First, a few words about  "New Optimism".
From my perspective dozens of the paintings sent for this year's "Bielska Jesień" represent a clear trend in painting which I have decided to call "New Optimism". Some of the characteristics of this trend are human figures set against a flat background and accompanied by few objects, and on the other hand, digitally-processed accumulations of dense forms alluding to the oriental stylistics of China and Japan. Among Polish sources of inspiration are paintings by Ewa Kuryluk created in the mid 1970s, and to certain a degree, hyperrealism.

"New Optimism" can be described as a repetition of Kuryluk's style depicting, with the aid of photo media, Western Man surrounded by post-war objects. I was even tempted to make a vivisection of sorts of this immensely popular trend that has dominated "Bielska Jesień 2011" with such a flourish, by writing a pastiche mimicking the style of the 1970s critical review finished off with the writing on the wall that would appear during this Belshazzar's feast of painters. If the alienated objects surrounding alienated people of the 1970s - as in Kuryluk's canonical painting Ik People are Us - appeared to represent certain objects of desire, the same themes today are merely well-recognized symbols of excess, of mass produced goods whose values become relentlessly reduced by the global trends of capitalism.

My plan, however, misfired, as the judges rejected almost all of the works produced in this vein. "New Optimism" ended once we'd seen all of the works sent for the competition. But this ending conforms with my intended message: the optimism of the second half of the 21st century is streaked with undertones of catastrophe, which makes it weak and decadent. We still don't know how much this catastrophe will shake the world of objects, but we have every right to believe that it will effectively shake the world of ideas. 

While viewing the works sent for the biennial, I was also reading the first issue of P/Act for Art: Die Berlin Biennale Zeitung published by Artur Żmijewski and his team. What especially caught my eye was an article by Jan Verwoert comparing Berlin to New York in which the author states that the former is dissimilar to the latter in that "the people here have no means to cherish the illusion that visibility or audience rating creates value". Therefore, I have one final remark about the overwhelming majority of the paintings sent for the competition.

Probably the greatest value that art has to offer contemporary communities is that it remains, despite inauspicious circumstances, one of the last areas of free thinking, creativity, expression and individual courage. The worst thing about the monstrosity I call "New Optimism" is the formatting of art works not only by imitating the styles of successful artists from Poland and abroad, but also by making these works fit comfortably in one white cube of a gallery after another, or even on the wall of one of these new, comfortable and optimistic-looking apartments. This is a way to create mediocre painting for the new non-demanding middle class. The judges in this year's competition strove to make a different choice.

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