WARSAW: A new exhibition on Gaza opened in the Polish capital Warsaw over the weekend, reenacting videos of atrocities posted on social media by Israeli soldiers who committed them.
“With Deepest Sympathy” features the work of Igor Dobrowolski, a sculptor and painter, whose art has for years touched subjects that include physical and economic violence, war crimes and genocide.
It started with a performance where the blindfolded artist, with his face covered and hands bound by cable ties, knelt on the concrete floor next to child-sized burial shrouds, where he remained unable to move for seven hours like the Palestinian men in the countless videos shared online by their armed captors.
“I treat oppressed people as close to my heart,” Dobrowolski told Arab News. “When you treat others that way, it’s hard to bear when they are subjected to such immense injustice.”
He was surrounded by his paintings illustrating the stories of atrocities reported throughout the year of Israel’s deadly onslaught on Gaza — or what is being widely called the first “livestreamed genocide.”
On the other side, LCD screens showed videos of Dobrowolski staging some of the many clips Israeli troops have posted on TikTok since the war began, documenting themselves blowing up residential buildings and schools, looting homes, abusing civilians — all of which are war crimes under the Geneva Convention.
Called the “Most moral army in the world,” the series also relates to the shocking footage circulated online in the aftermath of Israeli attacks on the population of Gaza, including a recent one in which displaced people sheltering in tents were burnt alive.
As hours passed, people came closer to the artist, some to take videos, some to check on him. At one point, a woman who could not bear the sight tried to untie his hands. At another, Palestinian Ambassador Mahmoud Khalifa knelt down and embraced him.
“These works reflect the pain, the martyrdom of the people who are living it ... This voice is very loud, I think it should reach everyone,” he said. “Thank you. We can feel this solidarity, we can feel this support.”
Since last year, Dobrowolski has held numerous solo demonstrations in front of the Israeli, US and German embassies in Warsaw, and also at monuments such as the Berlin Wall and Auschwitz concentration camp.
With banners “Israel exploits Holocaust memory to carry out genocide,” “Israel is doing to Palestinians what Germany did to the Jews,” he stood alone, often for hours, in cold and rain.
But in his cause, he is not alone, knowing that his family will always have his back.
“I am depressed and terrified, but full of admiration for my child,” his mother, Teresa, told Arab News. “No matter what he does, we’ll stand by him all the way.”
Dobrowolski has received threats because of his work, and admits he often fears for his future, given how solidarity with the Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, has been widely silenced and cracked down on.
“I realize how powerful the forces we are fighting are,” he said. “I know, however, what is right and what is wrong, and I know I should do something, even though I have plenty of excuses not to. But I just close my eyes and do it. As Chris Hedges said: ‘I don’t fight fascists because I’m going to win; I fight fascists because they are fascists.’”
The artist, whose works have been displayed at Maddox Gallery in the UK and Gin Huang Gallery in Taiwan, has lately had his visibility limited on social media platforms which regularly shadowban content related to Palestine.
For the curator of his Warsaw exhibition, that was yet another reason for the show to take place, despite warnings that there was “risk.”
It was a way to expand the reach of “content that is constantly subjected to manipulation and censorship,” Karolina Kliszewska from Cliche Gallery said.
“Art at this moment is the only realm of freedom ... I feel that this is a risk in the sense that more people will awaken and be touched by this kind of performance and the boldness of the creator, who restores the meaning and significance of the term ‘committed art.’”
