Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Warsaw address: a dossier on 36, Smolna Street

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13602360903570169

1466-4410

Ella Chmielewska, Agnieszka Chmielewska, Mariusz Tchorek, Paul Carter,

Central European Literary Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes From conversations with Mariusz noted in Katy Bentall's diary, 1995. From the manuscript of Mariusz Tchorek, Photography Project (2002; Tchorek-Bentall Foundation). Ella Chmielewska in, Mark Dorrian, Warszawa: Projects for the Post-Socialist City. Projekty dla miasta postsocjalistycznego (Edinburgh, Cityspeculations, 2009), p. 22. This article was translated by Joanna Jasieczek. For more on this subject see: A. Chmielewska, ‘Otworzyły się nowe możliwości…’. Idee środowiska przedwojennej ASP w Warszawie wobec propozycji socrealizmu, Polska 1944–1989. Materiały do studiów i duskusji, nr 4/c1999, pp. 161–178. Many of the socialist realist sculptures have not been attributed or are attributed incorrectly. ‘A Mother and Child’ is one of the few whose authorship is known. See, for example, David Crowley, Warsaw (London, Reaktion Books, 2003), p. 115. Władysław Strzemiński (1893–1952) was one of the most important Polish constructivists. The author of the concept of ‘unism’, he was formed as an artist in Soviet Russia within the circle of Kazimir Malevich. From 1921 he worked in Poland and from 1945 he was a lecturer at the State Higher School of the Visual Arts in Łódź. In 1950 he was stripped of this position and the right to work as an artist for failing to respect socialist realist doctrine. For the text of Theory of Place see W. Borowski, A. Ptaszkowska and M. Tchorek, ‘Foksal gallery documents’, October, 38 (1986), pp. 52–62. The gallery was established in a 5x7 m room in the offices of Pracownie Sztuk Plastycznych (PSP) a state institution under the direction of the Ministry of Culture with a mandate to popularise and commission contemporary art and design. Mariusz Tchorek emphasised in the interview with Joanna Mytkowska that the Gallery had been established ‘on the terrain controlled by a state institution’. (From the transcript of the interview Mariusz Tchorek gave to Joanna Mytkowska on April 11th, 1997; Tchorek-Bentall Foundation.) Tadeusz Kantor attacked Mariusz during the presentation of the Theory of Place in Puławy, claiming that Mariusz had ‘stolen’ that idea ‘from his suitcase’. (From Mariusz Tchorek's autobiography; Tchorek-Bentall Foundation.) The lecture was given at the invitation of Paweł Polit at The Centre for Contemporary Art, Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw on 9th November, 2000. The translation is by Regina Gray-Lyons, Sarah Łuczaj and Warren Niesłuchowski. Puławy Nitrogen Works (Zakłady Azotowe Puławy), a massive industrial complex producing nitrogen fertiliser, was opened in 1966 near the town of Puławy, along the Vistula river in eastern Poland. The town of Puławy is of great historical significance. From the seventeenth century it was a location of residences of the Lubomirski, Sieniawski and Czartoryski noble families. After the loss of Poland's independence in 1795, the palace of the Czartoryski family became a museum of Polish national memorabilia and a major cultural and political centre. After the suppression of the November Uprising of 1830–31, the estate was taken over by the Russian government. The palace collections that had been saved formed the nucleus of the present Czartoryski Muzeum in Kraków. Bogdan Baran (born in 1952): Polish literary critic, writer and translator of Heidegger, Gadamer, Nietzsche, Žižek, among others. Bolesław Leśmian (1878–1937): poet and essayist. His symbolic, expressionist poetry was remarkable for its inventive vocabulary, sensuous imagery and philosophical content. ‘Land cadastre’ in Polish is księga wieczysta: the literal translation is ‘Book of Eternal Registry’. Ujazdowski Castle dates from the fourteenth century and was originally built as a wooden residence of the Mazovian Princes. It was rebuilt as a stone residence by Queen Bona, remodelled for Queen Anna Jagiellonka and rebuilt again in 1624 by the King of Poland, Sigmund III Vasa. The castle has had a dramatic history: pillaged and destroyed by the Swedish army in 1655, rebuilt by Stanisław Lubomirski, the King's residence in the 1700s, turned into a military hospital in the early 1800s, its interiors burnt out in 1944. The castle was demolished in 1954 and rebuilt in the 1970s in its baroque form. Since 1981 it has been used for art exhibitions and since 1985 has been the headquarters of The Centre for Contemporary Art. A reference to the Swedish invasion (‘Deluge’) of Poland in the mid-seventeenth century. The MDM (Marszałkowska Dzielnica Mieszkaniowa) is a socialist realist housing estate completed in 1953. Canaletto, or Bernardo Belotto signing himself as Bernardo Canaletto, an Italian urban landscape painter who from 1764 to his death in 1780 was the court painter of Poland's King Stanisław August Poniatowski for whom he painted numerous views of the capital. Jan Zbigniew Słojewski, pen name Hamilton (born in 1934): critic, writer and a literary personality, published in a number of periodicals such as Współczesność, Kultura, Polityka. The Warsaw Uprising, 1st August –2nd October, 1944. A Children's Department Store in Aleje Jerozolimskie at Krucza Street. The building was designed by Zbigniew Ihnatowicz and Jerzy Romański (1949–52). It opened as Centralny Dom Towarowy (CDT, Central Department Store). It was rebuilt after the fire of 1975 as Centralny Dom Dziecka (Children's Department Store), Smyk. Jabłkowski Brothers' Department Store at Bracka 25, established in 1924: amongst the most luxurious and reputable stores in Poland before 1939. SS (Die Schutzstaffel der NSDAP). Złota kaczka, the Golden Duck, is a legendary creature dwelling in the cellars beneath the Ostrogski Palac (sometimes referred to as Ostrogski Castle) along the Warsaw Escarpment, at Tamka Street. Stefan Starzyński (1893–1943): an economist and politician, a visionary and popular President of Warsaw 1934–1939, led the defence of the city in 1939 and is presumed to have died in Dachau concentration camp in 1943. Jerzy Kasprzycki, Korzenie miasta. Warszawskie pożegnania; ‘The Roots of the City, Warsaw's Farewells’ (Warsaw, Veda, 2000). Powiśle (literally near-the-Vistula) is a neighbourhood in Warsaw's borough Środmieście (city centre) located between the Vistula River and the Escarpment. Edward Narkiewicz (1938–2007), a Polish painter who studied in the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and exhibited amongst other places in the Foksal Gallery. Kazimierz, Janowiec and Czersk are towns along the Vistula River; Podgórz is a village near Kazimierz Dolny by the River Vistula. Wielopole, a village near Łódź in central Poland, the birthplace of Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990), a painter, theatre director, creator of happenings, writer. Wielopole Wielopole is one of Kantor's best-known theatre productions (1980). See Wielopole/Wielopole: An Exercise in Theatre, trs, Mariusz Tchorek and G. M. Hyde (New York, Marion Boyars, 2000). Witold Wojtkiewicz (1879–1909), painter and illustrator; Jacek Malczewski (1854–1929), symbolist painter. The architect for ‘The Tin School’ was Peter Ledward of Norwich and the architect for Dobre was Rudolf Buchalik of Kazimierz Dolny. The studio was used by Karol Tchorek as a place for a variety of activities; it functioned as a place of meetings, a repository of a significant art and antique collection and even a film set: the studio and its garden provided a key setting for the Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s ‘Hunting Flies’, which was entered for the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.