Comrade Ambramowski:

Do people often ask you what do your works represent?

 

Leon Girtak:
Yes, quite often, but unfortuantely I can't please you and give satisfying information. That's why very often, even always, people are disappointed - yet if they want to be happy they shouldn't ask. Once upon a time I used to make up answers which could be satisfying, I made some breaknecking word tricks, egzotic connotations but this didn't have anything in common with the main idea. It was used to impress nice ladies, rather than to express realistically the most visible and obvious messages. Apart form that, I believe that making an impression, especially on women, is the main inspiration to create anything, because it substitutes another positive activities. Some people like making an impression on men, but it is another, very different case - however, not of smaller importance to the art itself. I think that analyzing the art to its deepest elements is superfluous, it is rather an excuse for the activity of critics who make a living from it. For an averge viewer it is of no significance; moreover - it usually deconcentrates and makes a mess out of perciving the very meaning of art. It must be fiercely opposed when the audience accepts the critic's view as its own, without making any individual assesment, because at that time the critic, babbling and murmuring without any deeper sense, replaces the artist. Sometimes even such critic acquires a feeling of having a mission to carry out and looks down on the audience which follows him. Everything being done in accordance with the rule - the more stupid, the better. Generally speaking, as far as my works are concerned, they present what is in them, nothing more, and if someone wishes to imagine hidden messages or concealed ideas, evaluates contrasts, wonders about simple lines, makes allusions, doubts, mourns or is happy - I let them do so. It's only the viewers' bussiness and looking on what the author has written or said usually is of no significance for them. If someone says 'Leon, I want to vomit when I look at it' - I agree with it. Simply, it means that the particular work influences them in such a way, and it is another case that my aim was completely different from what the viewer experiences. Yet, it is not very vital for me, the most crucial thing is the individual perception of art.

However, you add some descriptions to your works, don't you?

Yes, I do. But they are totally disconnected things, they bear no allusion to the works themselves, they are like different forms of presenting the artistic value and power. They are like a picture painted with words, if you know what I mean. These descriptions shouldn't be read literally, since they are used only to strenghten the atmosphere. I simply don't want to define them, let them be what they are. To put it bluntly, I feel bored when I speak about it, let us not talk about it any more.

Selected by Comrade Abramowski Translated into English by Nightshade.