Grzegorz Klaman: Gate I and II

The Monument to Solidarity is deteriorating … and so is its myth.

In the Daily Artistic, monuments by Grzegorz Klaman entitled “Gate I” and Gate II “from 2000. The installations are located between the historic health and safety hall of the Gdańsk Shipyard and the European Solidarity Center and were made on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of signing the August agreements. Gate I resembles a ship’s bow – according to the author, it is sinking – it is a harbinger of the fall of the Shipyard. Perhaps also the monument itself, as it plunges into unpleasant devastation.

Gate II is a reference to the Monument to the Third International – an unrealized project by Vladimir Tetlin. Today it is aging quite poorly. Perhaps as well as the whole myth of Solidarity and the Polish road …

Grzegorz Klaman was born in 1959 and graduated from the Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts.