Afterimage (Powidoki) (Powidoki)

presents

AFTERIMAGE

Starring

Here comes our late Varsovian!

Excuse me, where can I find Professor Strzeminski?

Professor Strzeminski...

Ah... there!

He's seen you, he'll be right here.

But how will he get here?

Like this!

Madman!

My god, are you alright?

Aren't you going to help a cripple?

I'm sorry. I...

I am Wladyslaw Strzeminski and I'm alright.

Welcome to the Lodz School of Fine Arts field trip.

I've gone off the rails because of you, sir.

I know, Jadwiga, it's my fault.

- What is your name? - Hanna.

Miss Hanna.

The image has to be what you absorb

from this...

from this.

When we gaze at an object, we get its reflection in our eye.

When we stop looking at it

and move our gaze elsewhere

an afterimage of the object remains in the eye.

A trace of the object with the same shape but the opposite colour.

An afterimage.

Afterimages...

are the colours of the inside of the eye which looks at an object.

Because a person really only sees what he is aware of.

How did he lose his arm and leg?

He's never told us,

but it's better not to ask.

December 1948

The first Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party has just closed.

We shall implement the momentous resolutions of the Congress.

We will fight for their realisation

and mobilise the masses around them.

Bringing Poland closer to socialism

is the sacred duty of a Party member.

Comrades, there's no doubt

that to achieve the great tasks set by the Congress

we can unite the broadest masses of the people.

Long live the Polish nation.

Long live its heroic working class.

Long live the Polish United Workers' Party.

Look!

Jesus Christ!

What have you done?

I live here, I'm a painter.

You're coming with us.

Stand up!

Name.

Strzeminski.

- First name? - Wladyslaw.

- Date and place of birth? - 21 November 1893, in Minsk.

A Soviet citizen.

A Polish citizen.

Profession?

Painter.

Artist.

Place of work?

The State High School of Fine Arts in Lodz,

lecturer in art history.

So, citizen Strzeminski...

You'll have a trip to the Security Office. And from there God knows where.

So now God rules at the Security Office?

Good morning, Professor.

My office, please.

Well...

We have a problem with you.

With me?

With you.

Professor, artist.

You know full well that the country is going in a new direction

and you're opposed to it.

In tsarist Russia, you'd be packed off to Siberia for doing that.

But we can't do that.

Unfortunately, we have to educate.

I'm not against you, I just have different views about art.

Let me read out to you something I have here.

Right, what do we have here?

What do we have here?

This is it.

The line between politics and art has disappeared

as it turned out that the villainy in both is the monopoly of the same evil group.

Let's liquidate them without mercy,

not just because they took over the palaces of art and the press,

but above all because they blocked fairness with all of their actions,

because they're destroying not only the arts, but above all the man.

That's why painters, poets and writers have already ceased to be just artists.

You have become, whether you wanted to or not,

soldiers on the political... yes, on the political part of the joint front.

Do you recognize this?

I wrote it.

In autumn 1934, I think.

It's not about you, it's about the Sanation.

Well, if it was 1934 for sure it's not about us.

Although we were in the USSR then, so it could have been about us.

Mister Strzeminski...

you have talent, you have a way with words, I couldn't write it better myself.

So why do you not want to join the changes

instead of sabotaging our ideological line?

After all, you used to be at the heart of the revolution and now what?

Mister Strzeminski...

You're not stupid.

But believe me, I'm not stupid either.

You're standing at a crossroads

and you can't stand here any longer.

Whichever path you choose...

you bring that fate upon yourself.

Wladyslaw Strzeminski and Katarzyna Kobro are avant-garde artists.

In St. Petersburg, he worked with Malevich, an outstanding, world-famous artist,

in Moscow, after the revolution, he took part in exhibitions.

After returning to Poland, he settled in Lodz, where he, Henryk Stazewski,

the well-known poet Julian Przybos and others formed the a. r. group,

which stands for Revolutionary Artists.

In this room you can see the artist's pieces from this period of his work...

Strzeminski also designed this room, called the Neoplastic Room.

Here you can see unusual sculptures by Katarzyna Kobro,

the creator of the concept of infinite space,

please note the relationship between these sculptures and modern architecture...

You may come closer, just don't touch the exhibits.

Let's move on, please.

Nika!

- Are Strzeminski and Kobro your parents? - Yes, they are.

But they are not together.

Good morning.

And why is it so empty here?

- It's Wednesday. - I know it's Wednesday, so what?

They are all in the hall

for Professor Strzeminski's lecture.

And you?

I'm looking for the dean's office.

- There, on your right. - Thank you.

Seeing is not a single, unspecified, abstract act,

but an action, a process of viewing at a certain moment.

Nature has its own "centres of interest" that draw greater attention.

We look at it while moving from one point of interest to another.

When we gaze at a Van Gogh landscape, we see the identical, repeated divisions.

How should we look at nature to see it as it was painted by Van Gogh?

And was he looking at it with a normal, natural, physiological gaze?

The look that we use?

The answer comes when we draw our glances projected onto the landscape.

Four glances along the horizon, each focusing on its own centre of interest.

So the repeated identical divisions show up in the picture

not because the "formalist" Van Gogh wished it for unknown subjective reasons

but because he accurately reproduced the process of viewing the landscape

with the four parallel, sequentially directed glances.

Comrades, colleagues!

Let me remind you that today we're hosting the Minister of Culture.

This is a lecture.

Please leave, close the door!

After the speech of Comrade Minister there will be a meeting

and a debate about our school and our artistic circles.

Please stop this class immediately

and prepare the room because in one hour we will be hosting our honourable guest!

Attendance is compulsory.

The prefects will check attendance.

And this is the realism of Van Gogh.

The realism of a living material man, a man who sees not in the abstract,

but through the living material organism of his physiological body.

Not a spiritual reception of experiences, but a physiological one.

Thank you.

And what brings the director of the Art Museum here?

Why? You don't know?

On Wednesdays I listen to the great lectures of Professor Strzeminski.

I don't know how long he will remain a professor here.

Professor!

- The Varsovian says she can type. - I moonlighted as a typist, 200 words.

Really? And what else can you do?

I can type up the "Theory of Vision", it'll take me just a few days if you dictate,

- or a week, if I do it from the notes... - Let's type up what there is...

The office has an old German typewriter,

they've got new Czech ones, but I'm not in with the secretaries...

I am. We'll try talking with them.

So Roman and I will go.

Professor, can we come round tonight?

Of course, you're all welcome.

Rector, please don't exaggerate.

Professor Strzeminski has provided great service for this city.

He created the first museum of modern art in Poland and the second in Europe.

- His position is unassailable. - You think so?

Will you stay for the meeting with the minister?

- I will. - Thank you very much.

It's very good that you're here.

It is our duty to be present wherever issues important for culture are decided.

- I'm afraid we'll be handcuffed. - Don't come outwith anything like that.

Ladies and gentlemen, today is a great day.

I warmly welcome our esteemed Minister of Culture.

The nation has the right to place its demands on artists

and one of the most basic demands is that the deeper layers of a work of art,

its objective, its intentions

should meet the needs of the people,

not to raise doubts, when what they need is enthusiasm,

belief in victory,

not to apotheosise depression,

when the people want to live and work.