We look from one angle, but remember from many. Join the ever-generous Trupa Trupa frontman, Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, to dig through the crates of time in the wake of the release of the band’s EP, I’ll Find.
V
the dead vistula/ a stream in inhalation
When I was five, I was that really nice person who loved going to church, singing hymns and listening to the Beatles—but also in this period, my fascination with the dark side of reality started. I very often went with my parents to Westerplatte in Gdansk—the place where the Second World War started—and I watched a lot of war movies, and started reading books about war.
X
the eye of the duck/ a little jewel
This was the period of my closest relationship with reality. I think I tried to be as normal as possible, and just to be like everybody else. In that period I listened to Michael Jackson on and on. Now, we know that this innocent art wasn’t so innocent after all. In some ways, this is the way of the world.
Very often, you’ve got this mixture of pseudo-goodness and innocence with really tragic, drastic, violent hell. In most cases, you don’t recognise the mechanisms and the roots; you don’t see this cruelty all around you. But I think most things in the world are, in reality, built on violence and inequality. That’s why I have a big problem accepting reality now: the suffering of innocent beings. It’s also why I think the films of David Lynch aren’t weird, surrealistic art movies—but, in some way, documentary films full of truth.
XV
the living sleep/ for their time
This was a period dominated by literature. I was reading a lot of German writers—Thomas Mann, Herman Hesse, Herman Broch, Robert Musil—and a lot of poetry; mainly English language. T.S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, Walt Whitman, Edgar Lee Masters, Robert Lowell and great Polish poets like Czesław Miłosz and Tadeusz Różewicz. In some ways, I’m still in this state of mind—this state of fascinations.
XX
the psychic knot/ that has no equal
This was a time of mixing philosophy and literature. I was reading a lot of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, and they’re really as much artists as they are philosophers. Maybe even more so. In this time, I also discovered the early films of Werner Herzog, so it was mix of all kinds philosophy, literature and movies.
XXV
the entire war period/ and those days in Warszawa
Around this time, I went back to historical topics—especially the history of genocide on the territory of Poland. The more I dug, the more I was shocked. I read a lot of history books and watched a lot of documentaries, such as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. These showed the real, violent nature of human beings. I was shocked then, and I’m still shocked now.
XXX
those virtuosos/ their public world
It was a time when I was more into music than literature. My big hero was, and still is, Glenn Gould. Because of him, I discovered David Oistrakh, Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter, and I still listen endlessly to their art.
NUNC
…/ …
I think I’m in a very dangerous state: I know myself and my artistic territory very well. So I’m waiting for a storm to destroy my artistic personality—and to build some new house.
Remembered by Grzegorz Kwaitkowski
Frippery: Andrew O’Keefe
