Acrylic, canvas, dimensions: 100x70cm, 2021
"Freedom today is synonymous with freedom in almost all cultures. When I got the urge to paint the word Freedom on the walls, a rebus suddenly appeared in my mind , Free_+ home equals freedom. I painted this rebus on the wall during martial law. This graffiti in order to distinguish the Freedom inscription had one letter E inverted which is like a personal Freedom. The painting has several plans: the plan, one is the fulfillment of an individual's longing for freedom in my opinion, represented by an empty beach with umbrellas spread with the sea and the sun on the horizon. Another plan is the view of the interior of the house, in which there is a painting or a window to the world with a ship sailing on the horizon , which represents the ,dimension of freedom to travel, that is, freedom to have opportunities.... The basic plan is a wall on which a dwarf paints graffiti with the word freedom, in this is contained my memory when I painted during martial law to free myself from the constraints of that time." Waldemar Fydrych ( MAJOR ).
Waldemar "Major" Fydrych
Artistic biography
Painter, writer, happener. Waldemar "Major" Fydrych was born on April 8, 1953 in Toruń.
He holds a master's degree in history (1980) and art history (1987) from the University of Wroclaw. In 2012, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, he defended his doctoral thesis entitled. "Happening as an integrative, healing operation transforming art and reality" under the supervision of Prof. Stanislaw Wieczorek.
He is known internationally as an organizer of mass happenings and author of books and graffiti gnomes. He began his independent activities in the 1970s. After August 80, he created the "Movement for New Culture" in Wroclaw. Soon after, in 1981, he published the "Manifesto of Socialist Surrealism" and launched the Orange Alternative movement. During martial law, Poles became more familiar with Major's activities through graffiti dwarfs painted on spots covering anti-regime slogans. In total, there were more than a thousand of them in various Polish cities. Beginning in 1986, he began organizing a series of happenings that continues to this day - more than sixty by 2006 - which have gone down in history as the Orange Alternative.
Waldemar Fydrych is the author of five books, including the drama "Don General," and a painter, creating distinctive works with images of dwarfs. His book "Lives of the Orange Husbands" in July 2014 was published by London-based Minor Compositions publishing house in English with a foreword by famous activist duo The Yes Men and well-known American journalist Anne Applebaum.
In 2013 he was recognized in the book "Surrealism - 50 works You should know" by Brad Finger, published by Prestel Publishing, a publishing house owned by the Random House publishing concern, as one of the most prominent representatives of Surrealism in the history of this trend alongside such artists as Picasso, Dali, Duchamp, Artaud, among others.
The most famous happenings by Waldemar "Major" Fydrych are:
1.the Tubes, or smoky city (April 1, 1986);
2.pot fest (April 1, 1987);
3.Dwarfs on Świdnicka Street (June 1, 1987);
4.Down with the U-Pals (July 1987);
5.Anti-War Deed (September 1, 1987);
6.Toilet Paper - the so-called first hand (October 1, 1987);
7.Militant Day (October 7, 1987);
8.Terrorist Day or Al Fatah (October 11, 1987);
9.Military Day or Maneuvers Melon in Mayonnaise (October 12, 1987);
10.who's afraid of Toilet Paper? - The so-called second hand (October 15, 1987);
11.eve of the October Revolution (November 6, 1987); (1000 participants).
12thReferendum on Świdnicka Street (November 27, 1987); (1500 participants).
13.Santa Claus Day (December 6, 1987); (2000 participants).
14.RIO-bot carnival (February 16, 1988); (5,000 participants)
15.Secret Service Day (March 1, 1988);
16.Women's Day (March 8, 1988); ended with Major Waldemar Fydrych's "summary arrest" for 2 months of absolute detention.
17.Trial of the Major (March 29, 1988); - appeal trial, after which the Major was acquitted and released.
18.the Dwarf Revolution (June 1, 1988); (15,000 participants)
19.Brotherly Aid Forever Alive (August 19, 1988) (under Snezka near the Polish-Czech border, two days before the 20th anniversary of the Warsaw Pact troops' intervention in Czechoslovakia);
20. Mieszkanko na Świdnickiej (October 21, 1988);
21.October Revolution (November 7, 1988);
22. The Eve of theGreat Anniversary (December 12, 1988) of Martial Law.
23. Carnivalor Herring on Świdnicka Street (February 7, 1989);
24. Stalin's Funeral or Funeral for Myself (March 21, 1989)
25. FSO, or Festival of Present Art (June 1, 1989) concluded with a concert by the bands Kormorany, Big Cyc and Kult;
He received numerous awards for these activities: including the 1988 Solidarity Award from the Puls Publishing House in London, and the Polkul Awards in Australia. He and the Orange Alternative , whichhe led, are the only recipientsto date of the Ashes and Diamonds Award established by director Andrzej Wajda, which was awarded in December 1988.
"Rewarded" also received special attention from the regime's Interior Ministry in Poland, which kept an eye on Major Fydrych and his activities. In March 1988, during a happening in which he distributed sanitary pads on the street - a product in short supply at the time - Waldemar Fydrych was arrested and jailed for three months. In the face of mass protests, however, he was soon released.
Happenings after 2000:
-2001: Celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Orange Alternative in Wroclaw.
-2001: Celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Martial Law, "Descent to Underground," in Glogow, with the Kreatura Theater
-2002: Dwarf President - Election Committee "Merrier and Competent Warsaw": Waldemar Major Fydrych is running for President of Warsaw.
-2004: Happenings "Stereotypes" in France: December 2003 - April 2004 - work with students at the University d'Artois in Arras, happenings in Arras, Paris and Lille (program awarded by the European Union); April 2004 - May 2004 - work with students at the University of Nancy culminating in a happening on May 1, 2004 on the occasion of the Traverses Festival in Nancy; June 2004 - work with students from the University of Nancy culminating in a happening on June 6 in Metz)
-2004: Happenings "Kyiv Warsaw - Common Cause" ; Major Fydrych takes an active part in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine with happenings in Warsaw, Lublin, Lviv, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Vinnitsa and Kyiv.
-2006: Warsaw: "Gammons and Dwarfs" Voters' Committee - Major defeats candidates of two of the three parties co-founding the ruling coalition.
-2007: Warsaw: 6 "Wykształciuchy w akcji" happenings during the Sejm election campaign.
-2009: series of happenings as part of the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of Communism in Central Europe.
Books authored or co-authored by Major Fydrych:
-"Hokus Pokus" - Annex Publishing House, 1990, 150 pages
-"Lives of the Orange Husbands". - Orange Alternative Publishing House, year 2001, 300 pages
-"Dwarves and Gammons" - Orange Alternative Publishing House, 2006, 247 pages
-"Orange Alternative - Revolution of the Dwarves". - historical photo album - Orange Alternative Publishing House, 2007/2008, 310 pages
-"Don General" - Drama in three acts, year 2010, 60 pages.
-"Major" - autobiography , National Cultural Center, 2013, 320 pages.
Exhibitions of Major Fydrych's artwork:
-"Paintings" - Exhibition of paintings at Ostrow Tumski in Wroclaw, 1988.
-"Dwarfs and the Orange Alternative" - exhibition of drawings, Art New Media Gallery, Warsaw, 2002.
-"Thousand Dwarfs" - exhibition of drawings, Theatre of the Eighth Day, Poznan, 2002.
-"Souvenir for Wroclaw" - exhibition of drawings as part of a group exhibition, BWA Gallery, Wroclaw, 2003
-"1000 dwarfs for Warsaw" watercolor exhibition, Traffic Gallery, Warsaw, 2006.
-"Waldemar Major Fydrych - dialectical art of great social forms". - watercolor exhibition, YIA Art Salon in Paris, Third District City Hall Headquarters, 2014.
-"Waldemar "Major" Fydrych - Painting". - Exhibition of acrylics, Gallery "Orangery in Yablonne, 2019.
-"Waldemar "Major" Fydrych - Yesterday and Today - Fragments". -exhibition of acrylics and photographs from the artist's happenings,XX1Gallery in Warsaw, 2020.
More important foreign exhibitions about the Orange Alternative since 2000
year:
-1989: Exhibition as part of a group exhibition entitled. "Les Utopies: Europe des Createurs," Grand Palais, Paris, France.
-2005: Exhibition on the Orange Alternative at the European Parliament in Brussels
-2005: Exhibition on the Orange Alternative in Ukraine (Donetsk, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv), including over a month at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Center for Contemporary Art, Kyiv
-2009: A series of six street exhibitions in the country and one in Berlin as part of the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of Communism in Central Europe
-2009: Exhibition as part of a group exhibition entitled. "Performing Revolution - Revolutionary Voices from Central and Eastern Europe in 1980s" organized by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, New York, USA
-2011: Exhibition "L'Alternative Orange - La Revolution des Nains," Gallery Centre 59 Rivoli, Paris, France
-2011: Exhibition "La Alternativa Naranja - La Revolucion de los Gnomos," Main Hall, Department of Sociology and Political Science, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid,Spain
-2011: Exhibition "Happening into Communism", International Cultural Center, Cracow, Poland
-2012: Exhibition "The Major and the Orange Alternative," Sarajevo War Theater, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
-2014-2015: Exhibition as part of a group exhibition titled. "Disobedient Objects," Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Some of the documentaries on Major Fydrych's activities:
-"Orange Alternative", 24 min., directed by Miroslaw Dembinski, 1988, awarded in 1989 with many awards including: Main Prize in the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen, Germany; Bronze Lajkonik in the National Short Film Festival in Krakow.
-"The Major or the Revolution of the Dwarfs," 30 min. film, directed by Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz, 1989.
-"Dwarf President," 37 min. directed by Miroslaw Dembinski, 2003.
-"Dwarfs Go to Ukraine", 55 min., directed by Miroslaw Dembinski, 2005, Audience Award at the National Independent Documentary Forms Review in Kielce.
-"Fearless Slayers of Absurdities," 50 min., Discovery Historia, 2012.
