→ 248 Dirk Gebhardt Slanted 28—Warsaw WASZ FA typeface fontarte 2 2016 3 Places of Origin: Polish Graphic Design in Context DesignMarch in Reykjavik Poster

The Wild West, A History of Wrocław’s Avant-Garde FONTARTE 2015 Zachęta National Gallery of Art Book

→ 248 1 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 248 2 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw Kosmos wzywa! fontarte 4 Cosmos Calling! 5 2014 Zachęta, National Gallery of Art Book accompanying the exhi- bition Cosmos Calling! Art and Science in the Long Sixties

Miss Swiss 2 2014 Pro Helvetia and Fontarte Editions Exhibition Catalog for Piktogram Gallery

ARTUR MAGDALENA

artur frankowski magdalena frankowska → 248 3 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 248 4 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw Artist-run initiatives fontarte 6 and galleries 7 2015 SZTUKA CIĘ SZUKA Book

Across realities, Wojciech Bruszewski 2015 Arton Foundation Book

→ 248 5 / 6 + Dirk Gebhardt Slanted 28—Warsaw → 248 6 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw The M-Z Route—exhibition super super 14 2015 15 Hanna Kokczyńska, Jacek Majewski, Marcin Romaniuk, Monika Piekoszewska, Joanna Pamuła National Museum of Poland Spacial and Visual Design Book

8th Art & Fashion Forum Chic Geek 2014 Jacek Majewski, Hanna Kokczyńska, Mikołaj Molenda, Studio Bridge, Jacek Kołodziejski, David Błażewicz, Rafał Grobel, Stary Browar Promo Campaign for Fashion and Technology Festival

→ 252 7 / 8 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 252 8 / 8 Slanted 28 Warsaw Institute for Advanced Study noviki 16 Warsaw 17 2016 NOVIKI Identity and Poster

KATARZYNA MARCIN katarzyna nestorowicz marcin nowicki → 250 1 / 8 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 250 2 / 8 Slanted 28 Warsaw NOTHING TWICE noviki 18 2015 19 Cricoteka, Cracow Exhibition Identity and Book

The Make Yourself at Home Guide to Warsaw 2016 Anna Ptak, Rani al Rajji, Christiaan Fruneaux, Edwin Gardner (Monnik) Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Subjective Guide to Warsaw Book → see also p. XX ff., XX ff., XX ff.

→ 250 3 / 8 Slanted 28 Warsaw → 250 4 / 8 Slanted 28—Warsaw POST / ERA syfon studio 28 2015 / 2016 29 Institute of Design Kielce Poster series 70 × 100 cm

SYFON STUDIO URSZULA FILIP urszula tofil filip tofil → 252 1 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 252 2 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw 50/50/50 edgar bąk studio 48 2016 49 50 posters of 50 graphic design- ers for the 50th anniversary of International Poster Biennale in Warsaw

EDGARBĄK

→ 247 STUDIO1 / 8 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 247 2 / 8 Slanted 28—Warsaw The Anatomy of Love edgar bąk studio 52 2016 53 Centrum Nauki Kopernik Poster

ATypI conference 2016 60th annual conference of ATypI Posters

→ 247, 248 5 / 8 + Dirk Gebhardt Slanted 28—Warsaw → 247 6 / 8 Slanted 28—Warsaw BREATHE mamastudio 68 2014 69 Piotr Holub, Pawel Marcinkowski, Michal Pawlik Mamastudio Marbling Project

Autor Rooms 2016 Magdalena Ponagajbo, Konrad Sybilski Hotel Identity

→ 249 3 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 249 4 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw De Morgen jacek utko 78 2014 79 In cooperation with Arne Depuydt Redesign of the Belgian daily JACEK UTKO Newspaper

→ 252 3 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 252, 248 4 / 6 + Dirk Gebhardt Slanted 28—Warsaw De Morgen jacek utko 80 2014 81 In cooperation with Arne Depuydt Redesign of the Belgian daily Newspaper

→ 252 5 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 252 6 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw Pollywood zerkaj studio 82 2016 83 Blue Bird Publishing house Book and Poster, B1

→ 253 �YSZARD1 / 4 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 253 2 / 4 Slanted 28—Warsaw zerkaj studio 84 Poster Expo with Andrzej 85 Wróblewski painting 2015 The Art of Poster Gallery / Modern Art Museum Warsaw Poster, B1, Offset

Wine holiday Janowiec 2015 Malopolska Wine producers association Poster, B1, Offset

Ryszard Kajzer—posters Bits & Pieces Gallery 2015 Poster, B1, Bits and Pieces

→ 253 3 / 4 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 253, 248 4 / 4 + Dirk Gebhardt Slanted 28—Warsaw British Steel rosław szaybo 86 1980 87 Judas Priest �OSŁAW CD Cover

→ 252 1 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 252 2 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw XX Muzeum Jazz Festival 2015 rosław szaybo 90 Ostrów Wielkopolski / Poland 91 Poster

→ 252, 248 5 / 6 + Dirk Gebhardt Slanted 28—Warsaw → 252 6 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw Warsaw Calling grzegorz laszuk 92 2015 93 Theatrical Poster

→ 249 G�ZEGORZ1 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 249 2 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw TR Warszawa Theatre grzegorz laszuk 94 2015–2016 95 Posters

→ 249 3 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 249 4 / 6 Slanted 28—Warsaw 120 121 FONTNAMES ILLUSTRATED Janek Koza Dawid Ryski Piotr Socha Agata Królak Ola Niepsuj Tomasz Walenta Tymek Jezierski Agata Nowicka Agata Dudek

Typeface: Polish Dirty News, designed by Piotr Wozniak (066.FONT)

→ 247–253 Fontnames Illustrated Slanted 28—Warsaw → 267 Janek Koza Slanted 28—Warsaw fontnames illustrated 128 129

Typeface: Pokrak (freak), designed by Piotr Wozniak (066.FONT) Typeface: Strefa (zone), designed by Aleksandra Slowinska

→ 267 Agata Nowicka Slanted 28—Warsaw → 267 Agata Dudek Slanted 28—Warsaw essay 130 131

Poland in the early twentieth century was not featured on the map of Europe, be‑ ing parceled into three partitions and subject to various political, economic and cultural influences. The most liberal of these areas was the Austrian partition, and Cracow, the former capital and seat of Polish kings, served as the symbolic center of this supposedly non‑existent country, with a significant part of Poland’s artistic, literary and publishing activities being concentrated in that city. So it is no sur‑ prise that the vast majority of pioneers of twentieth century design, such as the later to be discussed Karol Frycz, Wojciech Jastrzębowski, Bonawentura Lenart, Adam Półtawski and many others that could not be fitted in this volume (Edmund Bartłomiejczyk, Antoni Procajłowicz, Ludwik Misky, Zygmunt Kamiński, PIERWSZE Władysław Skoczylas) came from Cracow or at least POKOLENIA were educated at its Academy of Fine Arts. Shaped in an environment steeped in the symbolism and works of Art Nouveau, these young artists were entering adult life at the beginning of a new century. For 1900–1945 this generation, the best indicators of the new aesthetic currents were the English Arts and Crafts movement, and especially, thanks to its direct cultural and admin‑ istrative proximity, the Wiener Werkstätte, founded in 1903 by Josef Hoffmann PIOTR and Koloman Moser. In Cracow, work on artistic issues had already been under‑ way at the end of the previous century. The Polish Society of Applied Arts (1901) along with its main organizer, the critic Jerzy Warchałowski, was examining is‑ RYPSON sues of “design” in arts and crafts and applied graphics, though with still no clear The graphic artists and designers pre‑ connection with industrial production1. The activities of the armir (acronym sented in this article belong to the standing for Architecture, Sculpture, Painting and Crafts) Group, supported by the first three generations of artists, who Science and Industry Museum, and the rise of the Cracow Workshops (1913) crys‑ were to set the directions and paths of development for graphic design in tallized the artistic environment of those seriously involved in graphic design, Poland. The first of these are artists among whom were such eminent artists as the renowned book arts connois­- born in the eighties of the 19th centu‑ seur and practitioner Bonawentura Lenart, the extremely versatile Wojciech ry, the second—those who came into Jastrzębowski—painter, graphic artist, letterer and creator of bas‑reliefs and tapes‑ the world in the following decade, while the third group comprises de‑ tries, or the painter, graphic artist and stage designer popular two decades later, signers born in the 20th century. This Zofia Stryjeńska. However, the Cracow and Warsaw publishing centers were insuf‑ distinction is not for the sake of any ficient for a more dynamic development of graphic design—what was needed were bookkeeping order—its importance state‑funded public service commissions and modern, capitalist advertising. These stems from the great acceleration of Polish history in the first half of the two driving forces were only launched a dozen or so years later, twentieth century. Despite the fact with the advent of the reborn Polish state. that mere decades separated them, each of these generations began their Poland reappeared on the map of Europe in 1918. The architects of the new state creative careers and professional work under very different faced the mammoth task of merging three culturally different territories devas‑ circumstances. tated by war, lying within borders that had undergone alterations and revisions by force of arms, ethnically very diverse and shaken by internal and external de­ stabilizing forces. The search for a national style undertaken at that time was closely associated with the birth of the new state. Intertwined in this process were more conservative tendencies, represented by the above‑mentioned Cracow

→ 251 Essay Slanted 28—Warsaw → 251 Pierwsze pokolenia 1900–1945 Slanted 28—Warsaw essay 132 133 environment, with the aspirations of the Formists group that were shaped during Along with Warsaw’s graphic artists, such as Edmund Bartłomiejczyk and Józef the First World War. In short, as Piotr Piotrowski put it using the terminology of Tom, they were at that time creating a decorative style, but one that evoked homely Rogers Brubaker, there had been an attempt towards “nationalization of modern‑ motifs, quite quickly seen as conservative traditionalism. Offering their talents to ism.”2 In that first decade of independence, neither Bunt—the Poznan–Berlin soci‑ state institutions, they were treated by the more radical artistic circles as ety of expressionists nor, inevitably, the Jewish expressionists of the Jung Idysz representatives of official state art. This generation at the same time group achieved such a position as the Formists or the Rytm group, constituted the first induction of art and graphic design created following their breakup (1922), which included, educators in Poland. among others, Skoczylas and Kamiński. The second generation presented in this chapter—those artists that were born in the last decade of the 19th century—made their debut in an already independent Poland. Freed from the obligation of striving for a national art form, they repre‑ sented a broad range of political attitudes and chose extremely different paths of development. Mieczysław Szczuka and Teresa Żarnower became involved with the communist movement and produced refined propaganda graphics, modeled on Soviet productivism; Władysław Strzemiński and Henryk Stażewski created con‑ structivist art in the spirit of works having complete autonomy, like Henryk Berlewi, initially closely associated with the expressionist trend in Jewish art. In turn, Tadeusz Gronowski and Stefan Norblin, who were primarily devoted to de‑ signing book and magazine covers and posters, were representatives of a genera‑ Tytus Czyżewski—cover. Tytus Czyżewski, Zielone oko. Poezje formistyczne. tion already strongly entrenched in the new market realities of the Second Elektryczne wizje, Gebethner i s-ka, Cracow: 1920. Republic, providing professional graphic design services for a new middle class, and also becoming involved in the modernization of graphic design, As Piotrowski summed up that process, “such modernism—‘soft’ and filtered though conceived in quite a different way. through the tastes of the middle class, with its eclectic combination of folklore, classicism and modernity—met the expectations of the new Second Republic. It re‑ mained in line with the new state’s national policy.”3 The representatives of this circle obtained the first major government contacts for the design of postage stamps and banknotes, and were elected to key positions in cultural institutions and art schools4. This formation’s crowning success internationally was the award‑winning Polish pavilion at the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925, the popularity of which consoli‑ dated the modernist‑nationalist tendency in Poland for many years to come. The ethno design formula’s popularity in Poland to this day may testify to just how effective this strategy proved5. Tadeusz Gronowski—poster for to-To magazine, 1925 Cracow quite quickly lost its position as the leading cultural center of the country, being usurped by Warsaw, the capital and thus the seat of the most important gov‑ They all began their purely artistic and design activities in the none too favorable ernment offices, and soon to become not only the political, but also the economic environment of a country plagued by poverty and galloping inflation, torn by center of Poland. The work of the Cracow based art circle was suddenly labeled growing political conflict. Poverty and inflation hampered the development of the passé by its antagonists and the younger generation, seeing it as a continuation of advertising market, with publishers going bankrupt or hoping to sit out the market Art Nouveau and folk deco. For that circle’s members themselves, it was a search collapse. It was the stabilization of the currency in 1924–1925 that finally released for new forms of expression; as Jastrzębowski himself wrote: “We were fighting the country’s economic dynamics. The proliferation of cheap pocket‑book series against rubbish, the imitation of past styles and the use of so‑called folk motifs.”6 (beginning with Biblioteka Groszowa, a penny library) and other publishing

→ 251 Pierwsze pokolenia 1900–1945 Slanted 28—Warsaw → 251 Pierwsze pokolenia 1900–1945 Slanted 28—Warsaw essay 142 143

K67s appear all over— Warsaw, Lodz, Koszalin, Legnica, Częstochowa. They are considered modern and tasteful. The local papers inform one about this with satisfaction. K67s and similar, later models produced by the Kami company find various uses: from an ordinary newsagent’s kiosk, through to a kebab bar or even a security guard’s or police officer’s booth. The modular kiosks are treated as a means to cure the chaotic urban space, hence in 1991 an original Polish project appears— Mini Menu—small, white-and-red pavilions made of laminate, fully equipped, some even with gardens.

STEREO, Booths, kiosks, camper vans—rough-and-ready solutions. Small-scale architecture, SUPER street furniture. The beginning of the war in Yugoslavia stops the export of kiosks to Poland. Those brought here earlier fade in the sun and become the canvases for their owners’ in‑ QUALITY ventions, which often follow the rules of horror vacui. Covered with letters cut from adhesive plastic, and later the increasingly aggressive adverts of mobile phone providers, their color draining away, they are eventually abandoned and OLGA buried under a growing layer of dust. Like the homeless FSO Syrena cars from a few years before, Yugoslavian kiosks often go up in flames. A puddle of melted DRENDA plastic leaves the impression that a standoff with a Terminator took place. One can often find them in photo‑ Later, Yugo-kiosks appear on the graphs dated 1989, 1990 or 1991— streets. Picture this: a stream of they seem to haunt the frames: people move down the pavement— Niewiadów-brand camper vans blonde perms, denim jackets. Every turned into makeshift grocery shops now and again someone stops, leans or fast-food bars serving zapiekanki over a shopping stall. The red (open-face grilled baguettes) and roof of a K67 kiosk stands out from Polish-style hot-dogs with mush‑ the blue-and-grey crowd. This neat rooms, sometimes simply named modular booth, designed by the “stuffed buns.” These sunlit scenes Slovenian Saša J. Mächtig, is a 1960s are captured at the height of the food project, but it materializes in Poland poisoning season. The TV warns of in the middle of the transformation an epidemic, advises one to avoid period. After introducing “Wilczek’s milk, ice cream and—God forbid— bill,” which liberalized the private eggs. “Salmonella, I don’t love you,” enterprise laws, as the streets sing post-punk band Klaus Mit Foch are crowded with makeshift huts (after splitting with original singer peddling a hodgepodge of items, Kami booths, made in Lodz, even become a focus of anger in the new millennium. Lech Janerka, who will become a the city authorities give an ultimatum Their temporary, makeshift nature causes annoyance; plastic turns from a symbol of punk poet in the mode of Julian Cope). to the vendors: you can sell your cassettes and sweets, but only in modernity into an eyesore. Activists from the “Group of Certain Persons” demand a “clean Yugoslavian kiosk.” removal of the kiosks from city centers. The authorities announce a contest for a new kiosk, which will “refer to Lodz’s Art Nouveau past;” this is no surprise, as in the new century one must boast pre-WWII heritage in order to carry the seal of good taste. Meanwhile, students from the University of Lodz and Justus Liebig University in Giessen turn the Kami into a time capsule and even transport one—fitted with a

→ 247 Essay Slanted 28—Warsaw → 247 Stereo, Super Quality Slanted 28—Warsaw essay 144 145

TV showing video footage, recordings of Lodz’s soundscape, a radio, net curtains, a “professional duplication studio:” “Only BRAWO tapes will make your time pleasant folded seat and a poster of Pope John Paul II—to Germany, both as a souvenir and an due to guaranteed recording quality and the choice of musical repertoire”, the covers ironic example of traditional Polish handcraft. announce. The content’s class is supposedly assured by a “music consultant;” some‑ times, it’s the mysterious “K. Zieliński,” but also a genuinely famous radio DJ, Marek Niedźwiecki, host of the cult Channel 3 Top 40 countdown. Later, he’ll admit to being deceived: “Now I know it’s piracy. But two years earlier, things weren’t as obvious. For a year, I prepared ambitious pop mixtapes for them, similar in style to the music I play on the radio. When I realized they signed Sandra’s tapes with my name, I broke up with them,” he explains.

The problem was that the legal chaos of the early 1990s made such activities perfect‑ ly legitimate, and publishers even contributed payments to the Association of Polish Authors and Composers (none of which were ever seen by the original artists). Journalist Wojciech Soporek writes a guide on how to bootleg Lambada, a major hit. “It suffices to obtain a street vendor’s license and register yourself with the Association of Polish Authors and Composers. And here we go: we have to buy, at an old price, a But before all of this happens, the Polish transformation slowly gathers pace. The few thousand pre-recorded tapes (clean ones are more expensive) from an official kiosks serve as an alternative to the makeshift market stalls, and the fast-food bars publisher, with some unmarketable stuff like Kołobrzeg Military Song Festival, compete with the scruffy, state-owned eateries. Melancholic synthesizer melodies Iwona Niedzielska or others. Then, we make a copy from our own ‘original material.’ rule the public ear. Rock critics despise these songs for “disco mules,” but the average The original material is usually a rented compact disc, sometimes recorded from the Pole chooses mixes played by TV DJ Marek Sierocki: of Italo disco, Dieter Bohlen, C.C. radio,” he explains. The press also publish the “Confessions of a Pirate”—recollections Catch, Sandra; their songs blast out from boomboxes and circulate nationwide in the of his pioneering years. “As you remember, there were no blank tapes on sale in the form of compilations, for example those sold by a businessman from the town of early 80s, but there were cassettes for kids or releases by our notable stage singers. Łomianki near Warsaw—Wojciech Brzezicki. To each of his tapes he adds a clause: Nobody wanted those. I bought them in bulk, removed the captions on the cassette “B.W. is a trademark of Wojciech Brzezicki Music Laboratory,” and the symbol of a with acetone, and threw the official covers into the bin. My tapes simply had black crown with the words “Fono-Audio-Video” inscribed on it. His compilations, all and white photos on the cover. How did I record them? I put a master tape, made from named Eurodisco, carry distinct cover designs. On a background of basic colors, a Western record, into a Polish stereo, to which six to ten other tape recorders were there’s usually a soft-porn photo, the B.W. Records logo, and a technological invoca‑ connected. I tweaked them a little, so the sound from the master tape would go tion: STEREO, SUPER QUALITY. A few covers stand out from this pattern, such as through each recorder”, recalled the anonymous publisher of Elvis, Boney M. and Eurodisco 13 / 90 with the ALF character instead of a topless model, or 15 / 90 with its Polskie Orły (Polish Eagles)—a bawdy folk band, one of the forefathers of the looming heartfelt appeal: “If you care for your country, vote for Wałęsa.” Brzezicki will soon “disco polo” genre explosion. be followed by other crafty businesspeople using a similar template—the “Zibi Disco Service” compilations, or those released by labels such as Marvel and Sawiton. Soon, new technologies allowed for more than the “garden shed” productions, and Eventually, B.W. himself will come to focus on charity work in the 1990s, participat‑ the sound of the cassette from the tenth recorder in a row would finally become free ing in a humanitarian convoy to Sarajevo, and sending of noise. Around 1992, the master tape was commonly replaced by a CD, usually a donations to poverty-stricken children bootleg itself, bought at budget price from Thailand, and the number of stereos in the Bieszczady simultaneously duplicating the same material rose to a few dozen. Mountains. Bookshops, music stores, video rentals and department store halls become the homes One of the compilation-based labels is called BRAWO. It’s possible that you’ll spot its for “tape recording venues,” perfectly legal enterprises. Official music distributors logo on a Yugo-kiosk in the photographs. The owner, Leszek Dziugieł from the town such as Tonpress, Wifon and Polskie Nagrania work slowly and in too-small runs, of Mrozy, likes to stress the advanced nature of his enterprise, described as a while listeners hungrily demand new music. Wholesalers (semi-legal labels which

→ 247 Stereo, Super Quality Slanted 28—Warsaw → 247 Stereo, Super Quality Slanted 28—Warsaw essay 156 157

Me: OK. Ahem ... .

Spirit Animal. I was walking through the park. The redolent, base scent of ginkgo trees akin to a few thousand sperm samples gone spoilt wafted through the park. It was a good THE POLISH day to be the God of the City. “Fuck craft,” I thought to myself quite randomly. Like, really randomly. I’ve ad‑ EXHIBITION vised a few thesis students through their years-long grapplings with conceptions of design and craft. I offered readings on Hannah Arendt, John Sennett and Kenya Hara amongst indeterminable others, and tried to pepper our conversations with OF GRAPHIC bits of sagely-seeming advice. One of my go-to’s was the translation of the Japanese term “kirimomi,” a metaphor for craftspersonship. An actual kirimomi is a hand drill—a simple smooth, thin and pointed wooden dowel. By rubbing one’s hands SYMBOLS consistently and at protracted length, one can become a true master of one’s craft, drilling deeper and deeper into it. RENE WAWRZKIEWICZ In May 1969 the Polish Exhibition of Preparations for the show began in And I stood amongst a bunch of stinky-ass trees and thought to myself, “Who wants Graphic Symbols opened at the 1968, and towards the end of the to use a hand drill in the age of affordable desktop laser cutters and a pre-fabri‑ gallery of the Union of Polish Artists year a call for submissions was cated ‘maker’ systems? It’s totally antithetical to contemporary societal leanings.” and Designers (ZPAP) at announced. Artists and designers And I breathed in that gnarly, noxious, soupy aroma and watched someone walk 11 Mazowiecka Street in Warsaw. could submit symbols created This was the first display of between 1945 and 1969 in three by wearing one of those assorted Helvetica + ( ) tee-shirts and I was stoked that contemporary logotypes in Poland’s categories: logos designed and someone still does, even if it wasn’t that guy. history and as such an event that executed; designs entered in state charted a new course in Polish applied competitions; and updates, i.e. Rat: Sounds familiar. . graphic design. designs for proposed changes or mod‑ ifications to existing symbols. Artists Me: Come over here, babe. It’s not that bad. . Towards the end of the 1960s two were to send in their works in the Rat: Thanks, honey. . recognized graphic design artists, form of hand-painted and plotted 50 Stefan Bernaciński and Jan x 50-cm display boards. Of the 814 Good night, Jen. Hollender, drew up a conceptual plan symbols sent in, the competition for an exhibition devoted to Polish commission selected 335 which were Give my regards to Łazienki Park. graphic symbols. The idea was shown at the exhibition and thereby enthusiastically received by deign entered the Polish design canon. Hugs, Ian circles, and received the approval of the Communist authorities. The The First Polish Exhibition of Union of Polish Artists and Designers Graphic Symbols was officially Notes (ZPAP) was designated the official opened in May 1969. The vernissage So where did you think I was going with this? Most proper graphic deign writing doesn’t have organizer, and an organizational was attended by designers, members talking rats, excessive stuff about old loves and suggested approaches to creative writing. If you committee was appointed, as well as of ZPAP, representatives of several were thinking that, then you got the point: most graphic design writing today is boring. Within, a qualifying jury comprising the industry-related ministries, and a cream of Polish contemporary large public audience. At the opening I tried some strategies that are antithetical to what we assume “good” design writing is: designers: Andrzej Heidrich, Jan state medals and diplomas were 1. Use an odd form, e.g. a letter. Hollender, Tadeusz Pietrzyk, Karol awarded to artists including Tadeusz 2. Make it personal. Śliwka and Stanisław Töpfer. Pietrzyk, Karol Śliwka, Leon 3. Or seemingly personal—most of this is fictive. Hollender was appointed chief Urbaniec, and—posthumously— commissioner of the exhibition. Wojciech Zamecznik. 4. Throw in some incredibly painful true things. 5. Be crass, but honestly so. 6. Fuck good. Bring the weird.

→ 249 A Letter ... Slanted 28—Warsaw → 253 Essay Slanted 28—Warsaw essay 158 159

The exhibition showcased the best of Polish contemporary design—logos for facto‑ and for the Polish national airline Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT. The first such uni‑ ries, enterprises, state institutions and cultural events, as well as original designs fied, complex visual identification package was created in 1967 for CPN by Ryszard and competition entries that were never executed. Among the logos on display Bojar, Jerzy Słowikowski and Stefan Solik. As such, the 1969 Polish Exhibition of were those of Pekao—Państwowa Kasa Oszczędnościowa (the State Savings Bank); Graphic Symbols, the brainchild of Jan Hollender and Stefan Bernaciński, the fashion house Moda Polska, which had a chain of fashion stores throughout had an undeniable impact on the development Poland; CPN (Centrala Produktów Naftowych, the state petroleum distribution en‑ of Polish graphic design. terprise); Dom Handlowy “Telimena” (the Telimena Department Store); and a new symbol for PKP—Polskie Koleje Państwowe (Polish State Railway) that was never rolled out. The authors of the works exhibited included both the best Polish graphic artists of the day, such as Ryszard Bojar, Roman Duszek, Jan Hollender, Emilia Nożko-Paprocka, Karol Śliwka and Leon Urbański, and others not associated with logo design, such as the master of the Polish poster design school Henryk Tomaszewski, the author of the logotype for the publishing house Wydawnictwo “Czytelnik.”

OWZG 1969. Photo by Tadeusza Cialowicz.

Since the end of the 1960s, however, no subsequent exhibition or publication has been produced that would provide a comprehensive overview of the development of Polish graphic symbols and visual identification, which from a contemporary perspective seems astonishing given both the approval of the contemporary au‑ thorities for the initiative of the Bernaciński-Hollender duo and the fact that it opened up a new chapter in the history of Polish graphic design. Most paradoxi‑ cally, since 1989, i.e. since the political transformations in Poland, the First Polish Exhibition of Graphic Symbols has fallen into almost complete oblivion.

The First Polish Exhibition of Graphic Symbols attracted great contemporary in‑ terest, in both design circles and the broader public. It toured several Polish cities, including Wroclaw and Poznan, and was even taken abroad, to countries including Tools, 1969. Photo by Hanna Jakobczy. the German Democratic Republic. It was instrumental in taking interest in graphic design to a higher level and in bringing the new field of applied graphic design to a In 2014 Patryk Hardziej, a student of the Faculty of Graphic Design at the Academy wider audience in Poland. In subsequent years design projects began to grow be‑ of Fine Arts in Gdansk, did his diploma project as a book on Polish modernist sym‑ yond individual logotypes to extensive visual identification systems such as the bols, entitled Polskie znaki graficzne [Polish graphic symbols]. This project elicited comprehensive designs for the Union of Electronic Industry Enterprises (UNITRA) an enthusiastic reaction in Polish graphic design circles, in part due to the fact that

→ 253 Graphic Symbols Slanted 28—Warsaw → 253 Graphic Symbols Slanted 28—Warsaw essay 194 195

1. The first, and still prevailing, still circulating image—as in The Canal (1957) by Andrzej Wajda or City ’44 (2014) by Jan Komasa—is the image of lovers on the LOVE ground zero of a non-existing city, in the post-apocalyptic landscape. Love is their last breath, or perhaps, their one that lasts until after death. They seem like zom‑ bies, severely wounded, blinded by gas, raped and already dead, but they still cling IN RUINS to each other in a mortal embrace. This Polish version of romanticism, a legacy of the great literature of the first quarter of nineteenth century, included appear‑ ances of ghosts and phantoms and invited all dead to the common circle with the IWONA KURZ living. It did not need a real setting for the great affect of love in which Mother “All of them are young, and their memo‑ were transformed into Lover, but then all the females had became Homeland ries span no further than ruins”—wrote (female noun in Polish). Adam Ważyk in A Poem for Adults (1955) pointing at the process of erasing the past of Poland in the new communistic realm. The task was relatively easy as the end of the war left Warsaw—after the ghetto up‑ rising in 1943, the Warsaw uprising in 1944 and the methodic destruction by the German troops—in rubble. The City space and its architecture stand for one of the most important dimensions of love rela‑ tions in Warsaw after WW2. The city and the affects of its inhabitants were closely tied with a knot of stone. The love narra‑ tions tell the story of relations that were impossible because they were situated in a city collapsing into ruins, or in a city lacking private apartments because it had been ruined. The counter-image con‑ Still from Warsaw 44, the movie directed by Jan Komasa, 2014. sists of modern buildings­ promising a “happy ever-after” within the socialist family and—after 1989—a consumption candy packed in glass walls. “Glass hous‑ 2. es,” the myth of transparent, hygienic These ruins were supposed to be forgotten, and the new city was to be constructed apartments avail­-able to everyone, the on rubble (and partly out of them, as in the case of the new stadium). Socialist real‑ myth built upon the legend of Crystal ism imagination did not want any pain or trouble, and it hid the rubble out of view. Palace, turned into corporations head‑ quarters and a new promise land of big The modernist part of contemporary Warsaw rose tall, and the romanticism of con‑ media and not so small money (“let’s not struction superseded the romanticism of bloody fight. There were workers and talk about money”). “girls”—whom to love? The choice of the man on the painting Figures (1950) by Wojciech Fangor—a painter who designed seven new metro stations in Warsaw (2014)—seems confirmed and final. He holds tightly his strong colleague, both leaning firmly on their spades. The girl in white dress and yellow sunglasses is in‑ terposed as a stranger, an alien from some outskirts of the Western world. But their gazes reveal a desire, don’t they? A longing for consumption rather than pro‑ duction? For so-called femininity? The picture painted in the very heart of socialist realism seems ambivalent from a contemporary point of view as it underlines the idea of gender equality based on undoing gender differences. Perhaps the proper

→ 249 Essay Slanted 28—Warsaw → 249 Love in Ruins Slanted 28—Warsaw essay 196 197 slogan would be: let’s not love each other, let us love the city we are building. And Homeless lovers in Eighth Day of the Week (1957) by Aleksander Ford had chance let’s wear the same uniforms as in the final scene of Mariensztat Adventure (1954) to spend one night in the Department Store (later on called Smyk). The huge win‑ by Leopold Buczkowski, where eternal “Gender War” was sublimed dows of this modern building (1948) mirrored promises of a new world (a world of in the competition of both gender bricklayers. goods). The dream was limited in itself. And the movie, based on a story by Hłasko, was put off on a shelf, acknowledged as too dark a picture of the socialist reality. The characters of Innocent Sorcerers (1960) by Andrzej Wajda explored fashion‑ able cafés and used stylish props as a scooter, a tape recorder and a flat at Chmielna Street. These young, though stylish ones, depicted themselves as a bit cynical, a bit deprived of strong feelings. Love seemed impossible in the city after totalitarian war and totalitarian ideology attack. Warsaw became post-affect or post-pathos city. Sometimes in the background, the careful spectator mig

4. In the sixties and seventies TV series and comedies made a love nest out of block of flats in modern style. The favorite parts of Warsaw were the new housings, for ex‑ ample around Senatorska Street (in War at Home, 1966), or “Żoliborz Orchards”(in Broiled Squabs, 1966), and “Behind the Iron Gate” (in Being Forty, 1975, displaying Wojciech Fangor, Figures, 1950, oil on canvas, 100 × 125 cm, Museum of Art in Lodz. also the very city center and the construction of the Central Railway Station). The interiors were made out of things designed by “Ład” (Orderliness) Association. The society of “little stabilization,” as sixties were nicknamed, had little dreams and 3. little chances to fulfill them, but movies offered a nice façade for all possible (to Yet it’s hard to love without a roof over one’s head, especially in a cold continental speak out) problems. The movies depicted availability of progress and normality. climate. In the mid fifties, on the wave of political “thaw” pictures again displayed There was one condition: flats were “given” to married couples and success of get‑ ruins, still un-re-built. Streets became flooded with girls like the one on Fangor’s ting your own apartment was strictly connected to a romantic story ending with a painting: well-dressed, seeming smart and living to non-socialist patterns. They visit at the civil registration office. Sometimes—as in A Man from M–3 (1968, dir. were called “kociaki” (kittens? a bit of skirt?). Yet, as Marek Hłasko, stylish writer Leon Jeannot)—a flat comes first (in a tall building at Smolna Street), yet it will not of the time put it: There was no place for their love. Ten years after the war the be allowanced without a wife. Should she be nice and able to cook ... available flats were congested with people and / or threatened with collapse. In the seventies common living under one roof failed more and more often. Young couples living with their parents and/or other members of the family could not stand them—and themselves. Family crisis rose on the base of lack of your own room. So called moral concern of Polish cinema in the decade included fight over ideological differences in approach toward socialist state and over adultery. Stanisław Bareja’s comedies grasped the moment in which one cannot get rid of their wife or husband from the flat in which a spouse had been registered, or you get divorced to be allowed to keep two flats.

The Palace of Culture and Science symbolically dominated the city’s landscape. ht see ruins. Though ideology was obviously hollow in these days, the power stood strong enough. Or it seemed so. TV series Alternatives Street 4 (again by Stanisław Bareja, Still from Ósmy dzień tygodnia (Eighth Day of the Week), already in 1983, but broadcast in 1986) depicted a post-ideological land-scape of the movie directed by Aleksander Ford, 1957. modernization failure: collapsing flats full of glitches.

→ 249 Love in Ruins Slanted 28—Warsaw → 249 Love in Ruins Slanted 28—Warsaw