Beyond Outrage: Approaching Arts Controversy in Postcommunist Poland

Controversies in the Arts vs. Postcommunist Controversies in the Arts

I understand controversy as a “broad dispute or struggle in the realm of public opinion, as articulated or exacerbated by major media and key political actors.” ⁷ An arts controversy has some relevance to artworks or art worlds, though the nature of this relevance is contentious. One scholarly approach is rooted in a modernist perspective where controversy is primarily about the arts: it emanates from within the art world and is often a matter of artists being provocative and the audiences reacting to the provocations. ⁸ Another argues that controversy is rarely about art; rather, it is about a political, personal, financial, or other agenda, and the contested artwork acts as a catalyst or a focus for more diffuse frustration. ⁹ This article makes use of a modified version of the latter approach. I agree with those who argue that modernist explanations of arts conflicts tend to be tautological. ¹⁰ An artwork and an arts controversy are two different things. Still, an account of a controversy is hardly complete without some consideration of the work and its context, as long as accounting for the object of concern—or the theme of the work—is not conflated with explaining the reasons behind the dispute.

Dependent on a combination of place, time, proceedings, artist, work, and a chain of subsequent interactions, controversies tend to emerge whenever there is a sense of crisis: for instance, in transitioning post-authoritarian societies or during momentous paradigm shifts, like those experienced by the United States in the aftermath of the Cold War. ¹¹ Indeed, the way we understand arts controversy today has been greatly impacted by critical exploration of the intense debates, court cases, and congressional hearings about contentious art that erupted in the United States in the late 1980s and 1990s. Controversies like those surrounding the work of Andres Serrano or Robert Mapplethorpe were largely defined as a struggle over censorship and framed within a broader scope of the “culture wars” that some have seen as characteristic of post-sixties America. ¹² The resultant approach to arts controversy emphasized its roots in competing ideologies; its irresolvable nature that at times required legal intervention; the inflammatory role of religious actors; divisive and simplistic media coverage; the importance of institutional shifts, including those linked to the declining position of modernism; and the prominence of debates on public subsidy for the arts.

Compared to twentieth-century US disputes, postcommunist arts controversies appear underinvestigated. Still, there is a substantial body of research on contentious works, the artists behind them, and their reception. One strand of research into offending art focuses on themes or motifs thought to provoke outrage, typically religious imaginary, national or patriotic symbols, and nudity (such a focus tends to go hand in hand with modernist definitions of controversy). ¹³ Another strand is less preoccupied with artistic transgression and more with the postcommunist condition: it considers arts antagonisms through the lens of an overall retraditionalization of postcommunist society and the rise of an abstract notion of the nation, defined in terms of conservative worldviews and behavior patterns. From this perspective, frequent conflicts over art arise because national-cum-religious values have become the main source of collective identity available in postcommunist society. ¹⁴

Last but not least, postcommunist arts controversies have been linked to freedom of expression. In the Polish context, research on censorship after 1989 emphasizes a continuity of regulative practices from the communist period while frequently framing arts conflicts against a background of the domestic version of a culture war many believe to be raging in postcommunist Poland. ¹⁵ The rising popularity of the culture war thesis in Poland, in the past decade or so, has shifted the focus when it comes to arts controversies, leading to an increased emphasis on how a conservative resurgence has impacted public disagreements over the arts. ¹⁶

Rise of Postcommunist Controversy in the Early 1990s

The 1990s, though far from monolithic, were a time of profound disorientation, concerns about the rule of mass entertainment that many feared would replace the communist era’s reverence for “high” culture, and cultural dislocation that, in the case of some art forms such as the theatre, would last for most of the decade. At the same time, the introduction of free-market capitalism led to the development of a new visual sphere and an unprecedented prominence of images in public spaces. ¹⁷ As result, the decade would generate new understandings of artistic practice and its relation to politics and witness the rise of passionate public debates—not least on the visual arts.

In 1993, an extraordinary dispute arose around fresh-out-of-art-school Katarzyna Kozyra’s Pyramid of Animals—an installation that consisted of four taxidermy animals: a horse, a dog, a cat, and a rooster, plus a video documenting the process of putting down the horse. Complex in origin and difficult to interpret, the work became widely associated with discussions about the hypocritical treatment of animals in contemporary society. ¹⁸ The most intense debate, though, had to do with the definition and role of the arts in society. Arguments like “this is not art,” “the artist must be mentally deranged,” or “she should be stripped of her art school diploma” ¹⁹ filled numerous letters to the editor written by so-called ordinary people, but also statements made by conservative artists and intellectuals, some of whom might have lost status and influence after 1989 but had not given up on contesting symbolic dominance in the realm of culture. ²⁰

In this early postcommunist clash over art, one can discern a confrontation of two different types of artistic commitment: a modernist expectation of authenticity, defined as originality and innovation, and contemporary art’s more recent emphasis on social responsibility. Arising from a specific political, aesthetic, and social context, the former type of commitment had dominated in post-1956 Poland; it implied a renunciation of art’s engagement with political processes and entrenched a modernist system of values (art was about nothing but itself, best judged according to formal criteria and so on). ²¹ Such an understanding contrasts starkly with contemporary art where artists seek public engagement with current issues, while critics define art’s value in terms of contribution to cultural democracy rather than formal innovation. ²² Additionally, the 1990s’ so-called “critical art” started to appear in unusually conspicuous places, including the daily press and colorful magazines that dissected the latest national entry to the Venice Biennale or reported international outrage at Polish art such as Zbigniew Libera’s Lego Concentration Camp (1996), or billboards (the 1999 display of Kozyra’s Blood Ties). ²³ Artists like Libera, Kozyra, Artur Żmijewski, or Paweł Althamer acquired a public profile previously associated with writers or filmmakers rather than visual artists.

A greater level of public attention does not mean that art was better understood. The debate surrounding the Pyramid revealed highly ambivalent attitudes: Expectations that art should inhabit an exalted, “sacred” realm went hand in hand with conventional disdain and distrust of the artist as an overprivileged charlatan. The difficulty that many experienced with accepting visual art as an expression of socially relevant content was reinforced by the media. When, in July 1994, Warsaw’s Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art arranged a retrospective of Andres Serrano’s photographs, an art reviewer in Gazeta Wyborcza, the country’s most read newspaper, labeled Serrano—whose work had by then become nearly synonymous with some of the most intense ideological disagreements of the late twentieth century—“another famous and fashionable contemporary artist” whose “beautiful photographs . . . do not provoke any emotion and do not promote reflection. . . . [Their] only value is the purely aesthetic one.” ²⁴ The reviewer attributed no immediate relevance to Serrano’s art but did, briefly, mention that his best-known work Piss Christ (1987)—a photograph of a crucifix submerged in a liquid that the title suggests is urine—had in fact been censored from the Warsaw exhibition. It was, according to Wyborcza, a regrettable effect of the gallery director “taking the ideological packaging of the work seriously.” ²⁵

Though the Piss Christ incident was little noted at the time, it has since become symbolic of a “quiet” bureaucratic regulation that remains a hallmark of postcommunist Poland’s arts conflicts. It comprises situations where those in charge of a gallery, a theatre, or other cultural venue, cancel or terminate an ongoing or planned presentation. ²⁶ Shortly after the arrival of Serrano’s works in Warsaw, the director of the gallery, Wojciech Krukowski, declared that he felt “unease” about displaying Piss Christ and decided not to include the photograph in the exhibition, though its presence in the accompanying exhibition catalogue was deemed inoffensive. ²⁷ Serrano’s work has caused uproar, including judicial and political repercussions as well as vandalism, in countries as diverse as the United States, Australia, France, Sweden, and, most recently, Italy. ²⁸ Yet in the case of the Warsaw exhibition there were no public protests and no media storm: the interference was that of an art gallery director whose motives remain unclear. ²⁹ Research into postcommunist controversy has posited such actions as rooted in fear of negative consequences, that is, falling out of favor with one’s superiors, risking cuts in financial funding, or losing one’s job, and deemed them characteristic of a paternalistic type of democracy where public safety and a façade of consensus must be protected at all cost. ³⁰ This regulatory mechanism has, throughout the postcommunist period, proven itself to be both more prevalent and more consequential than any public protest or complaint over controversial works. ³¹

The events surrounding the Pyramid and the Serrano exhibition changed the dynamics of arts controversy. Polish researchers have cogently shown how the media began to “speculate in scandals” and were incapable of providing reliable information about art to the public (which would have dire consequences, especially during the Passion trial). ³² The 1990s criticism displayed ignorance about the contemporary art scene (not to mention the popular culture that installation art frequently referenced) and a tendency to promote a narrow, anachronistic understanding of “politics” (reduced to opposing the communist system), which, in practice, served to—geographically and historically—limit any potential critiques toward the frame and effects of Soviet ideology. Meanwhile, though most young artists resisted the label of “politically engaged,” their work began to function as a form of social commentary, especially on issues associated with corporality, the Catholic Church and its teachings on sexuality. ³³ The work of Grzegorz Klaman (Emblems, 1993), Katarzyna Górna, Jacek Markiewicz (Adoration of Christ, 1993), Robert Rumas (Dedications, 1992; Hot Water Bottles, 1994), or Alicja Żebrowska (Original Sin, 1995) was, initially, depreciated, even ridiculed, by Wyborcza and other mainstream media. ³⁴

Arts Controversy as Sign of Democratic Dysfunction?

Quarrels surrounding visual culture reached a feverish peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s—a time that saw a dramatic reconfiguration of postcommunist Poland’s political scene. It led to the emergence and eventual dominance of two conservative parties: the (economically) liberal Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska) stressing modernization and Europeanization and the more nationalistic Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość [PiS]). In 2005, both parties ran on a program that depicted postcommunist democracy as distorted and in need of a serious makeover. ³⁵ PiS narrowly won the election only to lose power after two years of unruly coalition with two minor populist parties: Self-defense (Samoobrona) and the League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin [LPR]), a party whose political program made frequent reference to the teachings of the Catholic Church. The hegemony of conservatism in public discourse and the rise of right-wing populism shifted the emphasis from economic to moral and symbolic issues. The relationship between conservatism and populism is subject to different interpretations, yet few would dispute PiS’s steady shift to the latter. ³⁶

The conservative offensive mobilized opposing groups and led to the growing visibility of internal “others” such as feminists, sexual minorities, and other traditionally marginalized groups—provoking those groups into protest and argument. Homosexuality became a topic in the public domain and, on the eve of Poland’s 2003 referendum on EU membership, a series of disputes followed (e.g. around Karolina Breguła’s project Let Them See Us, 2003 ³⁷ ). The arrival of the journal and publishing house Krytyka Polityczna on the scene in 2002 provided an outlet for leftist thought and an alternative voice to the political debate. Challenging the ruling right-wing consensus, Krytyka Polityczna stressed the arts’ potentially powerful impact on society and advanced a body of (post)Marxist thought including work by Slavoj Žižek, Chantal Mouffe, and others who introduced analytical tools for a politicized reading of contemporary culture.

In terms of media coverage of arts controversies, the period was, above all, defined by internationally resonant events such as two acts of physical interaction with artworks exhibited in Warsaw’s Zachęta National Gallery of Art during the summer of 2000. One implicated the actor Daniel Olbrychski who assaulted Piotr Uklański’s installation The Nazis (1998) made of enlarged photos of famous actors in Nazi uniforms, one of whom was Olbrychski himself; the other was far more complex: LPR’s Wojciech Tomczak attempted to “rescue” John Paul II whose likeness had been crushed by a meteor in Maurizio Cattelan’s La Nona Hora (1999). ³⁸ Apart from such highly publicized events, there was a stream of local arts conflicts all over the country that rarely found their way into national media or criticism. ³⁹ In the end, all were overshadowed by the most notorious of postcommunist Poland’s arts conflicts: the legal case against otherwise little-known Dorota Nieznalska and her Passion (2001)—sometimes denoted as Poland’s “original culture war.” ⁴⁰ The artist was charged with transgression of article 196 of the penal code, which “makes anyone found guilty of intentionally offending religious feelings through public calumny of an object or place of worship liable to a fine, a restriction of liberty, or to imprisonment for a maximum of two years.” ⁴¹ The charges against Nieznalska were brought by two members of the national parliament for LPR who had not seen the installation in its entirety but had learned about its contents through the media. ⁴²

Passion consists of a soundless video of a man training in a gym and a Greek cross emblazoned with male genitalia. One interpretation of the work is that it relates to a modern lack of spirituality (hence the Greek cross) and a cult of the body that has replaced any other striving in human life. ⁴³ The debacle started when Gazeta Wyborcza’s Gdansk edition published a sensationalist piece on the work, which was then followed by similar mention on the privately owned news channel TVN24. ⁴⁴ The regional court where the case was tried in 2003 ruled that Nieznalska was guilty of the offence and sentenced her to six months of restricted freedom, that is, unpaid community service. This verdict was overruled the same year by an appeals court that acquitted the artist emphasizing the negative impact of “media manipulation.” ⁴⁵

The case ended in 2009. ⁴⁶ However, even after the acquittal, antagonism kept arising, especially around the reasoning of the court whose defense of free speech was widely thought not to be clear enough. ⁴⁷ It was not that there had been no support for Nieznalska, who had received the backing of prominent politicians, government representatives, cultural figures, and grassroots. ⁴⁸ What was lacking, according to many, was a qualified defense of free expression. While presenting a coherent defense of free speech is a notoriously difficult undertaking and the absence of a qualified debate on the issue is hardly singular to postcommunism, the perception was that the former communist and other transitioning societies had special needs here:

Although [Nieznalska] was cleared . . . , the judge . . . suggested that, even though [her] work could have offended religious feelings, this was not the artist’s intention. . . . The defence should have rested on the artist’s right to blasphemy and desecration. . . . Freedom of expression should not be instrumentalized; it should be absolute and not relative. . . . Violation of freedom of expression in one case may create a dangerous precedent for the undermining of the entire framework of civil freedoms. ⁴⁹

The Passion controversy was, above all, framed as a dangerous precedent that could erode civil liberties. The debate emphasized various conceptions of the rule of law and a stringent opposition between censorship and “absolute” freedom of expression. ⁵⁰ Repeatedly, it was stressed that prior to the trial of Nieznalska, no artist had ever been convicted in a Polish court of law because of a work she had made and exhibited. ⁵¹ The fact that an artist had now been charged, and convicted in the first instance, provoked uncomfortable questions about the quality of postcommunist democracy. But while the stakes for the new democracy—and the personal costs suffered by the artist—were high, most commentators found that the whole dispute made for a strangely “unreal” spectacle: dysfunctional and absurd, almost an aberration of freedom. ⁵² The perceived dysfunction was framed as a threat to free expression, and more often than not articulated through polarities such as “absolute” freedom of speech versus censorship, artist versus public, or those in the know (experts) versus the rest. ⁵³ Even those aspects of the Passion case that repeated past controversies—local and foreign—such as media manipulation, the fact that the plaintiffs had not seen the controversial work, or the tendency to target more vulnerable, that is, younger and less known artists, were foregrounded as exceptional. Some commentators evoked notions of cultural conflict as symbolic collective ritual, wondering whether the young artist had been the “ritual victim” of the new democracy. ⁵⁴

It has been noted that democratically transitioning societies tend to debate free speech in absolutist terms. ⁵⁵ However, reliance on the powers of the law is a key ingredient in most arts debates that center on censorship, usually accompanied by deliberation on whether the contended artwork “deserves” to be considered art or not. ⁵⁶ Both traits were replicated in the Passion case. At the center of the debate were issues relating to the independence and autonomy of the artist whose role was defined, by art advocates, along the lines of posing a challenge to mainstream moral values. ⁵⁷ Such understanding endowed art with a radical power that set conservatives in opposition to progressives and approached controversy as a reaction to offended moral sensibilities.

Finding a solution to the conflict seemed impossible: It was interpreted as rooted in deeply held, opposing beliefs and therefore irresolvable. ⁵⁸ The events were perceived as part of a larger political and ideological confrontation taking place in society (increasingly conceptualized through the culture war thesis). Among the images associated with the trial were those depicting groups of elderly women that would assemble outside the various courtrooms with crucifixes and rosaries; sometimes, they were met by counter protesters carrying signs reading “Censorship kills art” or “Enough with Catholic terror!” ⁵⁹ Yet, while much of the debate dealt with the Catholic Church’s penchant for interpreting democratic consensus as a carte blanche for exercising dominance over the public sphere, the Church hierarchy made sure to distance itself from the controversy, never taking an official stance in the case. ⁶⁰ Any discussion about the role of religion in society was complicated by the invisible nature of the Church’s influence, exercised behind closed doors and through institutional access to compliant post-Solidarity politicians rather than through mass mobilization or public endorsement of concrete political parties, likely to provoke further popular backlash. ⁶¹ Accordingly, the conflict over the Passion and the involvement of LPR politicians was understood less in terms of religious zeal or moral fervor and more in terms of cynicism and manipulation: as an instance of miscalculated political opportunism.

During the early 2000s, arts disputes became seen as the outcome of unique or extreme circumstances partly linked to lingering “authoritarian” attitudes in postcommunist society (lack of transparency) and partly distinctively national (the role of the Catholic Church). In the most thorough analysis of the Passion trial to date, art historian Jakub Dąbrowski depicts a debate that was stale and lacked scope, failing to advance beyond rigid polarities and narrow conceptions of artistic autonomy. ⁶² Such insights suggest not only that the democratic deficit ran deeper than any generalized clash between traditionalists and progressives could account for, but also that the prevalent approaches to arts disputes were no longer adequate. Even as the Passion case continued to unfold, the complexity of questions relating to controversy became more—not less—noticeable. In an atmosphere where religious individuals and groups increasingly complained of disrespectful treatment, controversy arose around works that had previously been ignored: Jacek Markiewicz’s Adoration of Christ from 1993 was hardly noticed when it was first displayed, but in 2013 the video installation became the object of a televised protest of a hundred individuals carrying banners—in Polish and in English. ⁶³ Meanwhile, clashes over public art, played out beyond the confines of galleries and museums, raised issues of inclusivity and diversity but also of ideological co-optation and postcommunist reorganization of space. Storms surrounding the display of Julita Wójcik’s installation Rainbow (2012–2015), for instance, have been widely interpreted as a site of a symbolic conflict over nationhood, Europe, and LGBT rights. ⁶⁴ Overall, however, public interest in visual art scandals was declining and began to sway toward other arts, not least the theatre that, after a relatively uneventful period in the 1990s, had, once again, become a site of relentless interrogation of history, culture, and identity—and of intense controversy.

Golgota Picnic: Toward New Approaches to Arts Controversy

In 2014, during the yearly Malta theatre festival that takes place in Poznan, a production of Rodrigo García’s Golgota Picnic was canceled after a series of protests mounted by various Catholic organizations. The emblematic quality of this controversy, which provoked fervent debate, was immediately recognized and noticed beyond the boundaries of Poland, where its outcome was attributed great importance, not least in terms of civic participation and mobilization. ⁶⁵ The controversy was, nevertheless, far from given and depended on a chain of circumstances, which should be examined in some detail.

Argentinian-born García had been named curator of the 24th edition of Malta, and his play Golgota Picnic (2011) scheduled for its Polish premiere on the same occasion. A critique of modern consumerist society, Golgota juxtaposes elements of high culture and Christianity with fast-food feasting and nudity. Neither form nor theme is unique in the context of contemporary Polish theatre, and both previous and subsequent presentations of García’s works in different cities across Poland have attracted only moderate attention. ⁶⁶ Golgota, however, had—amid media reports that it portrayed Christ as a “madman” and “pyromaniac”—already sparked protests in other countries, especially France, where Catholic organizations, in 2011, fiercely objected to the play being shown in Toulouse and Paris. ⁶⁷ Golgota performances in Poznan were to take place on 27 and 28 June 2014, but as early as May the privately funded webpage protestuj.pl, which specializes in protesting blasphemy at home and abroad, organized a petition formed as a letter to Malta’s director, Michał Merczyński. Referring to protests in other countries, the letter demanded that the “cultural vandalism” and “anti-art” of Golgota be taken off the “tax-payer sponsored” festival program. ⁶⁸

The protest quickly gained support from a number of Catholic and right-wing organizations like the Rosary Crusade for the Fatherland and from a group of Poznan’s conservative city councilors who, on 4 June, wrote a letter to the festival leadership calling on it to cancel the production. ⁶⁹ Two days later, the issue of public funding for Malta, and García’s production, became the subject of questions in the national Parliament. ⁷⁰ It was at this point that a senior Catholic cleric, Poznan’s Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, interfered publicly. Gądecki, president of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, authored an open letter to Merczyński, in which he branded Golgota “an exceptionally vulgar project,” hinted at possible violation of hate speech statutes, and spoke of “provoking and driving to desperation people who see no other way in which to end the humiliation and mockery [that they are subjected to].” ⁷¹ The letter ended with a vague but suggestive emphasis on the “gravity of the current situation.” ⁷² Appearing on TVN, a few days later, the Archbishop stated that the only way to stop the production would be through nationwide protest and threat of “public unrest.” ⁷³

Poznan’s municipal authorities now called a crisis meeting during which it emerged that the police could not guarantee the safety of the audience or the performers. Amid reports that a protest of fifty thousand was planned, the police suggested that the performance be rescheduled and relocated to a “proper” theatre, away from a public community venue. ⁷⁴ The city’s long-serving mayor, Ryszard Grobelny—who was facing an upcoming election—issued a statement where he urged both sides in the conflict to consider the situation and act responsibly. Carefully avoiding blame or identifying the liable parties, he wrote that freedom of assembly and expression was among the foremost achievements of Polish democracy, but public safety came first. In what would prove a highly contentious part of the letter, Grobelny added that he would not attend the performance as its contents were not compatible with his values. ⁷⁵ On 20 June, a week before the planned premiere, Merczyński, who until then had tried to fend off the attacks by citing civil rights guaranteed in the constitution, and by explaining the context of the play and the festival’s financing model, called off the production, insisting that this decision was based solely on public safety concerns. ⁷⁶ The acquiescent conduct of the local officials, the police, and the festival leadership quickly came to be seen as the “real” scandal and the main reason for the cancellation. ⁷⁷

Even a brief outline of the events reveals a series of traits that define contemporary controversy. There is the emergence of a professional complainant or lobby group—in this case, armed with a user-friendly webpage and ready-made petitions (one only has to click on a link to send a letter of protest); the interference of politicians and religious leaders; the active role of the media in creating a storm; and the recurrent issue of public funding for the arts. In terms of postcommunist specificity, Golgota exemplifies bureaucratic regulation based on fear of negative consequences rather than any actual unrest (predictably perhaps, the protest of fifty thousand never materialized). Attempts to resolve the issue “quietly” failed because of different actors’ polarizing public interventions, but other factors are also likely to have played in: the type of media involved (the Internet rather than daily press or television), modes of communication (open letters), or the fact that the production was part of a public festival performed in a community center.

Whereas the Passion trial is believed to have taken the Polish public aback and led to an aftershock-response, the reactions to the cancellation of Golgota are often depicted as a turning point in terms of instant action and civic mobilization. ⁷⁸ Through Facebook and other media platforms, more than thirty staged readings and screenings were organized all over the country, under the slogan Golgota Picnic—Do It Yourself. The events arranged in protest against the cancellation were then picketed by supporters of the cancellation. The latter group consisted, in the words of one international commentator, of a “loose coalition” of rosary-clutching pensioners, neo-Nazis, and football hooligans—all of whom displayed varying levels of stamina. ⁷⁹

In contrast to previous controversies, the conflict over Golgota was almost immediately seen to have brought about a positive outcome. Some interpreted it as an instance of agonistic democracy in action, evidence of the creation of democratic counterpublics, or a manifestation of “the political itself.” ⁸⁰ According to them, intense reactions to contentious works rendered art relevant and were part of a wider process of democratic pluralization through open debate and exchange of differing opinions. The nationwide Golgota protests exposed that, in the twenty-first century, it had become difficult to silence artistic expression effectively—a canceled production could find its way into the public sphere through different channels. ⁸¹ Still, not all were comfortable with the ambiguous—to some, more populist than democratic—nature of public controversy. The liberal weekly Polityka sought to capture the conflicting emotions that the clash over Golgota sparked. It wrote of pride at the sight of citizens engaging in extensive public debates on civil rights and the state of democracy, and of shame when confronted with García who, during an open debate in Poznan, reminded everyone that though his play had been met with protest everywhere, it was only in their city that it got canceled. ⁸² Disputes over art might generate active citizens, Polityka seemed to suggest, but they also revealed some disconcerting aspects of public life.

A decidedly bleaker view of the Golgota controversy was taken by those who focused more narrowly on issues relating to freedom of artistic expression. On the one hand, the majority of conservative right-wing media saw Golgota as yet another in a long string of attacks aimed at Catholics by a Left-dominated cultural realm. ⁸³ On the other hand, a focus on censorship, along with a narrative of isolation and lack of support from the art world, was upheld by the beleaguered festival leadership. ⁸⁴ From both perspectives, the conflict, like so many previous ones, appeared trapped within binaries such as free expression versus authority of traditional values, or images of the arts as a provocative challenge versus portrayals of them as a menace to society.

Still, Golgota was arguably the first large-scale controversy in postcommunist Poland where the adequacy of such binary oppositions became openly questioned by both domestic and international commentators. ⁸⁵ This does not mean that the artists’ right to free expression was cast in doubt, nor that significant obstacles to free expression in a postcommunist as well as a wider neoliberal context were ignored. Increasingly, however, the scope of concerns and potential approaches to controversy was broadened. The disputed conduct of the Malta Festival’s leadership, for instance, raised questions about the role of cultural institutions in a democracy, including such institutions’ usage of controversial works as a marketing ploy and their responsibility to ensure that artworks and audiences can connect in productive ways. ⁸⁶ The case was seen as an instance of self-censorship rather than censorship. Also, discussions on the role of the artist shifted. Visions of artists as isolated individuals with singular rights to “express themselves,” or, alternatively, publicity-hungry egomaniacs, became supplemented by narratives of artists as members of cultural and social institutions as well as communities and, specifically in relation to the theatre, a debate on its role as a public space, and a move away from a one-sided relationship between theatre and audiences, or experts and the general public. ⁸⁷

Either–or positions on free speech began to give way to discussions of how artistic expression operates in a market society, how it might be regulated through a variety of official and unofficial mechanisms, and how the right to free expression is bounded by institutional practice and exercised within current political and cultural alignments:

[C]ancellation of the production and the . . . public protests expose a string of social tensions that . . . exceed the issue of freedom of expression or protection of religious sentiments. Rather, they touch upon the very essence of Polish democracy. . . . The issue concerns the . . . nature of the state, not so much in terms of the letter of the law as in the sense of general practice of institutions and officials. ⁸⁸

The shift in how emotional and expressive dimensions of arts controversy were understood seriously impacted the interpretation of the role of religion in the controversy. There was amplified focus on the Catholic Church as a “spokesman of social anger,” a role used to reinforce this institution’s claim to dominate public life in postcommunist Poland, but also repeated emphasis on the offended groups’ right to feel upset and to protest—as long as they did not disrupt public events. ⁸⁹ Controversy was not only about finding common ground but also about acknowledging the legitimacy and sincerity of other people’s convictions. ⁹⁰ It was no longer framed as a clash of moral values but rather as a question of group identity. And whereas reflection on previous arts disputes tended to remain mired in notions of national uniqueness and the “exceptional” character of the situation that postcommunist Poland had found itself in, the debate around Golgota cast issues linked to secularization as well as free expression and other rights—traditionally embedded in the structure of the nation state but altered by changed global circumstances—in a European or transnational perspective. ⁹¹

No longer conceived as centered mainly on individual rights (like those of an artist) or contrasting moral values, controversy began to be perceived in social terms, often as a conflict of collective identity or a problem of recognition and exercising public voice. Publicists associated with Krytyka Polityczna, like Antoni Michnik, approached the conflict over Golgota as a powerful lens for shedding light on fundamental flaws of the postcommunist public sphere. ⁹² After 1989—according to Michnik—a narrow, outdated understanding of politics led to harmful notions of a “passive” postcommunist society. At the same time, any articulation of opposition to the changes that had taken place in the 1990s was “blocked,” which meant that anger and offence, and a daily sense of social injustice and inequity, became diffused and channeled into polemics on controversial artworks. ⁹³ From this perspective, clashes over artistic expression were still tied to postcommunist dysfunction but also appeared as critical fora where citizens could take part in public life and exercise voice by actively engaging for or against an artwork. To Michnik, the intense reactions to the Golgota controversy became evidence of postcommunist Poland’s potential for mobilization on the basis of identity politics and a positive test of different groups’ participation in public life. ⁹⁴

The disputes surrounding the cancellation of Golgota Picnic are exemplary of contemporary controversy (media spectacle; aggravating interventions by politicians or religious leaders; debates on public funding for the arts) while also bearing the imprint of a postcommunist context (institutional self-regulation; concern with the shortcomings of the “existing” democracy). Commentators have attributed particular significance to this controversy: as a turning point and an actual breakthrough for civil society, or an eye-opener for those who believed postcommunist society incapable of such action. The analysis presented in the preceding pages suggests that the debates surrounding the cancellation of Golgota also witness the emergence of a broader scope of more analytical and differentiated, if not politically unbiased, approaches to arts controversy. The broadened approaches represent a turn away from controversy associated with the interests of artists and personal offence, toward issues of social coherence and collective identity. ⁹⁵

Conclusions

Postcommunist Poland’s arts controversies do not, on many levels, diverge from similar disputes in other societies in the midst of intense transformation. If we approach postcommunist controversy via models based on US art antagonisms of the 1990s, central features appear similar: ambiguous attitudes to the arts in media and throughout society; institutional turbulence associated with the weakening of modernist paradigms; persistent references to the law and the eminence of precedent-setting legal cases; or fear of self-censorship. Yet the context in which the elements figure in the formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe, and their meaning, is different, and next to the universal stratum, there is always a context-specific layer in all aspects of postcommunist controversy. Indeed, it is through the combination of universal and contextual traits that arts controversies are able to provide insight into the ongoing evolution of postcommunist society.

Nevertheless, there are elements that mark out postcommunist controversy to a greater extent than arts conflicts elsewhere. An example is the prevalence of informal institutional regulation with its connotations of lacking transparency and hidden machinations, the implications of which are obviously unfortunate in “younger” democracies. ⁹⁶ Overall, however, the chief distinction of postcommunist controversies is the extent to which they have come to be understood as symptomatic of deeper social struggles, often framed as a democratic deficit. Common to the different framings of this deficit is a paramount concern with exclusion and alienation: in the early transition phases, the weight is placed on the alienation of individuals (artists); in the new millennium, attention shifts to collective feelings of estrangement from political and public life.

One conceptualization of postcommunism’s democratic deficit has been censorship. ⁹⁷ Following the demise of state socialism, there was an expectation that the end of the undemocratic regime would mean the end of all restriction on creative freedom. It took time to acknowledge that the disappearance of authoritarian regulation only made it possible to begin a difficult discussion about the societal underpinnings of free expression and its limits. Meanwhile, the complexity of questions relating to freedom of expression has become ever more noticeable and it has become obvious that those in power can restrict expression in ways that will stand up to legal scrutiny. They might choose, as has indeed been done on more than one occasion in Poland, not to renew the contract of a theatre director rather than to dismiss him. ⁹⁸

Another manifestation of a sense of dysfunction is the tendency to see arts controversies as part of a larger ideological conflict raging in postcommunist society. The Polish version of culture war has been defined as one of competing moral worldviews, economic disenfranchisement masked as a culture clash, or an enduring struggle between traditionalists and progressives. ⁹⁹ A broad cultural conflict perspective has led to a new importance being attributed to disputes over the arts. However, it also engenders a view of controversy as a two-sided confrontation (a clash of oppositional forces) while understating its implication of confrontation and interaction, the multiplicity of participating actors, the complex nature of their perspectives, and a frequent overlap of positions. A case in point is the example of the progressive Gazeta Wyborcza and its decidedly unprogressive views on contemporary art in the 1990s. Focus on a larger, national-level conflict can also obscure the frequency as well as diversity of controversies; there are more disputes over artistic expression than the relatively few that make it into national, or international, headlines and they need not conform to similar patterns. Two of postcommunist Poland’s best-known controversies, the Passion trial and the Golgota cancellation, might be seen as indicative of latent tension between a national perspective and the local origins of many arts antagonisms. Both illustrate how controversies become less manageable when they turn national and how political involvement has a highly polarizing effect.

A factor often mentioned as distinctive to Polish arts controversies is the Catholic Church. Given the unique position of influence that the Church has enjoyed in postcommunist Poland, it is not surprising that religious controversies constitute a substantial part of the recorded cases, ¹⁰⁰ and garner considerable attention. The shift in Polish discussions on the role of religion in arts controversy toward issues of power rather than moral values has parallels to broader analyses of cultural conflicts in contemporary Europe. ¹⁰¹ More specific to Poland is the ongoing dispute about the Church’s role before 1989, especially—but not only—in the late 1970s and 1980s (the source of its present status). Approaching this issue through the prism of arts controversy complicates any notion of unambiguous Church support for the democratic cause before 1989, which contrasts with this institution’s “sudden” anti-democratic tendencies after the systemic changes. Instead, study of arts controversy reveals not only consistent opposition on the part of the Church to forms of expression that somehow signal freedoms beyond the frame of Catholic dogma, but also—both before and after 1989—a history of seeking to entice the governing authorities into regulating and controlling expression. ¹⁰² Recent debates like that surrounding Golgota Picnic have opened a difficult discussion on how to make the Church part of a pluralistic and diverse society rather than a self-appointed spokesman of popular sentiment. ¹⁰³ Any further consideration of such issues would have to include the impact of more recent political developments in Poland and require a closer look at the latest crop of controversies that fall beyond the scope of this article.

How controversy is approached constitutes an important marker of postcommunist disputes about cultural production. Whereas the arts conflicts of the 1990s and early 2000s were understood mainly as aesthetically conditioned and rooted in individual liberties, they have since emerged as linked to social processes and collective concerns. Public disagreements over arts remain associated with the shortcomings of postcommunist democracy, but those shortcomings are articulated as a crisis of recognition and participation—in culture as well as in broadly defined democratic institutions. This shift can be explained by changes in the cultural landscape, altered perceptions of politics, social critique, and what constitutes a democratic public sphere, including weakened myths of unified publics and awareness of a greater multitude of voices that cannot be silenced in public. Public protests over arts can engender dialogue—and foster a better understanding of democratic mechanisms—but do not have to; the Golgota debate suggests that their pluralistic potential tends to be limited to some rather than all participants. Similarly, the diversification of discourses on the nature and outcomes of the postcommunist transformation plays an important role in the evolving perceptions of arts conflicts, while at the same time drawing attention to the amount of time that postcommunist society has required to begin to decode various forms of regulation, limitation, and oppression that stem from other sources than those associated with Soviet-style communism.