ZAMEK Culture Centre

Stereotypical, toxic, sensitive. What is masculinity today and how is it changing? What are its narratives and social roles? Do we even want to talk about it?

Lumberjack attempts to answer these questions. The idea behind the project is to take a look at various aspects of masculinity at a time of its crisis and resurgence of political and cultural paradigms. The works and artistic projects render post-masculinity in a transhumanist form, delve into male mythologies and confront persistent stereotypes rooted in 19th-century social norms. They adopt a new attitude towards nature and dark-ecological stance, examine the baggage of postcolonial practices, feature a broad spectrum of identities, and tap into stories of power, conquest and militarism.

The starting point for these narratives is the era of Wilhelm II Hohenzollern (1859–1941), the builder of the Imperial Castle in Poznań, a period sometimes referred to as the “triumph of masculinity”. Also, there is much to draw on in the personal story of the monarch: a boy with a disability, raised at the Prussian court, who became an egotistical ruler driven by colonial complexes and one of the “godfathers” of the Great War. After its end and Germany’s defeat, he was forced to abdicate and leave the Reich.

The rest of his life saw him a political and moral bankrupt, residing in Huis Doorn, an estate in the northern Netherlands. There, Wilhelm II came to be called the “lumberjack of Doorn” as he turned to chopping down trees in the nearby forests. Despite the withered left arm, he took felling trees very seriously—as the last bastion of his masculinity and agency. By 1929, he had cut down 20,000 trees.

Here, the history and figure of the emperor is a “skeleton in the closet”, an idea of a patriarchal world which, although anachronistic and discredited, still manages to creep out, returning in the shape of new wars as well as political and social orders. This is a crucial context for the concepts developed by all artists participating in the project. Their works, informed by their life and artistic experience, embark on contemporary reinterpretations of masculinity and explore the reception of its meanings.

CURATOR: PRZEMYSŁAW JĘDROWSKI

ARTISTS:

ERNEST BOROWSKI

OLAF BRZESKI

KRYSTIAN DASZKOWSKI

ARTI GRABOWSKI

KRZYSZTOF MANIAK

DOROTA NIEZNALSKA

KAROL RADZISZEWSKI

SONIA RAMMER

ALEKSANDRA SKA

MAGDALENA STARSKA

IZA TARASEWICZ

SŁAWOMIR TOMAN

HONZA ZAMOJSKI