Michal Wenderski

Drawing on thousands of historical documents from Polish and Dutch archives, this book explores Cold War cultural exchange between so-called 'smaller powers' of this global conflict, which thus far has been predominately explored from the perspective of the two superpowers or more pivotal countries. By looking at how cultural, artistic and scholarly relations were developed between Poland and the Netherlands, Michał Wenderski sheds new light on the history of the Cultural Cold War that was not always orchestrated solely by its main players. Less pivotal states-for example, Poland and the Netherlands-likewise intentionally created their international cultural policies and shaped their cultural exchange with countries from the other side of the Iron Curtain. This study reconstructs these policies and identifies the varying factors that influenced them-both o cial and less formal. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, history of the Cold War, postwar European history, international cultural relations, Dutch studies and Polish studies.

This book explores the issue of cultural mobility within the interwar network of the European avant-garde, focusing on selected writers, artists, architects, magazines and groups from Poland, Belgium and Netherlands. Regardless of their apparent linguistic, cultural and geographical remoteness, their mutual exchange and relationships were both deep and broad, and of great importance for the wider development of interwar avant-garde literature, art and architecture. This analysis is based on a vast research corpus encompassing original, often previously overlooked periodicals, publications and correspondence gathered from archives around the world.

This article explores the intertwinement of politics, international affairs and culture during the Cold War through a case study of Polish-Dutch cultural relations and the heterogeneous factors that shaped them. The study centres around the turbulent events of 1968 in Poland, and their impact on the international cultural policies of the Polish People’s Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It demonstrates that the cultural field suffered the most immediate consequences of the political decisions taken by both parties – consequences which lasted for a considerable time – thus making it a metaphorical litmus test for the Cold War international relationships. This article reconstructs and analyses Polish and Dutch reactions to the 1968 events and their use of culture for the sake of their own policies – both as a form of protest and as an anti-crisis tool meant to influence the authorities and citizens of the target country.

THIS IS AN OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592296.2022.2143118

This study explores the international cultural relationship between the
Netherlands and the Republic of Poland during a period of growing
political tensions between the Western world and the Eastern Bloc.
Seemingly, both countries did not have any significant cultural ties
during this period. However, various archival documents indicate that
such ties existed, providing new insights into the history, scale and
nature of bilateral artistic and cultural relations between the countries
that developed during the early Cold War reality of a divided world – in
some cases in spite of political tensions, but frequently also for the sake of political rivalry.

THIS IS AN OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE:
https://doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2021.1898378

This paper discusses the topic of artistic 'isms' in the history and historiography of modern Dutch and Flemish art in a broader European context - such as Constructivism, Neoplasticism, Elementarism, Futurism, Cubism, Expressionism etc.
Exemplified by the case of the historical artistic and literary avant-garde from the Low Countries, with its polyphony of overlapping artistic 'isms', this paper aims to scrutinize various limitations and imprecisions that result from the use of 'isms' in the history and historiography of modern art, exemplified by selected avant-garde formations such as De Stijl, Het Overzicht or 7 Art.

The historiography of modern art recognizes numerous cases of influence and impact that artist from the so-called‘Western centres’ had on their ‘Eastern peripheral’ colleagues. Reverse examples, however, are rarely recognised. This article gives such an example, by demonstrating the influence of Katarzyna Kobro on Georges Vantongerloo, two prominent avant-garde sculptors.

Analysis of historical material (e.g. letters and publications) and selected artworks clearly indicates that the pioneering sculptures of Kobro, who lived and worked mostly in Poland, had profound impact on Vantongerloo, a Belgian artist related to the Dutch formation ‘De Stijl’. In time Vantongerloo’s works evolved from compact sculptures-masses to open spatial compositions that came to share the spirit of Kobro’s unique works.

This case thus serves as evidence of two-way artistic influences and mobility that took place within the supranational network of the avant-garde, contrarily to historiographical assumptions such as the ‘centre-periphery’ paradigm or the East-West dichotomization.

FULL TEXT:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QXXe7AEbBYJiuxNtKCgV/full?target=10.1080/03096564.2019.1616142

This article presents a remarkable case study of artistic influences between two avant-garde artists who still gain insufficient recognition in international accounts of European modern art, namely between Mieczysław Szczuka and Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman – eminent representatives of Polish and Dutch interwar avant-gardes, respectively. They both lived and worked far from historiographical artistic ‘centres’, did not travel much, yet their work indicates considerable influence exerted by one of these ‘peripheral’ artists on the other. Interestingly, it is the Polish artist Szczuka whose works became a source of artistic inspiration for the Dutchman Werkman, providing a remarkable example of East-West artistic influence that has so far rarely been recognized by the historiographers of the avant-garde. This particular case study is based on an analysis of preserved historical material and selected artworks that give evidence of Szczuka’s influence on Werkman and at the same time question historiographical assumptions regarding cultural mobility ‘from centres to peripheries’ and ‘from West to East’.

FULL TEXT (free e-print):
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/IA7B2bt7KtKyTuKqAZHv/full

The network of European interwar avant-garde united artists and formations from various countries and cultural/linguistic backgrounds – be it in the East or West, North or South. Although the history of the interwar avant-garde has gradually been studied and described, some of its aspects and dimensions are still lacking an in-depth analysis, for
instance the relationships between Poland and the Low Countries. The magazines of Polish, Dutch and Belgian provenance, and the correspondence between their representatives, reveal numerous traces of direct contacts and mutual exchange of texts and artworks between them. In this paper I reflect on such traces in order to reconstruct the history and the dynamics of mutual relationships between avant-garde formations from Poland and the Low Countries as an example of supranational cultural mobility within the interwar avant-garde network.

This paper reflects on cultural mobility in the interwar Europe exemplified by mutual exchange between Dutch and Polish avant-garde formations such as De Stijl or Blok. Polish and Dutch groups and magazines belonged to an international, cross-border network of avant-garde writers, artists and architects who jointly struggled for new, modern art. Within this network, magazines and artists from Poland and the Netherlands were related to each other regardless of apparent cultural and linguistic boundaries – not only via other formations (e.g. French or German), but also directly based on personal contacts between particular representatives of given groups. These relationships enabled direct, mutual and reciprocal exchange of texts and reproductions of artworks and architectural projects between Polish and Dutch magazines. Based on such tangible traces, as well as private correspondence between the artists, I describe the history and the maelstroms of cultural exchange between Dutch and Polish avant-gardes, which – being part of the transnational European avant-garde network – significantly contributed to the development of modern literary, artistic and architectural thought.

This case study explores the entangled history of the constructivist network in the course of the 1920s and 1930s in light of the interpersonal relationships between some of its representatives. In order to analyse the evolution and influence of such relationships on the functioning of the network, I present data and details of two seemingly distant areas, namely Poland and the Low Countries, and of the dynamics between chosen members of Polish, Dutch and Belgian avant-garde formations such as Zwrotnica, Blok, Praesens, De Stijl, Het Overzicht and Cercle et Carré. Based on tangible traces of direct and indirect relationships left in avant-garde magazines and private correspondence between the artists, I describe how particular ties were formed, maintained and terminated, and how they influenced the exchange between the analysed nodes. This analysis is partially based on Granovetter’s renown theory of ‘strong and weak ties’, which examined the nature of interpersonal connections within and between given circles of individuals, with specific focus on the so-called ‘marginal’ individuals, particularly relevant for the description of avant-garde artists and their formations.

Exactly one century ago, the autumn of 1917 witnessed two events of immense importance for the development of avant-garde thought in Poland and in the Netherlands. In October of the same year, the first issue of the journal De Stijl was published in the Dutch city of Leiden, which provided a platform that played an extremely significant role in the development of the so-called New Art. Only one month later, the First Exhibition of Polish Expressionists was inaugurated in Kraków, a city located more than one thousand kilometres away—the show is recognised today as a symbolic beginning of the Polish Avant-garde.

At the time, the two events did not have much in common, yet this coincidence acquires a special meaning in the light of the mutual contacts and influences that emerged in the course of time between Polish and Dutch avant-garde groups and their representatives. The present text is an attempt to reconstruct those relations between the Avant-gardes in Poland and in the Netherlands.

In January 1924, Flemish avant-garde magazine Het Overzicht published a list of its congenial modernist for­ma­tions named ‘Het Netwerk’. It named nineteen magazines from Europe, the United States and Brazil, including the Polish magazine Zwrotnica. It exemplified the close and direct relationships within the supranational network of the avant-garde. Various formations belonging to this network, both bigger and smaller nodes, were linked to each other, often directly through befriended artists and writers. It did not only concern places such as Paris or Berlin, but also less pivotal nodes of the avant-garde network. In this paper I will present a case study of two countries, namely Poland and Belgium, as an example of European interwar cultural mobility. Joined in their pursuit of modern art, and crossing national and linguistic frontiers, Polish, French and Dutch-language magazines exchanged and re-printed each other’s texts and artworks, a practice also discussed in the correspondence between their representatives. Based on such tangible traces I will describe the cultural mobility and mutual exchange between the Polish and Belgian modernist journals, and attempt to shed light on the features, dynamics, and key figures of the network.

Niniejszy artykuł poświęcony jest międzynarodowym kontaktom istniejącym pomiędzy wybranymi przedstawicielami polskiej i zachodniej międzywojennej awangardy artystyczno-literackiej. Charakter i skala tych relacji zostały przedstawione na przykładzie artystów grupy „a.r.” – Katarzyny Kobro, Władysława Strzemińskiego, Henryka Stażewskiego oraz Jana Brzękowskiego i ich kontaktów z przedstawicielami holenderskich i belgijskich formacji, m.in. grupy „De Stijl”. Pokrótce omówiono genezę tych relacji, ich naturę i przebieg oraz wpływ jaki wywarły na twórczość i teorie wybranych artystów. Opis owych zależności oparty został na archiwalnych dokumentach i publikacjach, z których wyłania się obraz bezpośrednich kontaktów – osobistych bądź korespondencyjnych – pomiędzy czołowymi artystami europejskiej awangardy, które przedstawiono także w formie diagramu ilustrującego niniejszy tekst. ////// This article is dedicated to international connections between selected representatives of Polish and Western avant-gardes in art and literature of the interwar period. Both the nature and the scale of such relations have been exemplified by a number of artists from the " a.r. " group – Katarzyna Kobro, Władysław Strzemiński, Henryk Stażewski and Jan Brzękowski, as well as their relationships with the representatives of Dutch and Belgian formations, inter alia " De Stijl " group. The origin of those connections has been briefly presented, along with their nature, dynamics and an impact they made on artworks and theories of chosen artists. Their description is based on archival documents and publications, from which a picture of direct relationships between the leading artists of the European avant-garde emerges – some of them personal, some correspondence-based; they have also been presented in form of a diagram that illustrates the text.

Dokładnie przed wiekiem, jesienią 1917 roku, miały miejsce dwa wydarzenia o ogromnym znaczeniu dla rozwoju awangardowej myśli w Polsce i w Holandii. W październiku tego roku w holenderskiej Lejdzie światło dzienne ujrzał pierwszy numer pisma „De Stijl”, swoistej platformy, która w rozwoju tzw. Nowej Sztuki odegrała rolę niebywale ważną. Ledwie miesiąc później, w oddalonym o ponad tysiąc  kilometrów Krakowie otwarto I Wystawę Ekspresjonistów Polskich, dziś uznawaną za symboliczny zaczątek awangardy polskiej.

Wówczas wydarzenia te nie miały ze sobą zbyt wiele wspólnego, niemniej ów zbieg okoliczności nabiera wyjątkowego znaczenia w obliczu wzajemnych kontaktów oraz wpływów, jakie z czasem narodziły się pomiędzy polskimi i holenderskimi awangardowymi ugrupowaniami i ich przedstawicielami. Niniejszy tekst stanowi próbę rekonstrukcji owych relacji pomiędzy awangardami w Polsce i w Holandii.

The ‘Dutch’ colonisation in Poland, which took place between the 16th and the 19th century, left a clear architectural and spatial mark in the Polish countryside. The newcomers, originally from the Low Countries and later from Germany and other parts of Europe, created independent communities which did not establish strong ties with adjacent villages. Moreover, contrary to autochthonic peasants, the colonists enjoyed freedom and a relatively high social status and were often rather wealthy. Hence their villages and farmsteads differed from local ones being generally speaking more representative. It has often been assumed than the ‘Dutch’ settlements in Poland shared more similarities with the Dutch or Frisian countryside than with the neighbouring villages and that both the settlements as well as the farmhouses differed substantially from local building traditions. This paper explores how much the ‘Dutch’ villages and farms were in fact distinguishable from their local counterparts and to what extent they coincided with building traditions in the Low Countries and in Germany.

Jeśli na awangardowe czasopisma sprzed stu lat spojrzymy jak na współczesne profile w mediach społecznościowych, dostrzeżemy w nich pierwowzory dzisiejszych „lajków”, „share’ów” i „followersów”, które już wtedy krążyły po sieci – nie internetowej, a awangardowej. Z taką niecodzienną perspektywą przyjrzymy się polsko-holenderskim awangardowym powiązaniom, wskazując na wyjątkowo bliskie i intensywne wzajemne kontakty pomiędzy czołowymi artystami i twórcami Bloku, Praesensu, De Stijl itp.

Dadaizm jest obecnie zaliczany do najważniejszych kierunków historycznej awangardy, które wywarły znaczący wpływ na rozwój sztuk ubiegłego wieku. Nasz obraz dadaizmu zaledwie w części opiera się na dokonaniach właściwego ruchu Dada, którego kolebką od 1916 roku był zurychski Cabaret Voltaire.

To właśnie z Zurichu plotka o Dada rozeszła się po świecie, a pod egidą Dada zaczęli działać przeróżni twórcy, między innymi w Berlinie, Paryżu czy Holandii. Prędko jednak Dada dokonało swojego żywota.

Słuch o Dada zaginął w pierwszej połowie lat dwudziestych by po drugiej wojnie światowej odkryć je na nowo, najpierw w Ameryce, a następnie w Europie. Ponowne odkrycie dadaizmu sprawiło, że i historię Dada napisano od nowa. Pomimo, iż w 1916 roku zurychscy dadaiści walczyli o nową sztukę, to od lat pięćdziesiątych Dada stało się przede wszystkim synonimem anty-sztuki.

W odrodzeniu Dada udział brali nie tylko liczni ex-dadaiści, ale i artyści, którzy w latach dziesiątych i dwudziestych z dadaizmem mieli niewiele wspólnego, np. Marcel Duchamp, który w późniejszym okresie przeistoczył się w wielkiego pioniera dadaizmu, przyczyniając się jednocześnie do tego, iż dziś Nowy Jork postrzegany jest jako kolebka dadaizmu.

Prezentowana w Łodzi kolekcja Marzony jest znakomitą ilustracją tego, czym Dada było, jest oraz sposobu w jakim stało się tym, czym jest dziś. Oferuje ona wyjątkową panoramę historii dadaizmu, zarówno tego historycznego sprzed wieku, jaki i późniejszej transformacji do współcześnie znanej formy Dada, które zaprezentowane zostaną podczas niniejszego wykładu.