Date: 04.02–03.04.2022
Opening: 04.02.2022, 6:00–9:00 pm
Location: GGM1, ul. Piwna 27/29
Artist: Bolesław Chromry
With special contributions by: Agata Biskup, Adam Witkowski, Scott Heim, Krzysztof Szekalski, Agata Kalinowska, Anka Herbut, Kora, Jerzy Andrzejewski, Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, Agata Stola
Curator: Michał Grzegorzek
Coordinator: Andżelika Kliś
Graphic design: Agata Biskup
Bolesław Chromry is a drawer, painter, and illustrator. In his poetic universe of pop-culture figures, the worlds of politics, religion, and children’s games intersect to speak together of Poland after the transformation. The seemingly careless style and handwritten text reinforce the artist’s pessimistic jocularity (or jocular pessimism). For his latest exhibition at the Gdańsk City Gallery, Chromry has invited other artists to join him in his attempt to write (and draw) a catechism for all grades.
Catechism for All Grades does not address the rules, doctrines, and customs in teaching the Catholic religion. It looks at the issue of pedophilia in the Church, and if it has something in common with faith, it is only with the faith that this practice must one day come to an end.
In 2003, American investigative journalists at The Boston Globe uncovered details of countless cases of sexual child molestation by Catholic priests in the USA. The shocking news of the tragedies that had struck these minors also revealed an organized procedure for silencing these kinds of affairs: transferring the guilty priests to other parishes, pacts of silence, hiding behind canon law, denying access to evidence, buying out victims. The stories in The Boston Globe (and, over a decade earlier, signals from Ireland now regarded as groundbreaking media information on clerical pedophilia) started an avalanche of reports on pedophilia in the Church in other parts of the world. It is hard to believe that these stories—ones that took place so recently!—were among the first to reveal the vast scale of this phenomenon, in terms of time, space, and victims. Many of these cases paved the way for the secularization of societies in numerous countries.
Most often, there is no material evidence that someone has been abused by a priest—no photographs, letters, or diaries. Everything is carefully hidden. Apart from a few testimonies, there are only secrets concealed by criminals to conceal other criminals.
There are, however, surviving memoirs, which have been turned into stories through words or drawings. Catechism for All Grades is not investigative journalism, nor are its illustrations meant to spread some harrowing reports. The exhibition is an attempt to turn the focus onto these stories: individual, intimate, somewhere outside the spotlight, and inscribed in the broader context of being a child in a nation of adults.
The exhibition presents new works by Chromry, in the form of wall illustrations and on paper, and a ceramic sculpted installation, visually alluding to the Pied Piper legend. We return to the past, delve into memories which art now gives flesh, thus, in a sense, making them real. Catechism… also takes the form of a publication, for which we invited authors to delve into the theme of the exhibition through their own experiences and perspectives.
We invite you to peruse this catechism in the gallery space and in your own homes. We believe it is high time we took a closer look at this topic.
We do not entirely agree with the division into separate classes—we figure that children are still hiding in adults, and that even today we can let them draw a bit more. We can give them special permission not to brush their teeth and to tell their stories without turning away from them. We can hug them and cuddle them in a blanket. We needn’t turn out the lights.
