Imagining the Magical Freedom in Poland of the Communist Era: How Ibero-American Literature Influenced the Neo-avant-garde Artists

Abstract

Analogies can be drawn between the contents of writings by Julio Cortázar and Jorge Luis Borges and Poland’s neo-avant-garde art of the 1960s and 70s, produced in the context of the oppressive reality of a Communist state: the literary category of ‘magical realism’ finds its counterpart in the actuality of an authoritarian regime, which is equally grotesque. The works by Maria Stangret-Kantor, Janusz Kaczorowski, Barbara Kozłowska, Ewa Partum, Zdzisław Sosnowski, Wojciech Bruszewski, or Natalia Lach-Lachowicz and the theoretical views expressed by Andrzej Lachowicz and Andrzej Kostołowski, which resulted from working with language as an artistic means, can be interpreted as expressions of one’s striving for imagined freedom – objections to the manipulation of meanings in the public sphere.