Piotr Bernatowicz, director of Ujazdowski CCA in Warsaw, has been accused of highjacking a political gesture by the museum’s resident artists in order to spread an antiabortion message.
Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice party has been trying to pass a bill that would ban abortion in the case of fetal abnormalities, one of the very few remaining circumstances in which the procedure is still allowed in the country. As protests against the law gained momentum, artists in residence at Ujazdowski CCA installed a sign reading ‘Piekło kobiet’ (‘Women’s hell’) in front of the museum in an act of solidarity. Shortly after this, Bernatowicz posted and shared on his personal Facebook account a video documenting the installation of the sign, but in which the museum chief overlaid the word ‘abortion’, so the banner, translated, then read ‘Abortion = Women’s hell’.
Artists Karolina Grzywnowicz, Dani Ploeger, Kuba Rudziński and Ivan Svitlychnyi posted a statement on Facebook outlining the incident. In the post, the artists shared details of the lack of support they had received, highlighting Jerzy Kwaśniewski, lawyer and CEO of the Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture, who argued that Bernatowicz’s actions did not violate copyright laws.
Bernatowicz is already a controversial figure, having been appointed by the government to a seven-year tenure in 2019, without the open competition that is required under Polish law to fill such positions.
The populist government has been accused of trying to populate the executive-level roles in Poland’s cultural institutions with right-leaning figures such as Bernatowicz, a policy staunchly opposed by the country’s largely liberal arts community.
