Zaspokajanie (Fulfillment)

The artist "Jurry" Zieliński, a virulent critic of the Communist regime, is one of the rare Polish artists who emulated the Pop Art aesthetic in the 1960s and 70s. He created a polymorphic, dreamlike reality that explored themes including national identity, religion, and politics, distancing himself from the Post-Impressionist art of the Polish academe. His Pop approach is characterised by its critique of the Communist and Catholic regime rather than of consumerism. Zieliński appropriated the iconography of social realist propaganda to express his anti-establishment dissidence with great irony.

Zieliński's work expresses a penchant for floating, dreamlike, and often erotic forms. Several of these motifs can be seen in Zaspokajanie (1969): the silhouette of a face appears to be awaiting a drop of blood, as if it were a threat in suspense or an imminent orgasm. The intense, flat red contrasts with the green background, which for the artist symbolised the colour of pleasure. Zieliński’s title, which translates in English to “Satisfaction”, plays with the sexual connotations of the vocabulary used in Communist propaganda, especially regarding the regime’s capacity to “satisfy the people’s needs”.

The work was first presented by the Pinault Collection in the exhibition « Forever Sixties » at the Couvent des Jacobins in Rennes (2023).