Alojzy Gryt’s The Pyramid of Light [Piramida światła] was placed by the exit. In Klaman’s interpretation, however, the labyrinth completely dominated and overwhelmed this consoling Christian narrative. It was a part of it but, at the same time, it broke away from it. In the eyes of the artist, it was more a ‘Gnostic labyrinth’ which showed the world as a fallen place, as a dead end. The gloomy and dilapidated matter constructed of coarse wooden boards and aluminum sheets evoked a pessimistic interpretation. The burnt The Tower of Babel [Wieża Babel] by Jerzy Kalina – located in the very center of the labyrinth and stuck in the ceiling of the lower church – can also be interpreted twofold: as a path leading upwards, but also as a huge underground gutter, a machine which sucks out what is at the top. What is interesting is that for reason of the context of historical events, The Labyrinth became a specific political metaphor: during the time of the exhibition, from the beginning of its installation at the end of March 1989, until the closing of the presentation itself, the external structure of the communist state was broken[38]. While this was happening, a vessel was built, which – like Noah’s ark - was to leave the old world towards the new one[39]. The walls of the raw construction carried approximately 800 photographs which came from the Polish archives and were 20
Dorota Jarecka Janusz Bogucki, the Polish Szeemann?
placed in the order from birth till death. They displayed the recent 150 years of the country’s history and, at the same time, 150 years of the history of photography (1989 was the anniversary year). The Labyrinth presented spotlighted paintings which seemed to be pulsating like images excerpted from the collective memory or amnesia. The dilapidated used steel sheet walls did not exactly evoke associations with a ‘treasure vault’ containing the national memory but more of a junk yard, or perhaps... a warehouse. The vision of the great brain, an egg, of something concentric and unifying the memories and images evokes natural associations with a different structure which had dominated the social imagination at the time, namely the gigantic round piece of furniture placed in the Office of the Council of Ministers in Warsaw. It was at this piece of furniture that the new order was negotiated: the Round Table[40]. In no previous exhibition by Bogucki and Smolarz had photographs played such an important role. Whilst it would be possible to imagine the Sign of the Cross without photographs, it would be absolutely unimaginable in case of the «Labyrinth». The exhibition was an archive which was ‘live’ and constantly on the move[41]. The selection of photographs was extremely interesting. The co -author of the exhibition, Nina Smolarz, asked the members of