Behind the Poster (Druga Strona Plakatu), documentary film from here.
"A good poster should enter through the eye and explode in the brain"
- Cassandre
Waldemar Swierzy: Posters were the only colourful elements on the grey fences. There were still whole blocks of wooden-fenced ruins. They were the first poster galleries.
1. Makbet (1996) 2. Lawa (1989) Jan Lenica
Jan Lenica: The Polish poster was successful because it was different. It may sound absurd, but we worked in a complete artistic freedom. We could create posters, mostly for film, unique in all of Europe. It was a surprise, even a shock to some people, that a poster could be designed in that way.
Alain Le Quernec: It's stupid to say that Polish poster was uniform. It didn't have a defined style.
T.A. Lewandowski: After WWII analphabetism (illiteracy) was very common, pictures were a better medium than text.
Josef Mroszczak, having the trust of the party and the ministry of culture, came to a brilliant idea after the success of the Polish poster in the West. "Let's create an event never seen before, an international exhibition, presenting the Polish poster amidst the best Western works". Mroszczak also came up with the idea to create the Poster Museum in Winalow.
1. Midnight Cowboy (1969) Waldemar Swierzy
Agnieszka Holland: It wasn't commercial like nowadays, it was an artist's point of view. The more personal, the more valued.
The poster artist is the last commentator of the film, just before the critic. He's a creative critic, placed between and me the spectator.
Reality was so oppressive, and we used the language of metaphor to get through to them. Censorship taught us to communicate differently.
Andrzej Pagowski: This poster was forbidden in Poland, but our censors were two-faced. It was allowed abroad, this poster for the film Kung Fu was banned in Poland and shown only abroad so the regime could say "See how free our artists are".
Pierre Bernard: Warsaw was a symphony of grey and black everywhere. The only thing standing out were the posters. It was like a painting exhibition, where all tendencies were present.
"You have to show something that isn't there, but your 'trick' has to be visible"
- Henryk Tomaszewski
Zdzislaw Schubert: Cieslewicz and Lenica emigrated to Paris. It's a good example of two different attitudes. Lenica was hermetically closed. What formed him as an artist in Poland, he took with him and he knew no compromise. He stayed himself. Of course, he evolved, but he was absolutely resistant to actual trends.
Quite contrary to Cieselewicz, who absorbed like a sponge.
Lech Majewski: Posters have evolved, because of TV, internet, new media, billboards everywhere but they can still find a place.
Waldemar Swierzy: Today, the client is king. But the poster isn't made for him. It's made for the street, the client is a middleman, he's just the one who pays. But he thinks "I pay - I decide", and the results are easy to see.
Pierre Bernard: Nobody sticks posters on street walls any more, now they hang in galleries. The problem is we lack free space. Once you could stick a poster in the street, not anymore. To be on the street you have to pay.
1. Love in the Afternoon (1957) 2. Spring, Autumn and Love (1956)
Wojciech Fangor
Wojciech Fangor
- You have to find the energy to work with joy, not letting norms limit you, and regain the vitality of the Polish poster which developed in difficult conditions.
Agnieszka Holland: The posters are so ugly, because the people are supposedly stupid. When a poster is artistic, it usually means the distributor doesn't care.
In communist times, it wasn't about the money. There was more selflessness, and for me, this is the attribute of freedom in art. If art is done for money - it loses freedom.
Roman Cieslewicz: This poster is information and agitation. A poster that doesn't irritate the human eye is not a poster.
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