of life in communist Poland, where “satisfaction” actually never came. The work is a response to the government’s attempt at a modernisation leap, which towards the end of the 1970s triggered an enormous crisis and generated massive debts for the state.

The scenes of eating potatoes are mixed with shots of a clearly sexual undertone, featuring the poetics of erotic representations that infiltrated into Poland from the West. As an artist-allegorist, assembling the prefabricated elements of the work of art, Sosnowski leads to the confrontation of the artistic and pop cultural discourse, using the field of popular culture to criticise the field of art, and the reverse. He also juxtaposes the political load of the film with the private reality, evoking meanings stemming from the private sphere.

References: David Crowley, Art of Consumption, [in:] 1,2,3... Avant-gardes. Film/Art Between Experiment and Archive, Ł. Ronduda, F. Zeyfang (eds.), Warsaw 2006; Ł. Ronduda, Polish Art of the 70s Avant-garde, Warsaw 2009; Zdzisław Sosnowski, Goalkeeper, 1977, unpublished, Archive of the Centre for Academic Information and Documentation, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw.
 

(ŁM)