IN SAVAGE SOCIETY

Presented under the subversive title In Savage Society (referencing Bronisław Malinowski), this project focuses on the problem of personal and collective mythologies and the need to create and seek bridges, fragile as they may be, between historical truths and the individual or collective longing to mediate one’s own subjectivity against the context of larger, broadly understood historical narratives.

By making reference to the works of Bronisław Malinowski—renowned Polish anthropologist and explorer of non-western cultures, whose scientific objectivity was somewhat shaken by the posthumous publication of his controversial A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term—the artists relinquish the aspiration to talk about irrefutable truths, instead focusing on the hint of potential falsehoods.

At the center of the exhibition are two seemingly historical but in fact contemporary paintings depicting the meeting of Tadeusz Kościuszko with Little Turtle (Mihšihkinaahkwa)—chief of the Native American Miami people and famous military leader. Like a distorted mirror image, the repeated genre scene shows an exchange of gifts between the legendary leaders that differs in detail in historical accounts. Not only are we uncertain whether the meeting actually took place, but we also lack definitive evidence that Mihšihkinaahkwa received from Kościuszko two pistols (with the suggestion to use them against the first person who tried to take his freedom), or whether perhaps it was a pair of glasses or binoculars meant to open Mihšihkinaahkwa’s eyes. We are also unsure whether Kościuszko, depicted in his signature yet inapt attire, received in exchange a pipe or a tomahawk. 

Nearly identical yet differing in detail, the paintings are not the only doubleness present here, as Jasper and Malinowska are also toying with the idea of repetition. The exhibition features two fictional reconstructions of old cathode-ray tube TV sets displaying two parallel videos: the first is an extended interview with members of the Polish American Indian Friends Movement (PAIFM) discussing the origins of their unique fascination with indigenous North American cultures and the alleged evidence of kinship between Poles and Native American peoples; the other one is an episode from the Winnetou film series inspired by the famous eponymous novels of Karl May, who may be called a godfather of the Polish-Native American affair. The adventures of the Apache chief shown on the CRT television-sculpture are in fact impossible to watch as the image trembles mercilessly or turns into analog snow—a condition typical for old TV models, but also a symptom of the intentional jamming characteristic of the times when new things from behind the Iron Curtain were a danger. These were also the times when the Polish American Indian Friends Movement was founded, as a form of escapism from the depressing reality of the collapsing system. The interviews with members of PAIFM shown in the first video are fragments from Jasper and Malinowska’s larger project currently in progress, a full-length documentary about the Movement with the working title If One Were Only An Indian.

A photo wallpaper showing a campfire serves as the background for the first CRT TV set. The background for the other TV set is a manually recreated wallpaper pattern copied from the house of an anonymous European gold miner and American pioneer at a Canadian open-air museum visited by the artists during their travels to the Yukon Territory. 

The motif of primordial fire is repeated in the installation/sculpture composed of artificial fires powered by blinking bicycle lamps—a veiled allusion to the recent incident in Poland in which books, African masks, Hello Kitty umbrellas and other artefacts were burned by Catholic priests in a display of their commitment to defending congregation members from the superstitious influence of pop culture and the culture of the Other in the broad sense of the term.  

Another important piece of the exhibition is a video documenting the story of the Arctic Elvis—a singer and guitarist from Baffin Island, Canada, and a member of the Inuit people (often misnamed as “Eskimo”)—who was fascinated and inspired by Elvis Presley. The existence of the Arctic Elvis seems to be proof that the urge to dress up and impersonate the Other is a universal rather than localized disposition.

The interior of the gallery is immersed in the cold light of fluorescent lamps mixed with the blood-red aura of light entering through the stained-glass filters placed on numerous windows.