on the photos: Krzysztof Gil
photos taken by: Leszek Wejcman
18.06.2020
The work of Krzysztof Gil refers directly to the Transylvanian Panorama painted under the direction of Jan Styka (painting is also known as the Battle of Sibiu, Bem in Transylvania or Bem and Petöfi). The work was commissioned by Hungarians on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Spring of Nations. The historical canvas (15m height and 120m width) was created from April to September 1897 in the Rotunda building in Lviv, where the Panorama of the Battle of Racławice was previously painted. The subject of the painting is the Battle of Sibiu (in today’s Romania) which took place on March 11, 1849. During the battle the insurgent troops under the command of General Józef Bem achieved a spectacular victory over the overwhelming Austrian-Russian troops. (…) After many adventures (the Hungarians did not meet their financial obligations), the painting was cut to pieces, probably by Styka himself (most of them are signed by him), and dispersed. The District Museum in Tarnów conducts a search for lost parts of the panorama and buys and collects parts of it. Krzysztof Gil quoted a well-known fragment of the original panorama depicting the attack of the honvéd (Hungarian for ‘defender of the fatherland’), the Hungarian national army from the Spring of Nations. The appearance of the Honvéd battalion under the command of János Bethlen in the battle resulted in the final breakdown of Russian and Austrian forces. Thanks to them, Bem triumphed as a commander. (…)
However, the most significant part of Gil’s work is devoted to one of the lesser-known pages of history – Roma slavery. In one of the fragments of Styka’s work we see a Romani band which plays music for the troops. This depiction echoes the romantic stereotype of Roma as musicians and vagrants. Meanwhile, one of the few achievements of the Spring of Nations was the abolition of slavery in today’s Romania. (…)
Gil presents these “invisible” slaves of Europe covered with a black veil, which unifies their sex, age and appearance. The artist performs this gesture in protest against visual romanticizing and orientalizing representations that replace in the collective imagination historical events that are essentially concerning the Roma. We do not have a visual “documentation” of Roma slavery. (…)
The work was created especially for the Spring at the Bem estate / Wiosna na osiedlu Bema exhibition. The photos show the artist Krzysztof Gil and the exhibition curator – Monika Weychert.
Spring at the Bem estate / Wiosna na osiedlu Bema
20.06.2020 – 04.09.2020
Arsenal Gallery in Białystok
Artists: Teodor Ajder, Paweł Baśnik, Przemek Branas, Krzysztof Gil, Andrzej Heidrich,
Pravdoliub Ivanov, Martyna Jastrzębska, Nikolay Karabinovych, Szczepan Kopyt, Konrad
Kuzyszyn, Diana Lelonek, Dorota Podlaska, Daniel Rumiancew, Konrad Smoleński
