The Idea of Sacrum in Polish Art of the 1980s

Article 4 of 7 in an issue devoted to the visual culture of Poland and Eastern EuropeThis issue was sponsored by The Sikorski Polish Club and the Scottish Polish Cultural AssociationPreviously in the University eprints HAIRST pilot service at http://eprints.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/00000387/Polish art of the 1980s was in a period of transition from modernism to postmodernism. Theoretical debates and disputes concerning both of these terms and their interrelations are still going on. However, the goal of this article will be to portray the specific character of Polish art in the 1980s in relation to the problem of sacrum. Spiritual and metaphysical themes were present in post-war avant-garde work, but it was only in the art of the 1980s that there was a real explosion of interest in such ideas. The term sacrum is drawn from the phenomenology of religion, and means sanctity, a sphere of meeting deity with believer (sacer, sacra, sacrum in Latin – devoted to God).Postprin