Pride and without/shame. Meeting with Monika Borys and Przemysław Sadura

Representations of the popular classes are a space for negotiating social hierarchies, aspirations and affiliations. Images of everyday life affect who is given credit and whose way of life becomes the object of evaluation or embarrassment.

During the meeting we will combine three perspectives: the painting of Edward Dwurnik, the analysis of popular culture of Monika Borys and the study of social emotions co-led by Przemysław Sadura. Exhibition “Edward Dwurnik. Pride and Shame” reads the artist's work through the experience of social advancement and class transformations. The Athletes and Workers cycles show the everyday life of people, their aspirations, weaknesses and the struggle for recognition. Dwurnik treated painting as a language that allowed contact with the people portrayed. The combination of commitment and irony in his works allows us to look at the tension between solidarity with the characters of the picture and subjecting them to evaluation.

Monika Borys in Bezdnych obrazach analyses the representations of the folk classes in Polish popular culture after 1989 — from disco polo and The World according to the Kiepskis to Patryk Vega's cinema and pathostreams. It shows how aesthetic evaluations intertwine with the valuation of people, and the mass circulation of images violates the intelligent hierarchies of taste. Visibility, however, can both reinforce subjectivity and perpetuate stereotypes.

The report The Shameless People by Przemysław Sadura, Julia Szostek and Michał Sutowski draws attention to the political consequences of threatened pride and shame. The authors describe the mechanism of transmission of shame to other groups and situations in which shaming strengthens solidarity with its addressees.

These three perspectives will allow us to look at the relationships between image and social position: the right to representation, the consequences of ridicule and the possibilities of refusing imposed evaluations.

The partner of the event is NN6T.