Sarah Wilson: Crowds And Power - Two Polish Artists in London, AICA Berlin, 2019

Описание: Sarah Wilson:
CROWDS AND POWER - Two Polish Artists in London
52nd International AICA Congress, Berlin, 2019

In late 2017 the exhibitions of Marcin Dudek (Steps and Marches, Edel Assanti Gallery, London) and Ewa Axelrad (Shtamah, Copperfield Gallery, London) coincided. Each installation of sculptures and videos addressed issues of 'Polish' violence and the crowd. Dudek’s striking orange-walled show was based on football hooliganism as autobiography and metaphor; Axelrad addressed issues of the Polish right via symbolism and metonymy. These sparked my investigation into the theorised 'long history' of crowd violence and 'Propaganda as a weapon', from Hobbes and Gustave Le Bon, Georges Sorel, Jules Romain, Walter Benjamin, Willi Münzenberg, Sergei Chakotine ('Rape of the Masses by Political Propaganda'), Elias Canetti and Klaus Theweleit. Dudek specifically mentions Raymond Momboisse’s Riots Revolts & Insurrections (1977); Ewa Axelrad recalls the Polish translations of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) as regards Shtama ('group aggression'). First contextualised for me by the show Melancholia. A Sebald Variation (King’s College London, 2017), these reflections on 'Polish' violence, racism and constructions of masculinity have been reconfigured 'for home'. The metamorphosis of our democratic body – arguably subjected to 'mind rape' in the context of media data harvesting and abuse – has become monstrous. These two shows invite art-critical analysis; but how do they themselves analyse / offer a mirror to contemporary British publics?