Warsaw...21st June

A slow start.. It looked as though a thunderstorm was about to unleash a torrent of water, but the storm moved on. 

Walking towards the centre I re-took photos of the new development mentioned in the last blog and re-aligned it.

Walking towards the centre along Swietokrzyska avenue (the new underground runs under the avenue) bikes and motorised scooters are separated from the cars; normally interlinked and weaving with the pavements. The motorised scooters are great; bookable and all GPS linked so can be picked up from an app, I was tempted but felt it was asking for trouble... 

Walking past building after building with plaques explaining its destruction during the war and its re-construction in the 50's and 60's gives a sense of the complete desolation of the city in 1944. Those people who survived and others who returned faced a virtually in-comprehensible period of re-organisation and re-construction. All this is written and known but being able to walk through the city, away from the main streets gave me a sense of the scale of the destruction.  

I walked into the Zacheta, the National Gallery of Art, primarily to see the exhibition Spojrzenia: 'Views'. Similar to the Turner Prize in the UK. The entrance fee also gave access to two other exhibitions, 'Poland' for Export, and Puppets: Theatre, Film and Politics. 
I visited the latter two first.. 

'Poland' for Export:
Published monthly for the first time in 1954 (ending in 89/90) it started with two versions, one for the west and one for the east, reaching 60,000 and 200,000 respectively. They were specifically published to describe the modern scientific, artistic and cultural society of the new Poland. Later two further versions were created for Africa and Asia focused on the industrial capability of Poland; for developing export markets. 
They were propaganda tools but the critical issue for the exhibition curators was the vast amount of high quality photography, with original negatives, available to create the exhibition. Sometimes when reviewing a role of negatives the real images of Poland appeared rather than the chosen image. The photographers' were allowed the right to keep their negatives and this is why so many remain. After 1968 this wasn't the case. 

The shifting of images was also well displayed. This is a man describing how his brother was murdered in 1939;

The bottom images were cropped and re-shot.

Puppets: Theatre, Film and Politics:
The exhibition explores the theatre of puppets from 1930's modernism through the communist period charting its role in socio-political critique to its subversion as a political tool to promote socialist ideals and the 'new socialist individual', a perfect vehicle to start that process with children.

The political puppet..

 Spojrzenia: 'Views'

Any visitor can vote for their preferred artist..

This installation reflects 12pm with the beach party deserted with up turned tables. In the tables are the detritus of the evening. The video with sound on the wall was really evocative of a moon lit night and emptiness...

 
Moving on... 

I did reach the 'old town'.. It is an UNESCO site; full of people.. but it felt a little frozen in time.. Some of the walls felt too well re-constructed but the area felt overwhelmed by tourists.. and opportunities to listen to Chopin. I found a photo taken in 1939 and compared this with now.. 

(it had started raining by now..)

Pristine ruins...

On the walk out I came across a wedding celebration, backing onto a small public park, with a violin playing... it changed my slight negativity of the previous couple of hours..