WAR

This exhibition-performance is a response to a recurring theme throughout history, near or distant. References to the war in Ukraine must be visible here, as this topic painfully reminds us of war due to geographic proximity and its potential consequences over recent months. However, the references to the mechanisms of perceiving war are universal. It is not so much about the war itself, but rather about the symbolism of meanings and how humans relate to it.

Three rooms and three different images aim to make visible how differently war can be interpreted and how humans respond to it. Not everyone will feel comfortable here, as not everyone wants to confront this topic. However, these questions will be asked, and people will be faced with facts. This is what the exhibition is about.

In the first room, at the start of the exhibition, separated from the rest, the viewer learns that the subject is war. They are an audience at a concert for accordion and mezzo-soprano, whose content is love, forgiveness, and redemption. It is no accident that the music references sacred or sacral themes related to religion. Religions, under the cover of noble ideals, have been and still are the cause of most wars. Musicians are separated from the viewers here by a kind of bio-art iconostasis — a symbolic divider of space, as in a traditional Orthodox church — dividing the sacred space (music, grandeur, pathos) from the profane space where the viewer stands, someone who does not understand the encounter with the absolute but experiences it. This feeling of smallness before a higher being is the key feature of religion. The bio-art iconostasis is composed of symbols of oppression and cultural decay. It pairs symbols and signs: the street art symbol of the Uyghur struggle with a figurative spy phone by the Chinese company Huawei; a Ukrainian folk pattern with a collage of rocket warheads and the cross of the Moscow Orthodox Church; Aboriginal, African, and Indigenous rock paintings paired with the powerful Vatican coat of arms armed with swords. Oppressors and victims, violence in the service of religion and totalitarianism. Iconic churches and ornaments are always built on theft and death, flaunting wealth and luxury. Likewise, here the ornaments are made from serrano ham — the most expensive and exclusive Spanish delicacy. Pure luxury.

But after a few minutes, behind the viewer, on a screen, a video appears showing the butchering of a pig — meat, blood, organs, knives, cleavers. The viewer does not yet know that this act is happening simultaneously in the adjacent room. However, the viewer is also an actor in this performance. The author records the performance, curious about who contemplates the concert and who voyeuristically watches the slaughter. The viewer decides. This echoes the idea behind charity events. On the one hand, we gladly participate in a noble charity concert, donate to victims, but underneath, watching real suffering holds a perverse pleasure. We want to see war, especially from the safety of our own habitat. The more such images, the better for fundraising. That’s why TV doesn’t show armies but mutilated children, crying mothers, and freezing elders. Only near the end of the concert do the doors open, and viewers enter the side room to see the live finale of the meat butchering. This room is fully lit in red, with a white table (altar) where the act takes place. The butchering is performed by an unskilled, mature man dressed in paramilitary attire — a symbol of strength. This is the real war. An under-equipped soldier dismantles a stolen pig because he is hungry. Ownership, division, and labor lose their value. There is only theft, hunger, and violence. This is the altar of war.

But there is more. In the next room, to a musical performance composed of the rutting calls of animals (stags) mixed with sounds of helicopters and machinery, an older man oppresses a woman tied to a post — a mother mourning her murdered husband and child. On the screen beside it is a contrasting performance recorded 25 years ago, where as a child the performer sucks on the breasts of two women in a silent, calm gesture of nursing. This documents the transformation of a person from a good child to a ruthless soldier giving vent to cruelty and sexual desire. This is the question posed by one of my Ukrainian friends who sent his son to the front five months ago: “I know he will return; but who will he be when he comes back?”

The exhibition intends to show this transformation of meanings occurring both in the minds and souls of war participants and its observers. The viewer must realize how little they know. Until they experience it, they are only spectators. They must remember that their noble generosity only reaches as far as their own nose. They will donate but only so much that it doesn’t diminish their wealth. They may offer a home, but only temporarily. In five months, they will say: “Enough now, go back to work.” They won’t say it aloud, but in company, they will note that “they ride trains for free without purpose — sightseeing in our country.” Nationalism, religion, and the desire for totalitarian governance always lead to this. They lead to pride, a historic sense of superiority and mission. Who these people will be when they return, and how we will speak to them, remains an open, yet unspoken question.

EXHIBITION

Author:
Maciej Śmietański – concept, direction, objects (iconostasis)

Guests:
Paweł Nowak – accordion
Magdalena Chmielecka – soprano
Jarosław Krajewski – performance (slaughter)
Grzegorz Pleszyński – performance, electronic and wind instruments
Agata Skowrońska – performance