Slanted #28 – Warsaw

slanted 28

warsaw

slanted 28 visits and authors 3group, Max Cegielski, Cyber Kids on Real, Klara Czerniewska, Jakub de Barbaro, Olga Drenda, Agata Dudek, Łukasz Dziedzic, Edgar Bąk Studio, FONTARTE, Marta Gawin, Dirk Gebhardt, Viktoriya Grabowska, Grupa Projektor, Homework, HUNCWOT, Jakub Jezierski, Tymek Jezierski, Janek Koza, Agata Królak, KUKI, Iwona Kurz, Grzegorz Laszuk, Piotr Leśniak, Ian Lynam, Mateusz Machalski, Mamastudio, Piotr Młodożeniec, MOONMADNESS, Negation Studio, Marta Niedbał, Ola Niepsuj, Noviki, Agata Nowicka, Kacper Pobłocki, Poważne Studio, Redkroft, Zuzanna Rogatty, Dr. Piotr Rypson, Dawid Ryski, siedemzero, Piotr Socha, StudioKxx, Studio Otwarte, Super Salon, Super Super, Syfon Studio, Rosław Szaybo, Dr. Agata Szydłowska, Tomasz Tomaszewski, Type2, Jacek Utko, UVMW, Tomasz Walenta, Mieczysław Wasilewski, Rene Wawrzkiewicz, White Cat Studio, Zerkaj Studio

video interviews slanted.de/warsaw

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Dirk Gebhardt

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fontarte

FONTARTE

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WASZ FA typeface 2016 Places of Origin: Polish Graphic Design in Context DesignMarch in Reykjavik Poster The Wild West, A History of Wroclaw’s Avant-Garde 2015 Zachęta National Gallery of Art Book

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super super

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WWAA Architects 2014 Jacek Majewski, Jacek Rudzki Architecture Studio Rebranding

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super super

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The M-Z Route—exhibition 2015 Hanna Kokczyńska, Jacek Majewski, Marcin Romaniuk, Monika Piekoszewska, Joanna Pamuła National Museum of Poland Spacial and Visual Design Book 8th Art & Fashion Forum Chic Geek 2014 Jacek Majewski, Hanna Kokczyńska, Mikołaj Molenda, Studio Bridge, Jacek Kołodziejski, David Błażewicz, Rafał Grobel, Stary Browar Promo Campaign for Fashion and Technology Festival

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www.nic2razy.pl

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NIC2RAZY NOTHING TWICE www.nic2razy.pl

Paweł Althamer, Ulla van Brandenburg, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Guy de Cointet, Tadeusz Kantor, Shana Moulton, Paulina Ołowska, Jim Shaw, Catherine Sullivan, Joanne Tatham oraz Tom O’Sullivan, Bracia Quay

Paweł Althamer, Ulla van Brandenburg, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Guy de Cointet, Tadeusz Kantor, Shana Moulton, Paulina Ołowska, Jim Shaw, Catherine Sullivan, Joanne Tatham oraz Tom O’Sullivan, Bracia Quay

Ośrodek Dokumentacji Sztuki Tadeusza Kantora / Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor Cricoteka

Ośrodek Dokumentacji Sztuki Tadeusza Kantora / Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor Cricoteka

otwarcie / opening 13 – 14.09.2014

Nadwiślańska 4, Kraków

otwarcie / opening 13 – 14.09.2014

Nadwiślańska 4, Kraków

noviki 18

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NOTHING TWICE 2015 Cricoteka, Cracow Exhibition Identity and Book The Make Yourself at Home Guide to Warsaw 2016 Anna Ptak, Rani al Rajji, Christiaan Fruneaux, Edwin Gardner (Monnik) Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle Subjective Guide to Warsaw Book → see also p. 166–176, 182–187, 198–208

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syfon studio

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POST / ERA 2015 / 2016 Institute of Design Kielce Poster Series, 70 × 100 cm ŚWIĘTUJEMY / WIR FEIERN 2016 Goethe Institute Outdoor Campaign

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mieczysław wasilewski

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Where Is My Vote?

2009 Poster

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edgar bąk studio

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The Anatomy of Love 2016 Centrum Nauki Kopernik Poster ATypI conference 2016 60th annual conference of ATypI Posters

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uvmw

Jacek �obert

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See & Say 2016 SKM SAR Campaign for free Porfolio Consultation Event

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uvmw

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Stary Browar 2014—still Food Project

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Royal Wilanow 2015 Capital Park Visual Information System

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�osław

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British Steel 1980 Judas Priest CD Cover

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grzegorz laszuk

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TR Warszawa Theatre 2015–2016 Posters

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w a s r n e a o i h w t t i t d d e e g it ial e m i l ec ee p s r fr fo t o a b e a / b i de r c . e s d h b e t � u t s an se AW l s d u “W n a de o

Tuesday 15 : 00 — 19 :15 Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts

Thursday 10 :30 — 16 : 00 Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design

A Conference about Graphic Design in Warsaw Talks by Piotr Rypson Nicolas Grospierre Marcin Nowicki (Post Noviki Studio) Magdalena Frankowska (Fontarte) Jan Bajtlik Moderated by René Wawrzkiewicz Free admission, registration necessary.

For more information visit www.slanted.de/ warsaw - conference

Hosted by

Curated by

Supported by

“Where there’s a will there’s a way”

Fontnames Illustrated

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Janek Koza Dawid Ryski Piotr Socha Agata Królak Ola Niepsuj Tomasz Walenta Tymek Jezierski Agata Nowicka Agata Dudek

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Fontname: Polish Dirty News

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Janek Koza

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Fontname: Atomowa (nuclear)

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Agata Królak

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Fontname: Odpustova (pilgrimage)

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Ola Niepsuj

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Pierwsze pokolenia 1900–1945 Piotr Rypson The graphic artists and designers pre‑ sented in this article belong to the first three generations of artists, who were to set the directions and paths of development for graphic design in Poland. The first of these are artists born in the eighties of the 19th centu‑ ry, the second—those who came into the world in the following decade, while the third group comprises de‑ signers born in the 20th century. This distinction is not for the sake of any bookkeeping order—its importance stems from the great acceleration of Polish history in the first half of the twentieth century. Despite the fact that mere decades separated them, each of these generations began their creative careers and professional work under very different circumstances.

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Essays

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131 Poland in the early twentieth century was not featured on the map of Europe, be‑ ing parceled into three partitions and subject to various political, economic, and cultural influences. The most liberal of these areas was the Austrian partition, and Cracow, the former capital and seat of Polish kings, served as the symbolic center of this supposedly non‑existent country, with a significant part of Poland’s artistic, literary and publishing activities being concentrated in that city. So it is no sur‑ prise that the vast majority of pioneers of twentieth century design, such as the later to be discussed Karol Frycz, Wojciech Jastrzębowski, Bonawentura Lenart, Adam Półtawski, and many others (Edmund Bartłomiejczyk, Antoni Procajłowicz, Ludwik Misky, Zygmunt Kamiński, Władysław Skoczylas), came from Cracow, or at least were educated at its Academy of Fine Arts.

Shaped in an environment steeped in the symbolism and works of Art Nouveau, these young artists were entering adult life at the beginning of a new century. For this generation, the best indicators of the new aesthetic currents were the English Arts and Crafts movement, and especially, thanks to its direct cultural and admin‑ istrative proximity, the Wiener Werkstätte, founded in 1903 by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser. In Cracow, work on artistic issues had already been under‑ way at the end of the previous century. The Polish Society of Applied Arts (1901) along with its main organizer, the critic Jerzy Warchałowski, was examining is‑ sues of “design” in arts and crafts and applied graphics, though with still no clear connection with industrial production.1 The activities of the armir (acronym standing for Architecture, Sculpture, Painting and Crafts) Group, supported by the Science and Industry Museum, and the rise of the Cracow Workshops (1913) crys‑ tallized the artistic environment of those seriously involved in graphic design, among whom were such eminent artists as the renowned book arts connois­seur and practitioner Bonawentura Lenart, the extremely versatile Wojciech Jastrzębowski—painter, graphic artist, letterer, and creator of bas‑reliefs and tap‑ estries, or the painter, graphic artist, and stage designer popular two decades later, Zofia Stryjeńska. However, the Cracow and Warsaw publishing centers were insuf‑ ficient for a more dynamic development of graphic design—what was needed were state‑funded public service commissions and modern, capitalist advertising. These two driving forces were only launched a dozen or so years later, with the advent of the reborn Polish state.

Poland reappeared on the map of Europe in 1918. The architects of the new state faced the mammoth task of merging three culturally different territories devas‑ tated by war, lying within borders that had undergone alterations and revisions by force of arms, ethnically very diverse and shaken by internal and external de­ stabilizing forces. The search for a national style undertaken at that time was closely associated with the birth of the new state. Intertwined in this process were more conservative tendencies, represented by the above‑mentioned Cracow

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Pierwsze pokolenia 1900–1945

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environment, with the aspirations of the Formists group that were shaped during the First World War. In short, as Piotr Piotrowski put it using the terminology of Rogers Brubaker, there had been an attempt towards “nationalization of modern‑ ism.”2 In that first decade of independence, neither Bunt—the Poznan–Berlin soci‑ ety of expressionists nor, inevitably, the Jewish expressionists of the Jung Idysz group achieved such a position as the Formists or the Rytm group, created following their breakup (1922), which included, among others, Skoczylas and Kamiński.

Tytus Czyżewski—cover. Tytus Czyżewski, Zielone oko. Poezje formistyczne.

Elektryczne wizje, Gebethner i s-ka, Cracow: 1920.

As Piotrowski summed up that process, “such modernism—‘soft’ and filtered through the tastes of the middle class, with its eclectic combination of folklore, classicism and modernity—met the expectations of the new Second Republic. It re‑ mained in line with the new state’s national policy.”3 The representatives of this circle obtained the first major government contacts for the design of postage stamps and banknotes, and were elected to key positions in cultural institutions and art schools.4 This formation’s crowning success internationally was the award‑winning Polish pavilion at the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925, the popularity of which consoli‑ dated the modernist‑nationalist tendency in Poland for many years to come.

The ethno design formula’s popularity in Poland to this day may testify to just how effective this strategy proved.5 Cracow quite quickly lost its position as the leading cultural center of the country, being usurped by Warsaw, the capital and thus the seat of the most important gov‑ ernment offices, and soon to become not only the political, but also the economic center of Poland. The work of the Cracow based art circle was suddenly labeled passé by its antagonists and the younger generation, seeing it as a continuation of Art Nouveau and folk deco. For that circle’s members themselves, it was a search for new forms of expression; as Jastrzębowski himself wrote: “We were fighting against rubbish, the imitation of past styles and the use of so‑called folk motifs.”6

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Pierwsze pokolenia 1900–1945

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133 Along with Warsaw’s graphic artists, such as Edmund Bartłomiejczyk and Józef Tom, they were at that time creating a decorative style, but one that evoked homely motifs, quite quickly seen as conservative traditionalism. Offering their talents to state institutions, they were treated by the more radical artistic circles as representatives of official state art. This generation, at the same time, constituted the first induction of art and graphic design educators in Poland.

The second generation—those artists that were born in the last decade of the 19th century—made their debut in an already independent Poland. Freed from the obligation of striving for a national art form, they represented a broad range of political attitudes and chose extremely different paths of development. Mieczysław Szczuka and Teresa Żarnower became involved with the communist movement and produced refined propaganda graphics, modeled on Soviet productivism; Władysław Strzemiński and Henryk Stażewski created constructivist art in the spirit of works having complete autonomy, like Henryk Berlewi, initially closely associated with the expressionist trend in Jewish art. In turn, Tadeusz Gronowski and Stefan Norblin, who were primarily devoted to designing book and magazine covers, and posters, were representatives of a generation already strongly entrenched in the new market realities of the Second Republic, providing professional graphic design services for a new middle class, and also becoming involved in the modernization of graphic design, though conceived in quite a different way.

Tadeusz Gronowski—poster for to-To magazine, 1925.

They all began their purely artistic and design activities in the none too favorable environment of a country plagued by poverty and galloping inflation, torn by growing political conflict. Poverty and inflation hampered the development of the advertising market, with publishers going bankrupt, or hoping to sit out the market collapse. It was the stabilization of the currency in 1924–1925 that finally released the country’s economic dynamics. The proliferation of cheap pocket‑book series (beginning with Biblioteka Groszowa, a penny library) and other publishing

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STEREO, SUPER QUALITY Olga Drenda

One can often find them in photo‑ graphs dated 1989, 1990 or 1991— they seem to haunt the frames: Niewiadów-brand camper vans turned into makeshift grocery shops or fast-food bars serving zapiekanki [open-face grilled baguettes] and Polish-style hot-dogs with mush‑ rooms, sometimes simply named “stuffed buns.” These sunlit scenes are captured at the height of the food poisoning season. The TV warns of an epidemic, advises one to avoid milk, ice cream, and—God forbid— eggs. “Salmonella, I don’t love you,” sing post-punk band Klaus Mit Foch (after splitting with original singer Lech Janerka, who will become a punk poet in the mode of Julian Cope).

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Later, Yugo-kiosks appear on the streets. Picture this: a stream of people move down the pavement— blonde perms, denim jackets. Every now and again someone stops, leans over a shopping stall. The red roof of a K67 kiosk stands out from the blue-and-grey crowd. This neat modular booth, designed by the Slovenian Saša J. Mächtig, is a 1960s project, but it materializes in Poland in the middle of the transformation period. After introducing “Wilczek’s bill,” which liberalized the private enterprise laws, as the streets are crowded with makeshift huts peddling a hodgepodge of items, the city authorities give an ultimatum to the vendors: you can sell your cassettes and sweets, but only in a “clean Yugoslavian kiosk.”

Essays

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143 K67s appear all over— Warsaw, Lodz, Koszalin, Legnica, Częstochowa.

They are considered modern and tasteful. The local papers inform one about this with satisfaction. K67s and similar, later models produced by the Kami company find various uses: from an ordinary newsagent’s kiosk, through to a kebab bar, or even a security guard’s, or police officer’s booth. The modular kiosks are treated as a means to cure the chaotic urban space, hence in 1991 an original Polish project appears— Mini Menu—small, white-and-red pavilions made of laminate, fully equipped, some even with gardens.

Booths, kiosks, camper vans—rough-and-ready solutions. Small-scale architecture, street furniture.

The beginning of the war in Yugoslavia stops the export of kiosks to Poland. Those brought here earlier fade in the sun and become the canvases for their owners’ in‑ ventions, which often follow the rules of horror vacui. Covered with letters cut from adhesive plastic, and later the increasingly aggressive adverts of mobile phone providers, their color draining away, they are eventually abandoned and buried under a growing layer of dust. Like the homeless FSO Syrena cars from a few years before, Yugoslavian kiosks often go up in flames. A puddle of melted plastic leaves the impression that a standoff with a Terminator took place.

Kami booths, made in Lodz, even become a focus of anger in the new millennium.

Their temporary, makeshift nature causes annoyance; plastic turns from a symbol of modernity into an eyesore. Activists from the “Group of Certain Persons” demand removal of the kiosks from city centers. The authorities announce a contest for a new kiosk, which will “refer to Lodz’s Art Nouveau past”; this is no surprise, as in the new century one must boast pre-WW II heritage in order to carry the seal of good taste. Meanwhile, students from the University of Lodz and Justus Liebig University in Giessen turn the Kami into a time capsule and even transport one—fitted with a

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Stereo, Super Quality

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TV showing video footage, recordings of Lodz’s soundscape, a radio, net curtains, a folded seat and a poster of Pope John Paul II—to Germany, both as a souvenir and an ironic example of traditional Polish handcraft.

But before all of this happens, the Polish transformation slowly gathers pace. The kiosks serve as an alternative to the makeshift market stalls, and the fast-food bars compete with the scruffy, state-owned eateries. Melancholic synthesizer melodies rule the public ear. Rock critics despise these songs for “disco mules,” but the average Pole chooses mixes played by TV DJ Marek Sierocki: of Italo disco, Dieter Bohlen, C.C. Catch, Sandra; their songs blast out from boomboxes and circulate nationwide in the form of compilations, for example those sold by a businessman from the town of Łomianki near Warsaw—Wojciech Brzezicki. To each of his tapes he adds a clause: “B.W. is a trademark of Wojciech Brzezicki Music Laboratory,” and the symbol of a crown with the words “Fono-Audio-Video” inscribed on it. His compilations, all named Eurodisco, carry distinct cover designs. On a background of basic colors, there’s usually a soft-porn photo, the B.W. Records logo, and a technological invoca‑ tion: STEREO, SUPER QUALITY. A few covers stand out from this pattern, such as Eurodisco 13 / 90 with the ALF character instead of a topless model, or 15 / 90 with its heartfelt appeal: “If you care for your country, vote for Wałęsa.” Brzezicki will soon be followed by other crafty businesspeople using a similar template—the “Zibi Disco Service” compilations, or those released by labels such as Marvel and Sawiton.

Eventually, B.W. himself will come to focus on charity work in the 1990s, participat‑ ing in a humanitarian convoy to Sarajevo, and sending donations to poverty-stricken children in the Bieszczady Mountains.

One of the compilation-based labels is called BRAWO. It’s possible that you’ll spot its logo on a Yugo-kiosk in the photographs. The owner, Leszek Dziugieł from the town of Mrozy, likes to stress the advanced nature of his enterprise, described as a

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Stereo, Super Quality

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145 “professional duplication studio:” “Only BRAWO tapes will make your time pleasant due to guaranteed recording quality and the choice of musical repertoire,” the covers announce. The content’s class is supposedly assured by a “music consultant”; some‑ times, it’s the mysterious “K. Zieliński,” but also a genuinely famous radio DJ, Marek Niedźwiecki, host of the cult Channel 3 Top 40 countdown. Later, he’ll admit to being deceived: “Now I know it’s piracy. But two years earlier, things weren’t as obvious.

For a year, I prepared ambitious pop mixtapes for them, similar in style to the music I play on the radio. When I realized they signed Sandra’s tapes with my name, I broke up with them,” he explains.

The problem was that the legal chaos of the early 1990s made such activities perfect‑ ly legitimate, and publishers even contributed payments to the Association of Polish Authors and Composers (none of which were ever seen by the original artists).

Journalist Wojciech Soporek writes a guide on how to bootleg Lambada, a major hit.

“It suffices to obtain a street vendor’s license and register yourself with the Association of Polish Authors and Composers. And here we go: we have to buy, at an old price, a few thousand pre-recorded tapes (clean ones are more expensive) from an official publisher, with some unmarketable stuff like Kołobrzeg Military Song Festival, Iwona Niedzielska, or others. Then, we make a copy from our own “original material.”

The original material is usually a rented compact disc, sometimes recorded from the radio,” he explains. The press also publish the “Confessions of a Pirate”—recollections of his pioneering years. “As you remember, there were no blank tapes on sale in the early 1980s, but there were cassettes for kids or releases by our notable stage singers.

Nobody wanted those. I bought them in bulk, removed the captions on the cassette with acetone, and threw the official covers into the bin. My tapes simply had black and white photos on the cover. How did I record them? I put a master tape, made from a Western record, into a Polish stereo, to which six to ten other tape recorders were connected. I tweaked them a little, so the sound from the master tape would go through each recorder,” recalled the anonymous publisher of Elvis, Boney M., and Polskie Orły [Polish Eagles]—a bawdy folk band, one of the forefathers of the looming “disco polo” genre explosion.

Soon, new technologies allowed for more than the “garden shed” productions, and the sound of the cassette from the tenth recorder in a row would finally become free of noise. Around 1992, the master tape was commonly replaced by a CD, usually a bootleg itself, bought at budget price from Thailand, and the number of stereos simultaneously duplicating the same material rose to a few dozen.

Bookshops, music stores, video rentals, and department store halls become the homes for “tape recording venues,” perfectly legal enterprises. Official music distributors such as Tonpress, Wifon, and Polskie Nagrania work slowly and in too-small runs, while listeners hungrily demand new music. Wholesalers (semi-legal labels, which

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A Letter to an ExGirlfriend Who Lives in Warsaw Ian LynaM I first met Jennifer Benitez at age 16 in Warsaw, Poland—the daughter of an interior designer and the Polish Ambassador to Mexico. She was my first love. We only dated for a couple years, but we have stayed in touch.

She moved back to Poland a few years ago where she works as a graphic designer.

We have a ton of mutual friends and whenever we happen to be in the same city, which is not very often, we hang out.

I’m not very good at maintaining relationships with ex-girlfriends.

I have tried in the past, but she is the only one I have ever been able to maintain any semblance of friend‑ ship with.

She wrote me a letter over a year ago, telling me about her then-recent move to Warsaw and all that that entails after living in New York City for a bunch of years. I sent her a really short postcard, but waited until now to write back properly.

And so …

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155 Jen, Hey you.

I’m sorry it took me so long to get you this letter. You’ve been living there for over a year now, and I have been terrible at communication. You know what is most difficult these days? Putting pen to paper. Making marks. Technology offers us so much these days that traditional writing does not. Like: :), ;), :(, et al. It’s not an ex‑ cuse, but it actually is a reason. How I write most these days is by dictating emails and essays into my phone—talking into my pocket telephone / timepiece / worldconnector / world-distractor.

And yes, I know it is sad. But also not really ... I listen to a song, I press the micro‑ phone button and it transcribes, then I stop and the song resumes. Think about that last sentence fragment: then I stop and the song resumes. It sounds like a Led Zeppelin lyric or something.

I am utterly unsure if that is a good thing.

Probably not.

Nothing major has been going on—unless you count all the earthquakes, the vaguely violent romantic upheavals, writing a couple of books, and doing so much that I understand more about myself than ever before—busy-ness as self denial and self-fulfilling prophecy. Tokyo’s ivy, and jasmine, and ragweed are climbing out everywhere, clawing at all of existence—the grey-black rats zip back and forth through sewer grates frolicking in the late, late spring warmth, and the pigeons bristle, and ravens cackle, and starlings flutter in the knowing that the steamy tropical rains are a-comin’.

I know this—though a dozen years have not built it into me yet—I’ll be lounging ’round the pool with my baby sabertooth, and those rains’ll come and wash the not-yet-big cat away to eke out a living with the alligators, and crocodiles, and Vietnamese water spinach, and legions of the dead.

But not yet—tonight’s just a windy night. A harbinger.

What a night I picked to try and walk across Tokyo.

Jumped in a taxi. My calves are sore. My thighs are sore. My heels are sore from these old sneakers rub-a-dub-dubbin’ ’gainst these somehow tender feet of mine.

Cabbing it to my station—to the store that sells beer that tastes extra-not-terrible with the weird girl perpetually squatting in the alleyway who says “Whassup?” in English every night and then promptly returns her gaze to her phone—it’s glow a seeming fixture against the shopping arcade’s fluorescent glow, and 1980s paint jobs, and veggie shops, and stretch therapists, and fried chicken joints, and ramen shops and chain used bookstore, and parklets, and spaghetti restaurant, and new bakery, and pet supply store, and household good store, and bar after bar after bar ...

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A Letter ...

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That is my shopping arcade as I imagine it. I get out of the taxi and I ask for a re‑ ceipt I can use when I file my taxes. Prostitutes who only offer their services to Japanese businessmen stand outside of the equivalent of the dollar store. A build‑ ing has been knocked down. I forgot to list the dry cleaners. And the Korean restau‑ rants. And the boarded-up spaghetti restaurant. And the other Korean restaurant.

And the convenience store. And the coffee shop. And the other convenience store.

And the Center for Developmentally Disabled Adult Citizens of our ward, which somehow poetically functions as a voting center.

Oh, and the other convenience store. And the park next door. It is the one where the rats I mentioned frolic. I grab a bench near the storm grate, and I wait for their ap‑ pearance. And I put on the music that I’ve been listening to for the past four months— the music that accompanied me through many of my self-wrought bullshit as of late, that I listen to mantra-like on two intercontinental flights, and I think of you. Not in a weird context, but just to explain where I’m at these days—an old pal with a head full of prophecy, near-broken pistons and look at that: I’m somehow feeding a sewer rat out of my hand. It lets me pick it up if I have food—it is used to being fed by humans, apparently ...

It then looks up at me and tells me a thing: Rat: I have been placed here to tell your kind stories. .

Me: O, Brother Rat, I am picking up what you’re laying down. Will you tell me a story? .

Rat: I am not your brother, human. Your brother is dead. You have none in this place except those that you choose to call family … That being said, I am happy to tell you a story ... Would you like me to tell you your story? .

Me: No, Brother Rat. I know my story as much as it has been told so far. And prob‑ ably more than a little bit afterward ... unless I get knifed by a former grad student.

And given recent experience, that may happen ... .

Rat: I do not foresee that, human. But I only live for about one year, so who knows? .

Me: I understand. Please tell me a story. My head rages as if there were a thunder‑ bolt alive within it. I walked halfway across this city and drank can after can of beer prior to arriving here. And please speak no more of brotherhood. .

Rat: Ok, once upon a time ... .

Me: Ugh. .

Rat: A critic, eh? .

Me: O, Brother Rat, have you not heard? All of the critics were brought unto the market and slain. .

Rat: ... .

Me: They’re dead, dear child. Now tell me a story. .

(The rat wipes his brow, clears his throat and begins …)

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A Letter ...

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157 Hump Day It was Hump Day and I was sitting by a pond tearing pieces off myself and throw‑ ing them in the water.

I only got the first sentence of that story done. I like that sentence. “Hump Day” means Wednesday, the middle of the week, akin to a camel’s hump, but “Hump Day” just has the word “hump” in it, which I love, as it is the word I used to use as a teenager to signify fucking, without really knowing what that was yet.

And I really love the idea of me ripping off parts of my body and chucking them in some pond randomly. Who would do that? It’s ridiculous, and that’s as far as I got, but I’d like to give you the opportunity to finish it if you like.

Have you ever heard of the term “word salad?”

Word salad is a “confused or unintelligible mixture of seemingly random words and phrases,” most often used to describe a symptom of a neurological or mental disorder. The words may or may not be grammatically correct, but are semanti‑ cally confused to the point that the listener cannot extract any meaning from them.

The writer Trinie Dalton uses the idea of “word salad” for a chunk of her amazing book Baby Geisha. She made lists of seemingly disconnected words and then wrote a form of anti-story which uses all of those words. It’s a really great way to connect the dots in your head and is really good for mental “stretching.”

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

When I do finish this story, it will include these words as part of the salad: I will use the word “Hordes.”

I will use the word “Obviate.”

I will use the sentence, “I will chop you down.”

I will use these two word-sentences, “Warm. Alive.”

I will use the word “Hungrily.”

I will use the word “Debt.”

I will use the sentence, “The line went dead.”

I will use the word “Cholera.”

I will use the sentence, “I have never seen the movie Titanic.”, which is true.

(What rat has ever seen a whole movie, much less Titanic?)

I will use the word “Snake Oil.”

Aside from that, I’ll use rapid-fire alternating narratives from different characters’ points of views, and I’ll have one of the characters say the same thing three times in a row over the course of the narrative, because that’ll either be really entertaining, or really annoying, or both.

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essays

17. Marci Shore, Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism, 1918–1968 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 4, 10.

18. Kacper Pobłocki, Class, Space and the Geography of Poland’s Champagne (post)socialism, in Chasing Warsaw: Socio-Material Dynamics of Urban Change Since 1990, ed. Monika Grubbauer and Joanna Kusiak (Frankfurt, Campus Verlag, 2012), pp. 269–289.

19.

Brzostek, Za progiem, p. 389.

20. Kacper Pobłocki, Prawo do miasta i ruralizacja świadomości w powojennej Polsce, in O miejskiej sferze publicznej: obywatelskość i konflikty o przestrzeń, ed.

Przemysław Pluciński and Marek Nowak, Teoria i Praktyka, t. 1 (Cracow: Korporacja Ha!art, 2011), pp. 58–59.

21.

Wallis, Informacja i gwar, p. 152.

22.

Kochanowski, Zbudować Warszawę piękną ..., p. 36.

23.

Ibid., p. 39.

24.

Crowley, Warsaw, p. 86.

25. It lasted between 1850 and 1910, cf. Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 259.

26. Jerzy Stanisław Majewski and Tomasz Markiewicz, Warszawa nie odbudowana (Warsaw: DiG, 1998), pp. 76–78, 114–116.

27.

Ibid., p. 72.

28.

Ibid., pp. 81–83.

29.

Crowley, Warsaw, p. 89.

30. Andrew Lees and Lynn Hollen Lees, Cities and the Making of Modern Europe, 1750– 1914, 1st ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

31. quoted in: Bronisława Kopczyńska-Jaworska, Łódź i inne miasta [Lodz and Other Cities] (Lodz: Katedra Etnologii Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 1999), p. 31.

32. Jan Stanisław Bystroń, Warszawa (Warsaw: Państ. Instytut Wydawniczy, 1977), pp.

133–135.

33.

Brzostek, Za progiem, p. 125.

34. Roch Sulima, The Laboratory of Polish Postmodernity: An Ethnographic Report from the Stadium-Bazaar, in Chasing Warsaw: Socio-Material Dynamics of Urban Change Since 1990, ed. Monika Grubbauer and Joanna Kusiak (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2012), p. 249.

35.

Brzostek, Za progiem, p. 128.

36. Leopold Tyrmand, The Man with the White Eyes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959), p. 142. Since most descriptions of Warsaw city life have been omitted in the English translation of this novel, this quote is our own translation from the original.

37.

Brzostek, Za progiem, p. 88.

38. More on this in: Kacper Pobłocki, Knife in the Water: The Struggle Over Collective Consumption in Urbanizing Poland [in:] Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Postwar Eastern Europe, ed. Paulina Bren, Mary Neuburger, (New York: Oxford University Press 2012), pp. 68–90.

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10 × 10 10 questions 100 answerS

WARSAW Dominik Cymer / Cyber Kids on Real Jerzy Skakun / Homework Jakub Jezierski Piotr Leśniak Mateusz Machalski Piotr Młodożeniec Poważne Studio Maciej Frymus / Redkroft Zuzanna Rogatty Paweł Piotr Przybył / Siedemzero

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10 × 10 1 As the saying goes: “Hope is the mother of fools, that does not prevent it from being a great lover of the brave” (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec).

Considering that, what do you think of the situation of graphic designers in Poland?

Dominik Cymer / Cyber Kids on Real

I would like to refer to this quote, but I believe it is of no major importance for us. Right now, the situation of designers in Poland is very much like the conditions abroad. Courage in designing is everywhere a quality few can boast of. It is not a trait unique to us. We are the heirs of a certain designing tradition, so I believe that “Polishness” is now very much in vogue among designers, and I mean that positively.

Jerzy Skakun / Homework We are all brave fools with plenty of hope for a better future.

I think it is not as bad as we usually picture it. At the same time it is not as good as we wish.

Time of change gives plenty of opportunity to design. If you have some talent you can put it to good use then.

design than they thought. Not only in Poland, but also for example in Ukraine or the Czech Republic where we have a lot of young, creative, hard-working people, and they are doing well.

Piotr Młodożeniec

It’s like in any other place in the world.

Designers struggle to survive. Some of them are lonely wolves, the others work in corporations and teams. Our specialty is the strong tradition of Polish design after the war, up to the end of the 20th century. The art or Tomaszewski, Lemica, Zamecznik, Świerzy, Cieślewicz, Młodożeniec, Fangor, to name only few, is admired among designers. Second, there are many art schools, with good personal, and they teach many people proper design. Third thing is that among those well educated people, there are happily a few— really talented and gifted that make very bright points on the map of Polish design.

Jakub Jezierski Hope is a hooker of graphic designers.

Piotr Leśniak

Capitals were always the places which attract the braves (as it is in every country).

Because of growing markets there are more and more designers that calls their hope rather a “lover” than “mother.” Warsaw lost its hegemony.

There are much more local centers where the design market is growing than a few years ago.

I’m personally not strictly tied to the Polish market. Most of my clients are based abroad.

Many Polish designers do the same.

It is a bridge that helps many of us.

Mateusz Machalski

I think that it is common that people from the western Europe or US usually treat eastern Europe like delayed and a bit retarder place, where once in a while—but not so often, they can find some interesting design samples.

If they only would go a little bit deeper—they would find out that we have much more good

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Piotr Młodożeniec, 20e festival international d’affiche de chaumont, 2009.

Festival Poster.

Poważne Studio

(Małgorzata Frąckiewicz) It’s getting better every year. We have already left the Polish poster school of design, which we still admire, and we have started looking for new trends.

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211 Jerzy Skakun / Homework

I was drawing since I was a kid. Then, when I got older, I took art classes in a local culture center. I like to create but I also have the need to have a wider public than in a gallery.

I like to do real exercises, not only personal art.

With design you shouldn’t be bored— you can do different things: posters, identities, books, etc. All of these using different means of expression: typography, photography, illustrations etc.

Clients still need some education. Anyway, the better projects are on the streets and in magazines, the easier it is to explain the need for it.

(Tomek Głowacki) Designers have a more critical look at the global unification of graphic design and the risk which goes with it. We have already learned to see and appreciate previous design activities as an inspiration e.g. in the 1990s.

We want to use these experiences and confront them with current needs.

Maciej Frymus / Redkroft

Because of our country’s history and economy, design is still very often considered something exclusive. There’s no understanding for the role design plays in everyday life, which makes it hermetic and often treated as art, something to look at in a gallery. Polish design still exists in a niche, instead of occupying public space. Shifting the balance will require time and effort. In a way, young designers in Poland do need to be brave because we have a lot of work cut out for us. We bear the burden of raising aesthetical awareness, creating the need for being surrounded by beautiful things.

Zuzanna Rogatty Wait, what? I think it’s in great condition!

Paweł Piotr Przybył / siedemzero

Polish designers are in a tough position— torn between designing in line of their clients wish and their own ambitions. On the other hand, Poland is a country of great opportunities.

There’s a huge gap to fill and heaps of space ready to change, put together from the scratch.

Who’s about to do it if not our designers?

Homework, Happy City, 2016.

Powszechny Theater. Festival Poster.

2 What is your background? What made you become a designer?

Dominik Cymer / Cyber Kids on Real

At the outset, I wanted to act and do something. I have always been looking for people to practice various ideas with. Very often it turned out that no one would help me if I did not help myself. So I trained myself to be a designer in order to achieve my goals. My work is of an interdisciplinary nature and the self-training aspect has always been part of my life, not just in design.

Design is, however, a good method to express my ideas.

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Jakub Jezierski

I’m an architect by training. I’ve rendezvoused with the graffiti and snowboarding scene at the end of the 1990s. I began my career as a functional graphic artist when I was collaborating with snowboard magazine Dosdedos, lifestyle periodical Fluid and A4, a progressive monthly on lifestyle, fashion, and art. These were the first periodicals in Poland to promote an original and modern approach to comprehensive design and visual culture.

Piotr Leśniak

Jealousy and curiosity at the very beginning. Wanted to do things I liked to look at. And wanted to know how to make it to make one wanted to look at. I wanted to find a way to lead someone’s viewing.

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10 × 10 Full of beautiful samples of memorial architecture, portrayal sculptures, and old trees. A big, green place, full of good design and proof that it was a time when the attention to detail was common. And things were designed to serve us for a whole life and even longer. Before the planned obsolescence was invented.

I also like the beaches and peninsulas at the Vistula river. Not the popular and crowded ones on the city side­—these are quite dirty and focus on socialization. I like the ones outside of the city. Unknown for most people and still easily available.

Mateusz Machalski

There are a lot of cool places to be in Warsaw. Lately I appreciated the beauty of the parks in Warsaw—I like to take my laptop, buy myself a cup of black coffee, and sit on a bench in the park to work, and get some fresh air.

Maciej Frymus / Redkroft

It’s hard to say. Every one of us had a dozen of different ideas which speaks volumes about Warsaw.

Zuzanna Rogatty

I like every green spot which allows to relax in this big city, like Vistula river or Osiedle Jazdów.

Paweł Piotr Przybył / siedemzero

Grassroot inventions made by people, food markets, and open spaces near the river (especially in the summer) … What do you need more?

Piotr Młodożeniec My studio, painting.

Poważne Studio

(Małgorzata Frąckiewicz) Spending time in parks on picnics, or on a slackline is the best for me.

(Tomek Głowacki) I spend most of my free time cycling. I love to cycle with friends around Warsaw at night, when there is no traffic, and you can finally use the full speed of the bike.

(Alicja Kobza) I like the natural Warsaw.

I love the allotments. It’s amazing that you can be in the heart of the big city and be so close to nature at the same time.

Poważne Studio, Zbigniew Warpechowski. It, 2014.

Zachęta National Gallery of Art Warsaw.

Poster and Graphics.

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10 × 10 10 questions 100 answerS

POLAND Ryszard Bienert / 3group Marta Gawin Viktoriya Grabowska Grupa Projektor Krzysztof Iwański / KUKI MOONMADNESS Patryk Hardziej / Negation Studio Marta Niedbał Krzysztof Domaradzki / StudioKxx Marcin Wolny / Studio Otwarte

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10 × 10 1 What do you love about the place you live in? Do you think you could live somewhere else?

Ryszard Bienert / 3group

I love walking through the narrow streets of Poznan in the company of Art Nouveau and modernist, high towering 19th- and 20th century buildings, admiring not only facades, but also staircases and hidden gardens. I haven’t seen so many historic tenement houses in any other city in Poland! You can see them in almost every quarter. Decorated with paintings or reliefs they delight, sometimes even frighten, but always provoke. You can never pass these tenement buildings indifferently, their beauty does not allow you lower your head, but provokes looking around with eyes wide open.

Ryszard Bienert, Andrzej Pawłowski. Paradigms of Modernity, 2014. Państwowa Galeria Sztuki. Catalog.

Marta Gawin

I live in Katowice, the capital of industrial Upper Silesia. The region has been undergoing a dynamic transformation. I really like the omnipresent post-industrial architecture, which acquires a fresh sheen against the backdrop of modernity. Abandoned industrial sites and closed-

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down mines are turned into cultural facilities.

The city is full of youthful energy, the spirit of change is felt, there are many non-profit initiatives, people are involved in creating and animating common space. Katowice is alive with art and culture, suffice it to say that this year it was awarded the UNESCO City of Music title.

Numerous interesting events are held here, including two great festivals dedicated to alternative and electronic music: Off Festival and Tauron Nowa Muzyka. I also value the Silesian mentality—diligence, reliability, and values.

All that makes me feel good here.

Could live somewhere else? If it were Hawaii, why not!

Viktoriya Grabowska

I recently moved to a village outside of Poznan. There is a forest and a lake in close distance. I like the peacefulness and silence of this place. It is a top floor so I can see a lot of clouds and sometimes I can hear the horn of the passing train. I like it too. I moved from Ukraine to Poland when I was very young and since then I was moving quite a lot. I enjoyed many of the spots where I lived, but I also enjoyed changing them, getting a new background.

Grupa Projektor

(Paweł Borkowski) Wroclaw has a very interesting but difficult history, which has a significant impact on our perception of this city.

The traces of this history are visible at every turn. Its identity has to be reinvented once again after the aftermath of WW II. The awareness and respect for the city’s history is essential to living here.

We really appreciate BWA Dizajn gallery, which is an important place on the Polish design map. The gallery director Kasia Roj is doing an invaluable good work. We also like the Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, which is very vital as well.

We also like the people in Wroclaw—true and easy-going.

(Joanna Jopkiewicz) Wroclaw is small enough to get around by bicycle from one end of the city to the other. The bicycle is our favorite form of transport and we truly recommend it to everyone. We dream about city centers without cars.

Thinking of other cities we could imagine to live in—we like Warsaw (in terms of Polish cities), as well as Berlin and Copenhagen.

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227 Krzysztof Iwański / KUKI

Hard to say because the city I live in is just so different from most other cities in Poland.

It is pretty new comparing to Warsaw or Gdansk.

So, it has been built with a completely different concept: there is no old town, no city square, no typical touristic attractions. Instead of that, there are tons of post-industrial factories, tenements, and a museum of modern art with an amazing collection of 20th and 21st century art. So, when you live here, you need to focus your brain onto a different concept of beauty. The city itself has this balance between things I truly hate and the ones I love. How f*cked up is that :) But one of my favorite things is associated with the city’s heritage. It used to be a combination of four cultures: Jewish, German, Russian, and Polish, and this made the city. Of course this entire heritage was killed during the communist era, and now the city is rebuilding, recovering again, which is really fun to watch, and to be a part of this transformation. So yes, maybe this is the reason that keeps me here. And yes, of course I could live somewhere else. I try no to collect too much stuff to be as mobile as it is possible. I do travel quite often, so I treat my city as a base, where I have my friends and favorite bars. The city is called Lodz and it’s located in the center of Poland.

MOONMADNESS

Our studio is located in Poznan, but we move to the countryside every spring. Our place by the lake is called Srebrnica, close to the Tuchola Forest National Park. Every day we wake up and the first thing we see is this big, silver shining lake in front of our house. We eat, work, and relax in front of it. This is a hypnotizing view and we spend much time just staring at it. There are many amazing places, but this is our family home and it has got this special feeling that we created from the scratch.

It might be scary, but at the same time feels so great to start something afresh. So, yeah, I can imagine that I could live elsewhere again.

Krzysztof Domaradzki / StudioKxx

I love my country and I love Wielkopolska, i.e., the region where I come from. Mostly, because this is where my family lives and where I have started my business and established my studio space Citadel. However, I also could live elsewhere; for example, in one of the southern countries (Italy, Spain etc.), since I do not particularly enjoy winter in Poland, when it gets cold, dark, and gloomy for nearly half of the year …

But then again, as long as I can work for various international clients without leaving home, I always ask myself: why leave?

Marcin Wolny / Studio Otwarte

It’s an offbeat territory. There are still many things to do in the design area. Also, it’s a rather small place with a quite closed network of people. Everybody knows each other, which of course has its downsides, but most of the time it means that things are getting done in a friendly atmosphere. The city itself may be quite stimulating as well. It’s a place with a long history, but we could easily imagine to work somewhere else.

Be aware that most of us are outsiders anyway.

There are plenty of cool places around the world.

Patryk Hardziej / Negation Studio

I live in Gdynia. I love that this place is not so big, not so crowded, and first at will, it is by the sea.

Marta Niedbał

This definitely will be the people who surround me. I lived in Cracow on and off for the last 10 years, during this time I was lucky to meet really great friends here. But, of course, I constantly have an urge for some change.

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Studio Otwarte, Marcin Wolny, Oksana Shmygol, Tomasz Jurecki, Julek Wierzchowski, WRÓG LUDU, 2016.

Visual Identity of Stary Teatr, Window Lettering.

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10 × 10 10 Best recommendations to cure a serious hangover?

Ryszard Bienert / 3group

Wedge. I use old Polish potion, although even the preparation having hangover can be a challenge. The recipe is: half a glass of beer, half a glass of wine, juice of a large lemon, and a tablespoon of sugar to the flavor. And you return to life. Cheers!

Krzysztof Domaradzki / StudioKxx

Unless you know your limits (which is by far the best recommendation ), you might want to drink a cup of water from the dill pickles— I know that it sounds bizarre, but it helps to regain all the vitamin C and electrolytes that are lost when you drink heavily.

Marcin Wolny / Studio Otwarte Don’t drink.

Ryszard Bienert / 3group, Kamil Kuskowski 2000–2012, 2012. Catalog.

Marta Gawin A serious hangover? What’s that?

Viktoriya Grabowska

To cry and regret. Or: I know someone who wakes up very early and goes to the river to contemplate.

Grupa Projektor Water from pickled cucumbers.

Krzysztof Iwański / KUKI

Believe it or not, but there is no good cure for a serious hangover, and I know what I am saying, you won’t cure it, you just wait till Monday :)

MOONMADNESS Going by car to the parties!

Patryk Hardziej / Negation Studio Wrong person—I don’t drink ;)

Marta Niedbał Drink water from pickled cucumbers.

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hot spots warsaw favorite publications index colophon

Appendix

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hot spots warsaw

Targówek Żoliborz

Wola

Praga Północ

Śródmieście

Praga Poludnie

Ochota Mokotów

01 Mokotów The district of Mokotów is densely populated.

It is a seat to many foreign embassies and companies. Only a small part of the district is lightly industrialized, while the majority is full of parks and green areas. Although the area has been populated at least since the early Middle Ages, it was not until early 1916 when Mokotów was incorporated into Warsaw.

Brzask

The Rabbit House

Puławska 113a Free listening music in open air atmosphere.

Królikarnia

Puławska 113a krolikarnia.mnw .art.pl A cameral museum in a park and palace from the XVII century, showing mostly Polish art and sculpture.

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Krowarzywa Marszałkowska

27 / 35A krowarzywa.pl Vegan burger chain.

Lotos

Belwederska 2 restauracjalotos.pl Old fashion restaurant.

Mordor Domaniewska Living monument of corporate design and Post-Fordism economy.

Mozaika

Puławska 53 restauracja mozaika.pl Place with a long history established in the early 1950s, famous for old fashion dancings, vodka, and tartar.

Nowy Teatr Madalinskiego

10 / 16 nowyteatr.org Cultural center, bar, theatre, bookstore— all in the newly renovated unique industrial buildings inherited from the City Sanitation Department.

Hotel

Books

Bar

Bathing

Café

Theatre

Restaurant

Have a look

Fast food

Museum

Ice cream

Architecture

Music / Club

Cemetery

Shopping

Park

Relaks

Puławska 48 facebook: kawiarniarelaks Best coffee in town, nice unpretentious atmosphere.

Reset

Puławska 48 resetpoint.pl Stationery, design and furniture, mostly Polish.

Thisispaper Shop

& Tea Room

Odolańska 6 / 8 thisispapershop .com Flagship store of a Polish clothes and bags brand, good tea.

Regeneracja

Puławska 61 facebook: regeneracja.klub .warszawa At daytime a vintage interior place to relax, have breakfast and lunch and a fancy club at night.

Hot Spots Warsaw

02 Praga Północ Praga is one of the oldest districts in Warsaw. Through the centuries, Warsaw’s right bank was an independent town.

The district survived the devastation of war, with three different religions (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Judaism) peacefully co-existing.

Bazar na Kole

Obozowa 99 facebook: bazarnakole Old market in Warsaw.

Vintage design, clothes and souvenirs.

Komuna Warszawa

Lubelska 30 / 32 komuna.warszawa .pl Independent theatre and creative collective, known for its work across artistic disciplines, experimenting with such media, as performing arts, video installation and music.

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243 Kuchnia funkcjonalna

Jakubowska 16 lok.7 facebook: Kuchnia Funkcjonalna Original dishes made from seasonal, local ingredients, settled in a nice modernist building.

Neon Museum

Mińska 25 neonmuzeum.org Remarkable collection of communistic-era neons.

Park Skaryszewski

Aleja Waszyngtona One of the most beautiful parks of Warsaw.

Established in the early 20th century, a great example of green planning in the city.

Represents all types of nature that are present in Poland.

Teatr Powszechny Jana

Zamoyskiego 20 powszechny.com A theatre with a social garden in front, where you can do some gardening.

Zoo Market

Al. Solidarności 55 facebook: zoofleamarket New flea market in Warsaw. Clothes, souvenirs, Polish vintage, design, records, clothes, etc. Saturdays & Sundays.

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03 Śródmieście Śródmieście is the central borough (dzielnica) of the city of Warsaw with the Old Town (Stare Miasto) and New Town (Nowe Miasto). The area is home of most of the tourist attractions, but also important national and municipal institutions, many businesses, the university and theaters.

BarKa

Tadeusz Hall’s square facebook: planbarka Probably one of the bars on Vistua river bank. Located on a refurbished ferry.

Bęc Zmiana

Mokotowska 65 beczmiana.pl Good selection of books and magazines around Polish culture, nice souvenirs.

Ale Wino

Beirut Bar

Mokotowska 48 alewino.pl

Poznańska 12 Excellent food, facebook: homemade bread, beiruthummusbar good wine selection.

Hummus bar with

great vibe, seafood, Autor Rooms selection of beers & background music.

Lwowska 17 / 7

autorrooms.pl Bibenda A different place to stay in Warsaw.

Nowogrodzka 10

bibenda.pl Bar Studio Restaurant Bibenda is one of the best fusion

Pl. Defilad 1 restaurants in the

facebook: barstudio city center, where you can meet the owner .warszawa with his dog (a pointer).

Good drinks, parties and concerts, big Centrum Sztuki breakfast during the weekend.

Współczesnej Zamek Bar Prasowy Ujazdowski

Jazdów 2 Marszałkowska csw.art.pl

10 / 16 Art gallery and urban prasowy.pl garden, a bookstore Cheap restaurant, and two restaurants “milk bar.” around.

MiTo Copernicus

ul. Waryńskiego 28 mito.art.pl Science Café with fresh foreign Centre newspapers and

20 Wybrzeże iPads to have fresh Kościuszkowskie news with your coffee. kopernik.org.pl

Hot Spots Warsaw

The biggest science center in Europe, good for every age.

Drink Bar

Wspólna 52 / 54 facebook: drinkbar .nawspolnej Meeting point of artist and bohemian people.

Dyletanci

Rozbrat 44A facebook: dyletanci The best selection of natural wines in Poland. A place where you can also try the best Polish wines, good food.

Finnish houses

Jazdów 3/18 facebook: jazdow Prefabricated Finnish houses sent from Finland as part of post-WW2 war reparations.

Fundacja

Galerii Foksal Wojciecha

Górskiego 1A www.fgf.com.pl The most important art gallery in Poland.

Hala Mirowska

pl. Mirowski 1 111-yearold market hall with cross-section of modern Warsaw—from thrift shops frequented by senior citizens on the mezzanine, to a gay disco in the basement, and a fruit and veggie market outside.

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favorite publications Super Salon specializes in books and magazines on contemporary culture: fashion, photography, food, design, architecture, art, culture theory and writing, lifestyle, erotica, and sport. Founded in 2012 by Krzysztof Kowalski as a temporary project space in Warsaw’s Praga district with many exhibitions and events, Super Salon was re-opened in 2013 in Warsaw’s city center.

You can find rare products and some­times unknown treasures with­in their assortment of 3,000 books, magazines, stationary products, and design objects.

Super Salon Chmielna 10 00-020 Warsaw

Piotrowska is for sure one of the most interesting young Polish photographers.

In her work she mixes performance, sculp­ture and photography. Frowst is her first photobook and she already got a lot of attention after her dum­my won a First Photobook Award and as a result has been published

by Mack Books. Check out the of order pages numbering to see the original chronology of the picture making and discover the second line of the storytelling.

Frowst / Joanna Piotrowska (A), Mack Books (P) / 2014 / 23.5 cm × 26.5 cm, 48 p.

Thisispaper is more than a magazine.

The interdisciplinary studio runs a blog, produces handmade backpacks and objects, and recent­ly opened a store with an accompanying tea room.

It’s all about quality. The magazine is beautifully designed with great attention to details, starting from the paper choice to uncom­mon binding and great content.

The magazines focuses on craft and design with international and Polish talents featured in every single issue.

Thisipaper Magazine / Thisispaper Studio & various authors (A), Alexander Zakharov (P) / since 2013 / 14.5 × 20.5 cm, 144 p.

Honza Zamojski is the pioneer and main figure in last years self-publishing movement in Poland. After run­ning two small publishing houses called Morava Books and Mundin Publishing, he still continues to produce artbooks with his funny, intellectual but cool works. Four Eggs Theory inves­tigates what is really an “artwork,” a question that all artists ask themselves a lot.

Instead of using the artworld’s “blablabla” Zamojski draws egg diagrams to illustrate his thoughts on the art production. Honza is the man!

Four Eggs Theory / Honza Zamojski (A), self-published / 2015 / 22 × 28.5 cm, 181 p.

Greetings from Auschwitz is a book based on an unusual collection of postcards col­lected over the years by artist Paweł Szypulski. The book show­cases postcards sent by tour­ists who visited the former Nazi death camp. Szypulski—known for his collections of photographs of naked girls in Africa for instance— once again focuses on the relation between pictures and words and discusses a social memory of the Holocaust.

Pozdrowienia z Auschwitz / Greetings from Auschwitz / Paweł Szypulski (A), Fundacja Sztuk Wizualnych, Edition Patrick Frey (P) / 2015 / 21 × 22 cm, 88 p.

Want to know what’s hot in contemporary Polish graphic design? Print Control is all you need. This annual publication fea­­tures a selection of the best graphic design projects produced on paper. P+Control is full of interesting interviews with design­ers, both in Polish and English. The publication grew out of the blog, so check their website for a sneak peek!

Print Control—Best Printed Matter in Poland / TXT Publishing (A+P) & various authors / since 2012 / 22 × 28.5 cm, 181 p.

VeryGraphic is our shop bestseller and it totally deserves it. We had to wait a while for a proper publication about 20th century graphic design in Poland. Finally we have it and it’s in English! The publication is filled with iconic logotypes, posters, book designs, magazine covers, and other printed matter from Poland. Design­ers are listed chronologically by the date of birth what helps to see the evolution of style over the last 100 years.

VeryGraphic—Polish Designers of the 20th Century / Jacek Mrowczyk (A) & various authors, Adam Mickiewicz Institute (P) / 2015 / 21.5 × 28 cm, 448 p.

→ 251

Super Salon

(+48) 22 468 16 19 supersalon.org Monday—Saturday: 11 am—7 pm

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index P 225—240 3-group.eu

Ryszard Bienert / 3group, Poznan (PL) Ryszard Bienert was born in 1976, graduated in 2002 as Master of Fine Arts at Fine Arts Academy in Poznan. He works as a graphic designer since 1996. During his career he worked with many advertising agencies and design houses in Poland, both as an art director and on freelance basis. In 2006 he co-founded the graphic design consultancy 3group.

P 166–176 maxmasala.blox.pl

Max Cegielski, Warsaw (PL) Max Cegielski, born in 1975, is a journalist, writer, co-curator of the project Global Prosperity at Instytut Sztuki Wyspa in Gdańsk (2010), and curator of Migrating University of Mickiewicz in Istanbul (2014). Author of seven books; for the book on Istanbul entitled The Eye of the World he received the Beata Pawlak Award in 2009. His last book is The Great Player. From Samogitia to the Roof of the World.

P 209—224 cyberkids.pl

Cyber Kids on Real, Warsaw (PL) Cyber Kids on Real are the new kind of creative agency. They combine marketing, technology, art, and design in their activities.

They work in the fields of branding, interactive, and ATL. Their studio has been operating since 2010 and was established by the people with a significant experience in the advertising and interactive industries.

P 177–181 klara.czerniewska @gmail.com

Klara Czerniewska, Warsaw (PL) Klara Czerniewska is an art historian, writer, and curator. She has co-curated several art and design exhibitions (this year: Cadavre Exquis: An Anatomy of Utopia, together with Maria Jeglińska, for London Design Bienniale), and has published in multiple periodicals as well as in exhibition catalogs and independent publications in Poland and abroad. She currently works at the Kasia Michalski Gallery in Warsaw. Photo by Piotr Bekas.

P 72—75 debarbaro.com video interview: slanted.de/warsaw

Jakub de Barbaro, Warsaw (PL) Jakub de Barbaro is a freelance designer specializing in design for culture related proj­ects. He is a graduate of Cracow Academy of Fine Arts, co-founder of Goldex Poldex Cooperative, and a former lecturer at Raffles Design Institute in Shanghai. His clients include Sternberg Press, …ditions Dilecta, Museum Abteiberg, Arnolfini, Raster Gallery, and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

P 142–148 Facebook.com/ duchologia karakter.pl/ksiazki/ duchologia-polska Olga Drenda, Mikołów (PL) Olga Drenda, born in 1984, is a Polish journalist and translator, writing in Polish and English. She has worked with, among others, The Guardian, AQNB, Coilhouse, and a number of leading Polish magazines. Author of Duchologia Polska, a book on the visual spectres of the era of political transformation in Poland.

Index

P 129 behance.net/DUDU behance.net/ AcapulcoStudio

Agata Dudek, Warsaw (PL) Agata Dudek, born in 1984, received a degree at the Studio of Illustration (under Professor Zygmunt Januszewski and Monika Hanulak), at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Her practice includes illustration, printmaking, drawing, collage and exhibition design. Her favorite leisure pursuits are: reading cookery books, thinking about illustrations, and exercising imagination. Together with Małgorzata Nowak she is leading the small graphic design studio Acapulco Studio.

P 34 / 35 lukaszdziedzic.eu video interview: slanted.de/warsaw

Łukasz Dziedzic, Warsaw (PL) Łukasz Dziedzic was born 1967 in Warsaw. Since 2007, Lukasz has been working full-time as a type designer. He created over a dozen retail typeface families ranging from large Latin, Cyrillic and Greek text families such as FF Clan, FF Good, FF More, to display families like FF Eggo, FF Pitu and FF Mach, as well as corporate fonts. His opensource Lato font family is the 3rd most popular web font family worldwide. Photo by Dirk Gebhardt / laif / slanted.de.

P 48—55­ edgarbak.info video interview: slanted.de/warsaw special edition slanted.de/shop Edgar Bąk Studio, Warsaw (PL) Edgar Bąk Studio focuses primarily on visual identity design and on singular books and albums.

He conducted workshops in Japan, Israel, and the Ukraine. He teaches publishing design at the School of Form in Poznan. He co-edited Projekt: The Polish Journal of Visual Art and Design with Charlotte West for Unit Editions. Photo by Malgorzata Turczynska.

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colophon Slanted Magazine Typography & Graphic Design AUTUMN / WINTER 2016 / 2017 28 WARSAW

Production Print Stober GmbH, Druckerei und Verlag Eggenstein / Germany info@stober.de, stober.de

PUBLISHER Slanted Publishers Leopoldstraße 33 76133 Karlsruhe Germany T +49 (0) 721 85148268 magazine@slanted.de slanted.de

Editor in chief (V.i.S.d.P.) Lars Harmsen

Managing editor Julia Kahl Assistance Isabella Krüger, Clara Weinreich

Art direction Lars Harmsen, supported by Christian Schäfler

Graphic design Julia Kahl

Assistance Graphic Design Clara Weinreich

Photography Warsaw Dirk Gebhardt

Video editing Hannah Schwaiger

Slanted weblog

Editor in chief (V.i.S.d.P.) Lars Harmsen

Managing editor Julia Kahl Editors slanted.de/redaktion

VIDEO Video interviews slanted.de/warsaw

Finishing Achilles Gruppe Landau / Germany landau@achilles.de, achilles.de

Book Binding Josef Spinner Grossbuchbinderei GmbH Ottersweier / Germany info@josef-spinner.de, josef-spinner.de Paperboard cover Crescendo® C1S, 280 g/sm

Manufactured by WestRock Vienna / Austria paperboard.europe@westrock.com westrock.com Paper inside Maximat Prime, 115 g / sm Maxioffset, 110 g / sm

Distributed by Geiger GmbH & Co KG Aalen / Germany info@igepagroup.com igepagroup.com Booklet EVERPRINT premium 1.34 × volume, 65 g / sm

Distributed by GEESE PAPIER Henstedt-Ulzburg / Germany geese-papier.de Spot colors HKS Warenzeichenverband e. V. Stuttgart / Germany info@hks-farben.de, hks-farben.de Cover HKS 4 K-90-0 HKS 13 K-90-0 Inside HKS 18N-100-30 Fonts Clan Type System, 2016 Design: Łukasz Dziedzic / lukaszdziedzic.eu Label: Tba Suisse Int’l / Neue / Works, 2011 Design: Swiss Typefaces Design Team Label: Swiss Typefaces / swisstypefaces.com

ISSN 1867-6510 Frequency 2 × p. a.

(Spring / Summer, Autumn / Winter) Copyright © Slanted, Karlsruhe, 2016 / 2017 All rights reserved.

Tilia, 2016 Design: Damian Langosz / behance.net/Langosz Label: Tba Warschau, 2016 Design: Hubert Jocham / hubertjocham.de Custom free font as part of the Warsaw Special Edition slanted.de/shop

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Acknowledgement

Slanted magazine can be acquired online, in selected book­stores, concept stores and galleries worldwide. You can also find it at stations and airports in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. If you own a shop and would like to stock Slanted magazine, please get in touch with us.

Contact Julia Kahl, T +49 (0) 721 85148268 julia.kahl@slanted.de

This issue could not have been realized without the enthusiasm and support of all participants (alphabetical order): 3group, Max Cegielski, Cyber Kids on Real, Klara Czerniewska, Jakub de Barbaro, Olga Drenda, Agata Dudek, Łukasz Dziedzic, Edgar Bąk Studio, FONTARTE, Marta Gawin, Dirk Gebhardt, Viktoriya Grabowska, Grupa Projektor, Homework, HUNCWOT, Jakub Jezierski, Tymek Jezierski, Janek Koza, Agata Królak, KUKI, Iwona Kurz, Grzegorz Laszuk, Piotr Leśniak, Ian Lynam, Mateusz Machalski, Mamastudio, Piotr Młodożeniec, MOONMADNESS, Negation Studio, Marta Niedbał, Ola Niepsuj, Noviki, Agata Nowicka, Kacper Pobłocki, Poważne Studio, Redkroft, Zuzanna Rogatty, Dr. Piotr Rypson, Dawid Ryski, siedemzero, Piotr Socha, StudioKxx, Studio Otwarte, Super Salon, Super Super, Syfon Studio, Rosław Szaybo, Dr. Agata Szydłowska, Tomasz Tomaszewski, Type2, Jacek Utko, UVMW, Tomasz Walenta, Mieczysław Wasilewski, Rene Wawrzkiewicz, White Cat Studio, Zerkaj Studio.

A very special thanks to our friend Rene Wawrzkiewicz (design-crit.pl) who invited us to Warsaw and opened a bunch of doors. Your help was tremendous! We love you!

Grzegorz Laszuk, you’re the man! Thanks for inviting us to your theatre. May the punk in you live forever!

A big thank you to photographer Dirk Gebhardt (dirkgebhardt.com) who documented our journey. His photo essay has been woven within this issue’s content.

Thanks to the students of FH Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts for coming to Warsaw on our excursion. We had a great time—and great party.

Thanks to Christian Schäfler (christianschaefler.de) who worked with us on the layout, as well as Hubert Jocham (hubertjocham.de) who designed the cover on an idea of Lars Harmsen. He also designed the custom font Warschau used for all chapter openers in this issue, also to be seen as part of a limited special edition, designed by Edgar Bąk Studio (love!).

Hubert, you rock! Thanks to Alexander Branczyk (drucken3000.de) for the limited risograph printing of the special edition Warschau.

Moreover, a limited special edition with photographs from the series A Stone’s Throw by the prize-winning photographer Tomasz Tomaszewski has been produced. Thanks a lot for making this possible! Thanks to Ines Wolf (Geese Papier) and Ralf Vogl (Druckerei Vogl) for supporting the production with a fabulous paper and a splendid print. We love it!

A big thank you to Hannah Schwaiger for editing all the video interviews.

Thanks to Thomas Appelius, Joachim Schweigert (Stober Druckerei und Verlag) and their team for the great printing, and thanks to Regina Knoll and Ahmed Badran from WestRock for the cover material.

Last but not least, very special thanks to Dorota Swinarska and Dr. Georg M. Blochmann from the Goethe-Institute Warsaw, as well to Joanna Czudec from the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation. Published with the support by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation [Wydano z finansowym wsparciem Fundacji Współpracy Polsko-Niemieckiej].

Slanted Shop (best!) slanted.de/shop

Stores (all over the world) slanted.de/allgemein/stores

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International distribution Export Press SAS / exportpress.com

Distribution Switzerland Niggli Verlag, niggli.ch / ISBN 978-3-7212-0941-9

Distribution US Ubiquity Distributors, Inc., / ubiquitymags.com

Subscriptions Subscribe to Slanted magazine and support what we do.

Magazines via subscriptions are at a reduced rate and get shipped for free directly at its release. slanted.de/abo

National (DE) One year subscription, 2 mags: € 32 Two year subscription + premium, 4 mags: € 62 Gift subscription, 2 mags: € 32 Student subscription, 2 mags: € 26 International One year subscription, 2 mags: € 38 Two year subscription, 4 mags: € 75

Advertising We offer a wide range of advertising possibilities on our weblog and in our magazine. For advertising and special project opportunities please get in touch with: Julia Kahl, T +49 (0) 721 85148268 julia.kahl@slanted.de slanted.de/mediarates

Awards (Selection of design awards for publications by Slanted) ADC of Europe 2010, 2008 ADC Germany 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2008, 2007 Annual Multimedia 2008, 2013 Berliner Type 2008 (Bronze), 2009 (Silver) Designpreis der BRD 2009 (Silver) European Design Awards 2011, 2008 Faces of Design Awards 2009 iF communication design award 2007 German Design Award 2016, 2015, 2014 (Special mention) Laus Awards 2009 Lead Awards 2008 (Weblog des Jahres), 2007 Lead Awards 2013 (Visual Leader / Silver) red dot communication design awards 2008 Type Directors Club NY, 2011, 2008, 2007 Tokyo Type Directors Club 2015, 2014 Werkbund Label 2012

DISCLAIMER The publisher assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of all information. Publisher and editor assume that material that was made available for publishing, is free of third party rights.

Reproduction and storage require the permission of the publisher. Photos and texts are welcome, but there is no liability.

Signed contributions do not necessarily repre­sent the opinion of the publisher or the editor.

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waw

Dirk Gebhardt, Lars Harmsen, and Julia Kahl

Slanted 28—Warsaw

Once known as Paris of the North, the capital of Poland ceased to exist only to rise like a phoenix from the ashes. This summer, Slanted dips into the refreshing deep pool of contemporary design made in Warsaw.

Design in Poland was carved by the Polish school of poster art that was shaped by legendary graphic designers, painters, architects and artists such as Henryk Tomaszewski, Tadeusz Trepkowski, Jan Lenica, Roman Cieślewicz, Walerian Borowczyk, Franciszek Starowieyski, Waldemar Świerzy, Wojciech Fangor, Franciszek Starowieyski, Rosław Szaybo, Maciej Hübner, Mieczysław Wasilewski, and many others.

In Communist Poland, art and culture enjoyed a surprising amount of freedom: After the end of the Stalin era in 1956, Big Brother’s grip on the country loosened. Greater freedom was permitted in art, literature and the theatre and support was given to cultural events and art schools.

There was a tremendous upsurge in creative output. In 1966 the first “International Poster Biennale” was held and in 1968 the world’s first poster museum was opened in Wilanow near Warsaw.

But where there is art, there is also protest. For artists it was a constant testing of the borders—just how much criticism of the poorly functioning state-run economy was possible? It was a time in which the Polish poster excelled for its intelligence and wit. Following the collapse of Communism in 1989 / 90, the flow of money stopped. Advertising looked to the West for direction, the benefits of uniformity arrived in Poland. Since then, a lot changed!

What does contemporary Polish design look like today? Slanted gives an insight view into the contemporary design-scene of Poland’s capital Warsaw which is striding forward. It’s a great opportunity for the young generation to find their feet in society and to carve out their niche.

This issue of Slanted Magazine goes along with additional video interviews which have been conducted by the Slanted team in June 2016 in Warsaw.

To watch videos scan QR code, or visit slanted.de/warsaw

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