2011
found footage video
duration: 19’
consultation: Michał Januszaniec
A perfect allegory of the gesture Burska makes in her found footage is the opening scene of her film, taken from Alternatywy 4, a popular 1980s series produced by Stanisław Bareja. Two men are trying to bring into an apartment building a huge copy of Matejko’s canvas in a heavy wooden frame that is clearly too big to fit inside. When it turns out that such a huge painting does not fit into a space designed for ordinary people, the delivery men ultimately leave it in the stairwell, blocking the entrance to the apartments. The painting has to be moved for residents to even leave their apartments; the residents have to somehow find room for themselves in a world where their modest, everyday living spaces are overwhelmed by a masterpiece of Polish painting. This is precisely the problem illustrated in Burska’s film.
The artist’s film is an attempt to “air out” Grunwald, to create openings, or “pores”, in its widely proliferated image that are big enough to breathe through. The tool of this act of airing-out is, of course, montage, a process that involves both cutting and joining, separating and stitching together. It can be used both to create an impression of continuity (this happens in most classical feature films) as well as to purge viewers of their illusions. Burska chooses the latter option, but in doing so she is confronted by something much more vast and overwhelming than some fictional story.
Battle of Grunwald reveals to the viewer an overblown ideological concept, instances of which can be found almost everywhere. It concerns not just a single depiction, but a whole array of emotional and sensual stimuli spread across different media and transmission platforms. These are both overt and covert, large and small mechanisms that force upon consumers of pop culture – or simply contemporary Poles – great myths about the clash of civilizations, the fight for independence, and ultimate proof of uncorrupted bravery.
In her film, Burska reconstructs the course of the battle in a linear fashion: from its beginning, when Jagiełło looks out onto the still empty field, through a scene with two swords, to the killing of the wounded after the armies clash. This story, however, is a conglomeration of various images taken from all the sources mentioned above. Both visually and – very importantly – in terms of sound, the artist builds a sense of disorientation rather than of continuity, shaking viewers out of their habitual rhythm, “contaminating” past representations of the Battle of Grunwald.
We are thus shown a fragment of a promotional clip for a PlayStation game, followed by a monumental image of Jagiełło from Ford’s Knights of the Teutonic Order, and a moment later, a charge of Lego blocks or reconstructionists dressed up as medieval knights. The solemnity of the battle continually clashes with Burska’s intended irony, which is often directed at the unintended ridiculousness of chivalrous propaganda. The Poles proudly singing Bogurodzica [Mother of God, a well-known historical hymn], the Teutonic Knights responding with their Lorelei, and everything being tied together by Lego figures with black dots drawn on them to represent singing lips.
Music from adventure movies, meant to raise the drumbeat of emotions, suddenly collides with Russian commentary on the acting, or an excerpt from an advertisement, or a not-so-well-timed soundtrack from the battlefield. Like the situation of looking for a radio station and discovering the same thing was playing on all the channels, the ideological message here too has to contend with a series of noises and distortions.
excerpt from the text Airing Out Grunwald by Paweł Mościcki, catalogue Blood and Sugar. Works 2000–2021, published by Gdańsk City Gallery, Trafostacja Sztuki in Szczecin, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, 2021
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Jeszcze raz, jeszcze dziś Armia
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trailer for Platige Image’s project reconstructing Jan Matejko’s painting in a three-dimensional version, Tomasz Bagiński
