EXHIBITION: WAYS OF THE BLACK SPREAD OVER THE WHITE LAND

Curator: Oliwia Mimi Bosomtwe

Artists: Jimoh Akolo, Krzysztof M. Bednarski, Marian Bogusz, Max Cegielski, Teodora Dąbrowska, Worku Goshu, Barbara Grądzka-Łowkis, Wiktor Gutt, Oskar Hansen, Władysław Hasior, C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska, Józef Kaliszan, Leszek Knaflewski, Ewa Kuryluk, Maja Ngom, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Leon Podsiadły, Danuta Rago, Waldemar Raniszewski, Józef Robakowski, Erna Rosenstein, Zbyszko Siemaszko, Danuta Sienkiewicz, Janek Simon, Jonasz Stern, Władysław Strzemiński, Tadeusz Sumiński, Hailu Tsigie, Paulin Wojtyna.

Ways of the White Spread Over the Black Land was a 1948 painting by Marian Bogusz. The reversed title of this exhibition illustrates the peculiar dynamics of Poland’s relationships with Blackness and Sub-Saharan Africa in times of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL). With the end of World War II, Poland came under the Communist social-political system, adopting with it an anti-fascist and anti-imperial ideology that condemned racism and colonial projects. Art, politics, and ethnography combined to produce an entanglement of meanings and agendas. As more and more African states declared independence at the turn of the 1950s and 60s, Poland forged new alliances, reflecting the ideologically determined Cold-War efforts to gain influence no less than they did reflect a genuine interest in the decolonized continent. These international relations eventually resulted in an increased exchange of ideas as well as individuals, which had an effect on artistic circles and visual culture of the time.

Ways of the Black Spread Over the White Land, fictions and notions tell a story—vibrant and full of contrasts—about escaping the centrally planned actuality whose politics paved the way for African diasporas to emerge in Poland. By bringing together works by Polish and Nigerian artists as well as by graduates of Poland’s art universities who came from Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya, among other countries, we examine our past connections—overshadowed at some point by the democratic transition and mostly sidelined since then.

Archives: Archive of the Leon Schiller National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź, National Digital Archives.

Image: Ewa Kuryluk, The Iks Are Us, 1975, acrylic and collage on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and the National Museum in Warsaw. Photo by Piotr Ligier.

Further information here.