Grzegorz Drozd: Animating the Marginalized in Public Space

I learned about Grzegorz Drozd's work earlier this year in preparation for my trip to Krakow for the Art Boom Festival. Of all the works proposed for this "modern art" public art program, Drozd's Letters To My Brother stood out to me as the most provocative and poignant action linking the marginalized with the cultured. In the Old Town where international tourists flock to engage in old world aesthetics, touring churches, dining in fine restaurants, and attending performances, Drozd envisioned distributing hundreds of letters, some with drawings, from Polish prisoners which he personally invited to communicate with him. Festival organizers were asked to print the letters in the form of leaflets and then distribute them by aircraft from across the skies over the City Centre. Drozd received over 500 letters, which he submitted to the festival organizers. On the day of the event, however, only a few versions of the letters were duplicated and some with only excerpts, basically editing the original intent of the work. And, to complicate his efforts further, the letters were immediately picked up by city workers off of the pavement like trash after their landing.

As with most public art supported by city or state agencies that have responsibilities or liabilities to political organizations, the artists' freedom of expression is often modified to the comfort level of bureaucrats. Although a version of Drozd's vision was represented at Art Boom, the thoughtful consideration of over 500 handwritten letters was denied because of this alteration. Plans to document each of the letters and drawings in the form of a book are being pursued now by the artist for publication in 2011.

Working with marginalized communities is a difficult task, one that takes time although can be significantly rewarding. In the United states McArthur Genius Award winner and public artist Ned Kahn recently told me that his most meaningful work-and he has completed significant works around the world with very large budgets-was an early public art project where he built a greenhouse with prisoners at the San Francisco County Jail (1). His vision was to create an open frame structure as a counterpoint to the oppressive feeling of the jail cells and to give inmates a place to grow vegetables and flowers, and tree seedlings to be planted on city streets. Working with the prisoners daily over several months took a great amount of patience with trust being built slowly over time. However, it was on the occasions that Kahn was alone with these criminals, mostly drug abusers and drunk drivers, nurturing plants, that he felt a deeply unexpected satisfaction.

Another artist here in the United States who is well known for her social practice work animating the un-empowered in both urban and rural communities is Suzanne Lacy. In 2008-9, she returned to her roots in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, California with "the intention of creating a town-wide project to combine the aesthetic values of art with the social values of community engagement."(2) Many residents of the unincorporated township of Layton worried that Lacy and her students would turn their community into a "clown town." So she crafted a vision for a series of one-story commercial buildings as sculptural forms, creating essentially a three-dimensional color field painting. Through negotiations with storefront owners they transformed the formerly all beige buildings on Main Street by painting the restaurant green, the local market green and red, and the neighborhood activity center blue. They also activated the town with a movie night projection on the side of the restaurant, and engaged local schoolchildren in the creation of a more traditional colorful community mural.

These two art projects, constructing a greenhouse with prisoners and "painting a town," took at least one to two years to complete. Creative strategies were engaged to develop trust including numerous visits with prisoners and community building events with the citizens of Laton. These activities were considered part of the art and ultimately made it possible for the works to be completed as envisioned. Both projects gave voice to the needs of the marginalized and demonstrated a relational aesthetic for participants.

Upon my return back to America from Poland in June this year for the Art Boom Festival, I learned that Drodz was planning to execute a project at the end of the summer in September at Dudziarska or Goat Hill Estates, northeast of Warsaw. He told me how several units in the three buildings built in 1994 were not wired with electricity and that there were squatters living in them. Upon doing further research I found that the estates are adjacent to a garbage incinerator plant and a prison, and that it has taken years for residents to get transportation lines running to and from neighboring communities allowing them safe access to necessities. Basically, it is a disenfranchised community of residents that are very bitter about being isolated and neglected over a twenty-year period.

When I realized the level of complexity that Drozd was entering into, to paint a series of "murals" on both ends of the three buildings at Dudziarska, it seemed logical to me that his work would be met with resistance. Even with communities who are not neglected, communities that have invited an artist to create a mural will resist change. When an artist proposes an artwork that is beyond the communities understanding or does not meet their individual aesthetic, it is difficult to attain acceptance by even the cultural elite. Resistance is normal in the world of Public Art as artworks will more than likely be permanent.

After two weeks of painting, the artist reported that the first team of painters resigned from their jobs, as they could not withstand the pressure exerted on them by inhabitants of the subdivision. Drodz stated "name-calling, cursing, throwing bottles and other paraphernalia were directed against us." He had hoped for dialogue with the residents by planning an evening with them from the start to discuss the project and to talk about daily life in Dudziarska. Drozd's hopes were quickly met with disappointment as he became afraid for his own safety and for the integrity of the paintings once he was gone. Before arriving at Goat Hill, he brought with him assumptions that the residents were victims of the governments' decision to isolate them. After being met with aggression, however, he realized that the complexity of the situation was beyond his strategic ability to execute the work in a way that the community would engage with him and his vision.

For this project Dordz ultimately chose to paint the ends of the three buildings to the east completely black, a void. And, to the west, white background with a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and squares of primary colors. The black representing the space that Goat Hill Estates embodies, basically "black holes" in which the residents dwell. Borrowing from De Stijl, the artist also represents a Neoplasticism for the East bound trains, "a vision of a new utopian ideal of spirituality, harmony and order" (3) for this otherwise living hell, a place forgotten by the people and god. The project as a whole is entitled "Universal."

Dordz found the experience at Dudziarska to be emotionally fraught and felt very depressed following the completion of the painting. Although he feels the work, Universal, will have a staggering effect and is personally very pleased with it, his interactions with the residents and the city officials were not easy. The artist also created an accompanying documentation of the subdivision, a film that exaggerates elements of the degrading buildings. "The settlement resembled an act of war," he states, which he captured on camera from what felt like a battlefield. He will present the completed film in October this year at Lab Cinema CAA, Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw.

Drodz's attraction to making art within marginalized segments of society reflects his desire to animate the interstices of rich and poor, have's and have not's, or educated and commoners. One of the intriguing aspects to me about Drozd is the social maturity he brings to his work. This probably comes from having spent several years in his twenties during the 1990s working to make a living as an airplane mechanic, engineer, and custom interior painter before deciding to attend the Fine Arts Academy, Warsaw in 2002. He understands how things are constructed, conceptually and mechanically, and has employed the field of art, like a tool, to address the broken parts of society. Drozd travels a liminal space where his actions animate the disenfranchised, those who have the greatest potential to benefit from his art.

And, it is in this liminal space, as in the work of Ned Kahn and Suzanne Lacy, that Drodz has also shared agency with the marginalized. In Letter's to My Brother, he implies an alliance with the Polish prisoners by presenting their letters to the public as a single artwork. Although with the Goat Hill project, Universal, he potentially fails to close the distance between conceiving of his murals and the rejection that is demonstrated toward him by the residents. So the larger question is then, can a public painting or mural project succeed over time when the artist has not been successful at creating agency for the community? And if not, can the work then be valued exclusively by the art world regardless of the community's response? Time will tell. And, in the mean time, Drodz new work is shining a light on Dudziarska where there was none.

1. Ned Kahn's Greenhouse Project, San Francisco County Jail, San Bruno, California (USA). The project was funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission in 1990. http://nedkahn.com/fire.html#GreenHouseProject and http://www.gardenproject.org

2. Otis Connects: San Joaquin Valley is a collaborative project of the Public Practice Graduate Program and the Integrated Learning Program. It is part of a multidisciplinary art and design project that started in Fall 2008 with residents of Laton, California. https://wikis.otis.edu/sjv/index.php/Welcome!_Bienvenidos!_Bem-vindo! and https://wikis.otis.edu/sjv/index.php/Painting_the_Town

3. Definition of De Stijl on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Stijl

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Thanks to the financial support of the Capital City of Warsaw