Stanisław Fijałkowski in Conversation with

Andrzej Walczak: Professor, should an artist speak beautifully?
Stanisław Fijałkowski: Everyone should try to speak beautifully, but not everyone is capable of it. In particular, many people who use language professionally speak an impoverished Polish…
A.W.: Does it bother you that people speak badly?
S.F.: It does.
A.W.: And that bad art is shown on television?
S.F.: Oh, that bothers me greatly…
A.W.: Which bothers you more: bad speech or bad art?
S.F.: Both are harmful.
A.W.: And dirty cars?
S.F.: They are inelegant, but dirty cars do less spiritual harm than bad Polish, bad language or a bad form of life.
Krzysztof Cichoń: But Professor, people—twenty-year-olds—are still happy…

S.F.: I understand that, but they are happy because they are still foolish…
A.W.: Young people are foolish?
S.F.: Usually, although there are some very wise young people…
A.W.: But rarely!
S.F.: Unfortunately rarely—too rarely for so large a country.
A.W.: When does a young person become wise?
S.F.: I do not know. I grew wiser during the war and occupation. Fortunately, they have no such dramatic life experiences. They live from day to day, often carelessly.
K.C.: Once, in a conversation with Zbigniew Taranienko, you said that this would end in a cosmic catastrophe…
S.F.: Did I say that?
K.C., A.W.: Yes!
K.C.: Do you still think the world is heading in the wrong direction?
S.F.: It is certainly not heading in the best direction. We are being inundated by mediocrity.
K.C.: Twenty-one years ago, most of us were delighted. In 1989 Poland regained its independence. Now all of us sitting here feel that things are going in the wrong direction. Is this our fault? We must have done something wrong; it is difficult to blame everyone else.
S.F.: Our fault… probably in part. But everyone should do what they do best and try to improve the situation in that way. It is difficult to demand anything more of a painter than that he paint well. It is difficult even to demand that he paint well; at most one can expect him to try.
A.W.: Do you think anyone expects anything of painters?
S.F.: Yes, I think so. Interest in art is very strong, despite the fact that not every kind of art is shown everywhere.
A.W.: Since the world constantly chases whatever is new, surely it expects the same from a painter—say, a young painter.
S.F.: I do not think so.
A.W.: Not novelty? Is there something else in art, something deeper?
S.F.: You have put it well—depth, for example. An increasingly profound, increasingly subtle formulation of responses to the fundamental questions everyone asks themselves in life.
A.W.: Painting cannot formulate a question about death or life. Does it not ask only partial questions: about the corner of a picture, a line, the intersection of two lines?

S.F.: You are speaking about the technique of constructing form.
A.W.: Is there something beyond form?
S.F.: There is. We can speak of form only when content exists.

K.C.: Perhaps that is the source of this mediocrity. Many things exist today that have forms without content behind them.
S.F.: What does ‘have form’ mean?
K.C.: Someone has carefully devised them…

S.F.: Oh no, that is not form!
K.C.: Then what should it be called? Entire branches of the economy produce such shapes or behaviours…
S.F.: It seems to me that when we speak about form in art or culture, we mean something other than material objects. Rather, an utterance, an idea and the form that expresses it.
A.W.: We keep circling around the canon, ideas and Greek traditions.
S.F.: And is that so bad for you?
A.W.: Enough of the Greeks! That is why you do not value young people. And they are terrific, somewhat rebellious…

S.F.: Most are uncouth, not rebellious!
A.W.: Life does not need wisdom; it needs foolishness!
S.F.: Ha, ha, ha, ha. When I say life, I mean spiritual life. What you are speaking about is biological life. I think we have become rather tangled in this conversation…
K.C.: We wanted to say too much at once. We are behaving like young people.
S.F.: Perhaps that is a bad thing?

•••

A.W.: Have you never wanted to let yourself go a little?
K.C.: Admit it, Professor. We will not believe that it never happened…

S.F.: I would put it differently: they are not foolish things but unsuccessful ones. There are masses of those.
A.W.: Have you never done something and afterwards said, ‘that was foolish’?
S.F.: Of course I have!
A.W.: Aha, it was foolish but it was fun!
S.F.: Ha, ha. No, no. I have done a great many unnecessary, unsuccessful things in my life. But I do not remember taking pleasure in having done something foolish.
A.W.: Who judges that an artist has done something foolish? Something unnecessary?
S.F.: The artist himself.
A.W.: And are we supposed to believe him?
S.F.: You do not have to.
A.W.: Do all of us who make exhibitions, and also attend them, not count at all? It is the public that recognises something as valuable or foolish.
S.F.: We are talking about two different things. I am talking about creation, and you are talking about reception. They are entirely different!
A.W.: Please put that statement in bold in the text.
S.F.: They are entirely different both psychologically and from the perspective of a particular mechanics of building, of creating something new. The construction or emergence of an artistic experience is one thing; constructing the form that makes that experience possible is another.

A.W.: How does the education of a monk differ from that of an artist?

S.F.: That I do not know.
A.W.: Both are supposed to shut themselves away and work…
S.F.: No! No! God forbid, do not shut yourself away!
A.W.: He may come out once a week for an opening…
S.F.: Ha! When he is young, he may go out more often. When he is old, he sometimes lacks the strength. It is more important to concentrate on what he can still do than to attend openings.
A.W.: Could you do what you do without showing it, without exhibitions? Like a monk? In secretum? Is creation without reception possible?
S.F.: Reception is always potentially possible. One makes something to bring particular values to life, for their potential recognition.
K.C.: And in your view, is that enough?
S.F.: Not entirely, but sometimes it has to be.
A.W.: But this is contextual art. Its reception is based more on what we know about an artist than on what he has made.
S.F.: The recipient is in a position where they may know even more than the artist. The artist tries, and sometimes succeeds, in constructing the objective form of a living picture.

•••

A.W.: Do you know how much has been written about your paintings?! Are you pleased about it, and is it true?
S.F.: I rarely read what people write about me…
A.W.: But have you read it in the past?

S.F.: Yes. Today it interests me less and less.
A.W.: I would be surprised if it were otherwise. But you used to read it…
S.F.: I did. There are several articles—short ones—that give me satisfaction. For example, Urszula Czartoryska’s introduction to one of my catalogues.
A.W.: The 1970s—people wrote about you best then…
S.F.: That is not the point. In rather simple words, she captured something that is the source from which creative work flows, and she also noticed what interests me in a picture.
A.W.: You belong to a small group of artists for whom one can trace not only the work but its reception. When those texts were written, the art existed in an entirely different context. Social and political reality was completely different. You are an icon…
S.F.: Oh, nonsense.

•••

K.C.: What is a retrospective like: does it surprise the artist, or does he encounter things he knows well? Does it bring a moment of astonishment, and is it necessary?

S.F.: It is necessary. First, an artist is pleased to find even a small number of people who understand what it is about. Most people who write about paintings in newspapers understand nothing. They do not see.

A.W.: It is difficult to take you seriously because you like teaching.
S.F.: I very much enjoyed teaching. That is why I was at the Academy. It was spiritual work with young people who could be protected from assorted distortions and follies. Some of them could be directed towards…

A.W.: Towards what?
S.F.: Towards finding meaning in what they do. They would know why they were doing it! But we never know whom we are speaking to or how we will be understood. The form of the work of art itself is likewise open to numerous interpretations.

A.W.: Do you think the viewer sees form separately and content separately?
S.F.: I do not think so. What matters—and this is the purpose for which an artist exhibits—is that a young person entering spiritual life should understand the relationship between form and content. That is, the reason why some things mean something while others merely play with meanings.

•••

K.C.: In your view, does someone who leads a normal life…

S.F.: What does a normal life mean?
K.C.: A life far removed from art.
S.F.: Ha!

K.C.: Someone trying to keep afloat, who works and is interested in sport—does such a person have no chance to learn to recognise important things and perceive forms?
S.F.: They have a chance, of course. But first one has to want to understand and to learn. And if that desire is absent?

K.C.: I think it is innate. We would not find people who do not want it; they may be unaware of it, but…
S.F.: No! There are people who do not want it, who are entirely uninterested…
K.C.: Do you think nature is so generous that it created such individuals too?

S.F.: Of course. Some people are unaware of what exists. They bypass it. They are so intent on particular benefits in life that disinterested work does not interest them at all.
K.C.: Would you undertake to change such a person? Can every pupil be taught to see what matters?

S.F.: Not everyone. Their cooperation is required. If they do not want it, there is nothing you can do. They must learn; it is not you who must teach them!
K.C.: What is the proportion between those who want to learn and those who do not? After many years spent with students, can you generalise?

S.F.: I believed that if I had twenty students in a year and two became artists, that was good. Those two were the ones for whom it was worth teaching. Since I did not know which two they were, however, I had to teach everyone equally. Girls find it more difficult, because children and family occupy them more and draw them away from painting. Note that there are few outstanding women painters. Those who did exist were often spinsters.

K.C.: You knew Katarzyna Kobro. What was it like in her case? Can you see in her work that life forced her to compromise? We are now somewhat on our knees before her oeuvre, but since we are speaking about looking honestly…
S.F.: One can see it. Like Strzemiński, she made so-called relaxation works. Strzemiński made seascapes and cityscapes. Pretty and good, but they were no longer the same thing. After her abstract sculptures, Kobro also made rather decorative, Cubist nudes.

A.W.: Was Strzemiński not Kobro’s greatest sculpture? Did she not sculpt him? Would Strzemiński have been an artist without Kobro?
S.F.: He would. The atmosphere in Russia then was at boiling point. Assorted influences came from the West, sometimes Cubist, sometimes Futurist…
K.C.: As always, the Russians were better informed than we were about what was happening…
S.F.: Strzemiński entered that turbulent artistic life and would have become an artist regardless of meeting Kobro.
K.C.: We spoke about young people, who are often not very wise. As a young man, Strzemiński became a sapper. At what point did he turn into the person whose paintings hang at Muzeum Sztuki? When he lay severely wounded in a military hospital?
S.F.: Yes, in my opinion, then.
K.C.: So we have returned to the theme of dramatic life circumstances and maturation—or rather seeing what matters in life.
A.W.: But he met Kobro then too.
S.F.: We do not know for certain. These matters are described in some detail, but we do not know everything, and there is no way to verify the sequence of events. In any case, afterwards they both began to work in art. Strzemiński was very independent. He did his work and she did hers.

•••

K.C.: Among your most recent paintings, are there any without an outer edge separating the composition from the rest of the world?
S.F.: There are such pictures, but from an earlier period. There are even quite a few. But the paintings I make now have a frame.

K.C.: Does that not go hand in hand with a need to separate oneself from the world, particularly when one believes the world is going in the wrong direction?
S.F.: That is probably a permissible interpretation, but it never occurs to me. Admittedly, I must separate myself when I paint. Then nothing else concerns me.

A.W.:I see nothing to play in your studio. No violins, no drums. Do you not listen to music when you paint?
S.F.: No.
A.W.: Did you not want to be a musician?

S.F.: I did. Unfortunately, when I was a child there was no piano at home, and when the war ended I was twenty-three. I might have enrolled in music school, but I did not play any instrument.

•••

K.C.: How did you come to Łódź?
S.F.: I took my school-leaving examination as an external candidate in Białystok and at the same time applied to the Higher School of Fine Arts in Białystok. After several years it was turned into an art secondary school. When I began studying in Białystok, my parents moved to Gdańsk. When I went to see them at Christmas, I learnt that there was an art school in Sopot too. Well, I thought, Sopot and Gdańsk are larger cities than Białystok, so I shall transfer. I enrolled at the Sopot school and then received a letter from a friend from grammar school, who wrote that an art school had also opened in Łódź. I thought Łódź was a still larger city and travelled there, where I was admitted on the basis of my examination in Białystok and student card from Sopot.
K.C.: One might suspect that if it had turned out there was an even larger city nearby to which you could travel, you would have gone there.

S.F.: I would.
A.W.: Did you like Łódź then? You arrived as if coming to a large city—were you not disappointed?
S.F.: No, it really was a large city. And very lively. A great many writers lived here then, there was the Pickwick Club, there were important theatres—everything lively and interesting.
K.C.: When people and institutions gradually began moving to Warsaw after several years, was it accompanied by a feeling that an empty city was being left behind?
S.F.: Yes, somewhat.
K.C.: Sometimes I have the impression that this feeling remains in Łódź today.
S.F.: Indeed, it has even deepened now. What held us here then, the source of hope that everything would not end in Socialist Realism, was Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź.
K.C.: I doubt any young person would believe that a museum can be a source of hope.
S.F.: Yet that was precisely the case. It really was a very important museum, at least as long as Ryszard Stanisławski directed it. I played a certain role in his appointment, which I consider to my credit. Director Marian Minich was nearing retirement. At the time, I was a member of the Main Board of the Graphic Art Section of the Union of Polish Artists. I travelled to Warsaw every week and each week met Henryk Stażewski’s circle of friends in a café on Foksal Street. I would join him. If he was in a good mood, he would ask, ‘Would you like a little cognac with that coffee?’ He would take out a hip flask, pour some and we would talk. Once I asked whether he knew anyone who might run the museum in Łódź when Minich left. ‘Wait, wait,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Rysio Stanisławski.’ I got the telephone number, called and arranged a meeting. He lived not far from Zachęta. I went to see him and explained the matter. He said, ‘Thank you very much, but while Director Minich remains in post, please do nothing about it.’ We agreed that when the director left, I would put forward his candidacy.
K.C.: Had you known Stanisławski before?
S.F.: I saw him for the first time then. I relied on Stażewski’s opinion. Unexpectedly, Marian Minich died. When I learnt of it, I telephoned my friend Benon Liberski, who was then chair of the Board of the Łódź Branch of the Union of Polish Artists, and said, ‘Listen, Benek, we should propose someone to replace Minich.’ ‘We already have someone!’ he replied.
A.W.: There were never any vacancies.
S.F.: ‘Listen,’ I told him, ‘this is not about local interests but about putting forward someone of national, perhaps even European, standing.’ And imagine, I convinced him. They withdrew their resolution and supported Stanisławski before the party committee. That is how Ryszard Stanisławski appeared in Łódź, quite unexpectedly.
A.W.: What did he do at first? Did you like him?
S.F.: We respected and liked him. He was wise enough not to disregard the local community. He and his wife visited our studios and invited us not only to openings but to their home.
K.C.: Let us return to your time as a student at the Łódź school. From today’s perspective, it appears that, apart from Strzemiński, there was no personality there capable of attracting young people’s attention. Who else could hold the students’ attention?
S.F.: Stefan Wegner. A younger colleague of Strzemiński’s. There was a very interesting painter who did not interest me personally but was undoubtedly noteworthy—Stanisław Byrski. There was Teresa Tyszkiewicz, a highly distinguished personality and an excellent painter. Strzemiński spoke of her sarcastically as ‘the intuitionist’.
K.C.: Intuition can save one from doctrinairism.

S.F.: That already interested me greatly at the time. I read assorted things that went beyond the compulsory reading for Strzemiński’s students.

•••

K.C.: What distinguishes paintings from the icon?
S.F.: ‘Painting and icon’ is a certain shorthand for the subject. I would prefer to say: the painting as Form.
K.C.: Is the painting a form of cultivating one’s spirituality?
S.F.: Not so much cultivating it as reaching the sources of spirituality.
A.W.: Contemplation?
S.F.: The seeing that we have already discussed. In painting, one can discern not only symbolic but sacred activity. A painter who fulfils the duties of his profession—whether in accordance with tradition or his own resolutions—is like a priest who discovers a path to the spiritual world through ritual.
A.W.: Do you feel that you are a painter?
S.F.: Yes, although I do not consider myself an accomplished painter. I still feel that I am a painter by substitution—perhaps I should have become a composer?
A.W.: Does it matter what one becomes? Surely what matters is what we feel.
S.F.: Not what we feel—what we know!
A.W.: As long as one is not young and foolish.
S.F.: As long as one is not foolish. One may be young for a while…

Łódź, Stanisław Fijałkowski’s studio, 18 January 2010, at approximately 11 a.m.