The Private Hidden Art of Janusz Kaczorowski

Abstract

Artistic practice of Janusz Kaczorowski, of which only a few traces remain in the collections of institutions and in private hands, is characterised by surprisingly high quality of intellectual reflection. With his attitude and works, the artist affected several young artists and he is still remembered as an extraordinary personality. He created an original hidden art concept that avoids public presentation. I submit the idea expressed in The Private Manifesto of Hidden Art in a detailed analysis in the second part of the text. I locate the source of this idea in the examples of the artist’s reflection and works dedicated to the permanent presence of images and symbols of a totalitarian state in the iconosphere, which display the characteristics of a subversive artistic approach. Kaczorowski, a leftist and a socially engaged person, consistently embodied artistic ideas in life, and the several works that he left behind should be seen in terms of the power that generates acts of cessation, concealment and withdrawal.