dc.description.abstract | This thesis is the first extensive, English-language account of ‘artes’, a group of artists,
architects, and graphic designers living and working in the borderland city of Lwów, Poland
between the First and Second World Wars. Grounded in a close visual analysis of their
artworks and interpreted alongside local, indigenous sources, this thesis describes these
artists’ praxis according to writer and close friend of the group Bruno Schulz’ notion of the
‘mythologising of reality’. Closely tied to but not exactly congruent with language, Schulz
describes the mythologising of reality as an active meaning making and re-making process
that seems to have been a critical tool adopted by ‘artes’ in their efforts to resist the
homogenising and hierarchical structures of state and society. This process appears in
different artists’ work in different ways, so the thesis is organized to reveal these shared
interests before refocusing to investigate in detail the work of a single artist. Instead of
offering a prescriptively interpretative account of ‘artes’ and their oeuvre, a misstep at this
early stage of the historical project, each chapter of the thesis is arranged thematically, with
the depth and breadth of artists and artworks under discussion varying appropriately
according to theme. The first chapter, ‘Mapping Contexts,’ addresses the circumstances
under which ‘artes’ was formed, including the impact of the time spent abroad and the
relationship between politics in interwar Poland and modern art. Chapter two, ‘Life and Art in
the City of Lions’ traces Lwów’s unique character and position in Polish and Ukrainian history.
Chapter three explores how the metaphorical and dialectical relationship between
science/magic and machine/organism are manifested in the works of Henryk Streng/Marek
Włodarski, Aleksander Krzywobłocki, and Jerzy Janisch, while the relationship between a
machine and the human body is further represented in the figure of the mannequin that is
explored in chapter four. The final chapter of the thesis focuses on the work of a single ‘artes’
artist, Margit Sielska, to further highlight the diversity of the group’s artistic practices and
emphasize the contribution of the only woman artist in the group. For ‘artes’ the process of
mythologising of reality functioned as an antidote to on-going crises of nationalism, fascism,
and the economic depression across Poland and the wider world. | en |