Artystyczna „archeologia” pamięci na przykładzie Nazistów i Prawdziwych nazistów Piotra Uklańskiego

Abstrakt

Contemporary artists referring to history often ask questions about what and how is memorised. How tragic events from the recent past are reflected in our cultural archive of memory. Artists are interested in visual memory, which includes, among others, documentary photographs, pictures from history textbooks, historical feature films. However, there is not only historical knowledge but also the popular culture that shapes our ideas about the past. That is why in these imaginations the truth mixes with fiction, and the suggestive images known from movies overlap our knowledge. Thus, the artistic “archeology” takes place in the area of our broadly understood cultural memory. The above problem is discussed in the example of two works by Piotr Uklański: Nazis (1999) and Real Nazis (2017). I reflect on results from the comparison of these works – the first using fictional images of Nazis from feature films and the second one showing portraits of real Nazis.