(The text was published in exhibition catalogue Maria Pinińska-Bereś. Imaginarium of Corporeality, State Gallery of Art in Sopot, 20.01-04.03. 2012)

Not without a reason the authors writing about the work of Maria Pinińska- Bereś wondered about how rich it was in inspirations stemming from certain themes of European modernism on the one hand, and on the other, about the content of the “female issue”, or perhaps proto-feminism or even proto-post-feminism. The matter was discussed in depth by Izabela Kowalczyk¹I. Kowalczyk, Feminizm w sztuce polskich artystek, www.oska.org.pl/biuletyn/6/64.pdf, last accessed: 30.10.2011. and Ewa Malgorzata Tatar²Cf/ e.g.: E. M. Tatar, Sztuka Marii Pinińskiej-Bereś i surrealistycznie rozumiana korporalność, www. Intertekst.com/201_artykul. html, 18.03.2010, last accessed: 30.10.2011; E. M. Tatar, (Nie) jestem feministką, ale…, www. obieg.pl/teksty/4405, 13.10.2008, updated 15.02.2009, last accessed: 30.10.2011., among others. As far as metaphorical and psychoanalytical themes are concerned, three issues deserve to be examined. The gender question in the art of metaphor and in surrealism would be one of them. Tracing the flow of ideas, from the 20^th century sculpture in general and from the group centred around André Breton in particular would constitute the second. The third issue would be associated with the erotic element which is found in a number of layers in the artist’s works. In the following essay, I would like to take a brief look at the issues outlined above.

In 1975, Whitney Chadwick aptly remarked that surrealism, despite immense focus on the issues of overwhelming and inspiring love, did not do away with the old stereotypes completely.³ W. Chadwick, Eros or Thanatos — The Surrealist Cult of Love Reexamined, Artforum, November, 1975, pp. 46 — 56. Surrealist artists demonstrated various forms of eroticism including references to what had been described in 1936 by Maurice Heine, who rejected the notion of “perversion” and suggested the “tree of paresthesia”, with an abundance of offshoots to expose the variants of psychosexual behaviour.⁴Exposition internationale du surréalisme, Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris 1959-1960, catalogue, p. 135. In spite of that, and despite the very open proposals which granted the “female principle domination over creation in general”, the direction was nevertheless based on the “castration” thinking of Sigmund Freud’s, as well as on nurturing the 19^th century clichés in the perception of women (as: fairies, goddesses, magical, initiate beings, Great Mothers, Sphinxes, Androgyne halves etc., though fortunately not as angels, witches, courtesans or she-devils anymore).

This was due to the fact that regardless of the great openness in the treatment of the issues of the other sex surrealists… were encumbered by the patriarchal view of life oriented towards the male point of view.⁵W. Chadwick, op. cit., p. 56. A certain remark seems unavoidable at this point. In comparison with the other currents of modernity, where women-artists appear fairly seldom, surrealism featured considerable presence of great female artists. It would be sufficient to quote eight figures who are not always mentioned often enough, yet which remain tremendously significant for the shape of surrealism and 20^th century art as a whole. Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Toyen (Marie Čerminová), Remedios Varo, Meret Oppenheim, Dora Maar, Dorothea Tanning or Frida Kahlo are all outstanding individualities. Although one could argue about their degree of submission to the possessive fellow male artists, they remain important not only for feminism but frequently arouse interest as noteworthy models, both universal and going beyond the confinement of gender. Despite the difficulties these artists had in breaking through in the male mass, they have provided, until the present day, numerous opportunities of hermeneutic viewing of art. The great eight should be complemented by at least five more female surrealists, less known yet greatly deserving attention. These include: Kay Sage, Stella Snead, Aube Ellouet, Bona Pieyre de Mandiargues, Erika Zurn. Although the work of the above artists is not discussed any broader here, the works of at least some of them display the “models of sensitivity” (to use the notion adopted by George Kubler) similar to the one found in Pinińska, as well as inspirations for some of the solutions she employs. And a minor local allusion on top of that. The 2^nd Krakow Group [II Grupa Krakowska] with its Krzysztofory cavern was an important venue around which the radical art of Kraków would be centred. Even though it functioned under the mantle of the demiurge Tadeusz Kantor and with the constant background throb of men, it would not have had the shape it had if it had not been for Maria Jarema, Janina Kraupe, Erna Rosenstein, Jadwiga Maziarska, Wanda Czełkowska, Teresa Rudowicz, Danuta Urbanowicz, Maria Stangret and Pinińska — a lady of Polish sculpture discussed in this text, and no minor member of this group.

For the Krakow artists from the 1940s to the 1960s surrealism did not mean only mere influence. Since the latter part of the 1950s, Pinińska was active in the pot of art fraternity from under the Wawel hill: a bit at the Union of Polish Visual Artists [ZPAP, Związek Polskich Artystow Plastykow], but chiefly in the endless debates in cafes and studios, while since 1979 she was a fully-fledged member of the 2^nd Krakow Group, although she had become associated with the group much earlier as the partner and wife of Jerzy Bereś. When narrowing the threads of relationships aligned from the West to what may be seen in the work of the Group’s artists, one should pay attention to the characteristic combination of fascination (verging on mythical) and the freedom of expression (surrealism above all) with the simultaneous application  of patterns from on the Seine and later from America, in a guerrilla, dissident and still doubtful fashion. Under the charismatic leadership of Kantor the artists followed that which appeared as breath-taking novelties. However, what with the certain pride in their own tradition of the Krakow avant-garde (even boasting it a little) the novelties were hardly ever approached unthinkingly, but were taken in a sectarian fashion, frequently with irony and apostasy. The outcomes would therefore be unusual and this is even more evident today. Within the “Kraków coop” the models were discussed in every aspect, criticised and delved into), sometimes more with regard to penetrating into the atmosphere surrounding their creation rather than opting for copying them as they were.

And the atmospheric cellar of Krzysztofory, cleaned from the coal which was formerly stored there, became not only a seat of a gallery and a cafe. At times, it would become some cavern of creation. Perhaps to a degree the matters stood as Anna Markowska describes it, namely that the distortion of the originals resulted from their dismal reproductions, which were treated as “tailoring patterns” of how the truly contemporary painting or sculpture should look like.⁶A. Markowska, Dlaczego Grupa? (Uwagi i komentarze), in: Grupa Krakowska 1932 — 1994, Narodowa Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Zachęta, Warszawa 1994, catalogue, p. 30. On the other hand, in the post-war trauma and poverty, with the deepening isolation of a communist state in the vice of Stalinism, the 2^nd Kraków Group became a fortress (read: a rotunda) in its cave, while its members, largely immune to the designs of the debilitating socialist realism, discovered their own happiness in the persistence of artistic work with references to Western models (expressionism, various versions of abstraction, surrealism etc.) clearly displaying desinteressement with regard to the imposed pincers of totalitarian culture.

Piotr Krakowski obliquely admits in his 1961 text that severance from the “committed” realism preferred by the regime is a path to what is offered by expressionism, abstraction and above all surrealism, and hence to an open worldview which produces consequences of artistic as well as ethical and moral consequences.⁷P. Krakowski, Problem surrealizmu w sztuce polskiej, Wystawa malarstwa metaforycznego, Galeria Krzysztofory, Kraków, June-July 1961, foreword to catalogue, quoted after: Grupa Krakowska (dokumenty i materiały) vol. I, J. Chrobak (ed.), Kraków: Stowarzyszenie Artystyczne Grupa Krakowska, 1991. Pinińska, as she describes it herself, after the family trauma (aristocratic background, father’s death in Katyń, wandering after 1945), as a person with undeviating negative attitude to communism, very promptly adopts the themes of free expression in art. Saving their standing in the difficult times, Maria, like the other artists apparently carried out the postulates of the “flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Although the concepts of this author concern extreme situations, they are in part applicable here. When adversities deprive us… of the ability to act, we need to be reassured in the possibility of controlling the situation. We do it by finding a new direction of engaging psychological energy which remains beyond the reach of external forces.⁸M. Csikszentmihalyi, Przepływ. Psychologia optymalnego doświadczenia (transl.) M. Wajda-Kacmajor, Taszów: Moderator 2005, p. 167. Defining her work as “asylum” (with a two-fold meaning, as it turns out), which Pinińska does on multiple occasions, is a key confirmation of the existence of flow. Therefore the very interesting use of the tower motif in the 1963 Rotundas [Rotundy] comes as no surprise. These were phallic structures, opening “androgynically” to the themes of female corporeality concealed inside, not without characteristic closures, fetters or bells at command. Their character and the very materials used to form it make one wonder, as they include provocatively coarse cement juxtaposed in a powerful contrast with the quilted fabrics set underneath. From the point of view of surrealist iconography (in Freud’s or C. G. Jung’s orbit) we have references to rotundas and castles, e.g. in Varo’s painting. And the brutal cement on the duvet is like monumentalization of the supersoft Oppenheim’s fur juxtaposed with the hard porcelain.

Yet the meaning of the Rotundas concerns exposing “opening despite closure”. In this context, the Corsets [Gorsety] (1966-7) also possess metaphorical character since they remind what burdens us for various reasons and what is associated with some kind of oppression. Not without a reason, the analogies of such layers laid on the body which change its nature are found for example in Toyen’s artwork.

The sculptures created by Pinińska in the 1970s as “psycho-objects” (the works defined by the author as The Psycho-Furniture are their narrowed variant) abandon the play with the crudeness of materials. Despite repeated use of quilts, or soft cylinders covered with fabric, the works of this type are painted with precision using antiseptic white and increasingly ostentatiously highlighted pink. The discussed sculptures may be ascribed the unparalleled character of fully personal statements. In her everyday life, Maria was a person of perfect elegance and pedantry, attentive to her hairstyle make-up or dress. Controlled in her speech, she would create a certain distance even with her friends. These layers of appearance modelling were a sort of mental corsetry: sometimes leading to satisfaction, sometimes to restraint and inhibition. It is therefore understandable that in her art she shook off the shackles and was ruthlessly honest to the flow. She did not suppress her subconscious thoughts, did not hesitate, even for a moment, to comment on the sometimes unfavourable situation of a wife, mother, artist shouted down by her male colleagues. The greatness of her art consisted in the fact that despite the mitigating layers of artistic veneer, the use of aseptic white, the broad application of lipstick, pink and the delicate arrangement of the composition in space she gave rein to sarcasm, the need to shout it out, the injustices falling upon her, the frequent treatment as person of secondary importance etc. What she did became the second domain of her asylum (if turning away from the subreality around and departing into art was the first). Strangely akin to Dorotea Tanning’s Soft Sculptures, Pinińska’s “psycho-objects”, chiefly from the 1969-1975 period, are a world of visual commentaries on the stifled life behind a screen, the trashy Keep smiling, on remarking that after all… “woman is a human being”.

When presenting her performances between 1976 and 1996, the artist appeared tightly covered by elaborate attire, a variety of not too constricting corsets. In a kind of contrast to the manifestation of her husband Jerzy, who presented plainness, nakedness and singular prophetism, Maria demonstrated not so much her own body but rather her condition, the honesty of bustling around the “household”. However, she provided these actions with far-reaching commentaries (for instance washing large pieces of cloth with letters forming the word “feminism”, as if to demonstrate yet another version of self-defence against classification).

In the famous Letter-Kite [List-latawiec] (1976) with the inscription “forgive me for having been, for being” she registered a fully committed protest against how she was treated. In most of her actions, she also did not omit to unfurl her individualised banner, demonstrating the flow and the asylum she could secure for herself through art. On top of that, Maria Hussakowska wrote that Maria’s performances featured a substantial emphasis on the denial of “non-placeness”⁹M. Hussakowska, Thing Pink, in: Maria Pinińska — Bereś 1931 — 1999, B. Gajewska, J. Hanusek (eds), Krakow: Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Bunkier Sztuki 1999, catalogue, p. 17., i.e. fully post-modern severance from the modernist obsession of universalism. At every occasion and as was her wont (cf. her works of furniture, interiors, rooms etc.) Pinińska simply marked her territory a space which confronted with the harsh world outside became her exclusive property, if only a little.

The erotic references, which featured in the artist’s work since the very beginning, assumed a particular significance of a co-ingredient of the form after 1974. The outlines of lips, breasts, vaginal of phallic allusions, achieved in multiple ways, lived their own life. Closed, opened, with suggestions of movement, they are never elements of sexuality treated in a literal manner. More than that, if the intimate elements were more prominent, then the artist added interpretations which were far remote from hedonism, as if to balance it out. On the one hand we have items which may be construed as more or less erotic, studied and fully perfected in form and colour. On the other, they are most frequently accompanied by some snag, ironic distance, sarcasm, a commentary on the treatment of sex as a mechanical function etc. Here, the most eloquent would be Love Machine [Maszynka miłości] (1969), like a grinder with “painfully” internal female organs and the light fan of gyrating legs on the outside. My Bed on the Island [Moje łoże na wyspie] (1985) is clearly branded with threat. Couch [Wersalka] (1986) has a strongly twisted mattress.

In several cases there appear allusions to the wave of breasts running around in circles, the mangle of close-ups, the imprisonment of the pressed in and the barely liberating in the wardrobe. The double nature of interpretations of these representations, ambiguous yet beautiful in form, approaches at times that which may be found in the multi-phallic works of Louise Bourgeois. With the exception that with the Kraków artist the interpretation shifts towards the appearance — attraction, and immediately afterwards towards some ironic reference to the great mystery of eroticism. Maria seems to know the mystery, a fact she suggests through the elements of her own unique works, which in our art stand honourably next to the works of Alina Szapocznikow or Katarzyna Kozyra. While greatly appreciating Pinińska’s works, in my opinion they contain eroticism without… eroticism. Instead of revelling in eudaimonism, as may be seen with many other artists, Maria seems to suggest that in that realm of desires and intercourses asylum would be the preferable achievement to a plunge into the sea of experience.

Occupied with the Infantas [Infantki] series since 1993, the artist makes her odyssey to what had interested her at the beginning of her creative path. The headless figures of monumentalised infantas, like the rotundas of the other day, conceal e.g. bells under the layers of the dress — a dress which is heavy, hard and flaring downwards. The abundances of references to Velazquez, but also to the fates of a princess enslaved by the rigours of etiquette refers in equal measure to the author herself, constrained in life by the corset- like moderation. Fortunately, she also heard the beautiful ringing of the bell of her art an asylum from the sub-reality of the socialist Poland as well as from the role of woman who, without a murmur…

Translated by Szymon Nowak

• 1
  I. Kowalczyk, Feminizm w sztuce polskich artystek, www.oska.org.pl/biuletyn/6/64.pdf, last accessed: 30.10.2011.
• 2
  Cf/ e.g.: E. M. Tatar, Sztuka Marii Pinińskiej-Bereś i surrealistycznie rozumiana korporalność, www. Intertekst.com/201_artykul. html, 18.03.2010, last accessed: 30.10.2011; E. M. Tatar, (Nie) jestem feministką, ale…, www. obieg.pl/teksty/4405, 13.10.2008, updated 15.02.2009, last accessed: 30.10.2011.
• 3
  W. Chadwick, Eros or Thanatos — The Surrealist Cult of Love Reexamined, Artforum, November, 1975, pp. 46 — 56.
• 4
  Exposition internationale du surréalisme, Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris 1959-1960, catalogue, p. 135.
• 5
  W. Chadwick, op. cit., p. 56.
• 6
  A. Markowska, Dlaczego Grupa? (Uwagi i komentarze), in: Grupa Krakowska 1932 — 1994, Narodowa Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Zachęta, Warszawa 1994, catalogue, p. 30.
• 7
  P. Krakowski, Problem surrealizmu w sztuce polskiej, Wystawa malarstwa metaforycznego, Galeria Krzysztofory, Kraków, June-July 1961, foreword to catalogue, quoted after: Grupa Krakowska (dokumenty i materiały) vol. I, J. Chrobak (ed.), Kraków: Stowarzyszenie Artystyczne Grupa Krakowska, 1991.
• 8
  M. Csikszentmihalyi, Przepływ. Psychologia optymalnego doświadczenia (transl.) M. Wajda-Kacmajor, Taszów: Moderator 2005, p. 167.
• 9
  M. Hussakowska, Thing Pink, in: Maria Pinińska — Bereś 1931 — 1999, B. Gajewska, J. Hanusek (eds), Krakow: Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej Bunkier Sztuki 1999, catalogue, p. 17.