The Krasnals. Big Dwarf "hanging kids the Death of Which Child Would be the Best Business? 2010. Oil on canvas. 97 x 97 cm
Maurizio Cattelan 'Hanging Kids','I bambini ci guardano', 'tre bambini impiccati', 'The Children Are Watching Us' . Three children hang on a tree and watch the truth with their eyes wide open.
From an interview with The Krasnals in the Polish newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza":
Already now, a few weeks before the release of a book by Jan Tomasz Gross, "Golden Harvest" (about Poles doing Holocaust on Jews), discussions began, also observed by The Krasnals, whose attitude towards this issue could be easily called uncompromising. Their image of "Three Hanging Kids" with the sub-title "the Death of Which Child Would be the Best Business?", caused controversy in the media. The painting directly refers to the famous work of Maurizio Cattelan depicting three hanging kids. The Italian artist became particularly symbolic for Polish art, because his sculpture of Pope crushed by a meteorite, "La Nona Ora", presented in the National Gallery Zacheta in 2001, opened a decade of intensive growth of contemporary art in Poland.
What is your opinion on the topic of the book "Golden Harvest"?
- recently, we heard somewhere in the media, a statement that "for this we will not apologize" - this is resentful - and we should apologize for the rest of our lives for Polish citizens who were standing on the side of evil. It is obvious, we are not guilty, but we should apologize to those people who were harmed on Polish soil, even after their death - they explain.
Gross describes searchers of valuables in an abandoned camp of Treblinka, recalling an old photograph published in Gazeta Wyborcza daily. You were also interested in this topic.
- The picture of gold prospectors from Treblinka, with which Gross begins his new book, we cut from a newspaper two years ago and hung it over our desk. We did a lot of drawings on the subject.
Why have you placed three hanging kids on your latest painting?
- It is a piece, which evokes the atmosphere of callousness around Holocaust, in a reflective way. We do not have teaching tendencies and we're not using our works to educate anyone. It is the task for historians and writers such as Gross. This painting is poetic rather than didactic. We're not trying to prove anything. We leave room for interpretation, because we believe that someone who sees our work will be thoughtful and sensitive.
There is no doubt that you see your own beliefs in Gross's books.
You are artists, for whom the relevant material is memory - individual and collective.
- Traumas should be overworked, not closed in taboo areas, even if it means severe irritation of national pride.
Maurizio Cattelan 'Hanging Kids','I bambini ci guardano', 'tre bambini impiccati', 'The Children Are Watching Us' . Three children hang on a tree and watch the truth with their eyes wide open.
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