Among the office and apartment buildings of Warsaw’s Służewiec, on the paths trodden from work to home and back again, stands a bricklayer. It is known where he came from – a property development initiative, surprisingly commemorating the working-class heritage of the area, was widely reported in the local press a few years ago. How the builder ended up there, however, is not entirely clear. What caused it to lie previously for a good few years under the rusted fence of the industrial plant under which it was found? Who abandoned it there, who carved it beforehand, who inspired the carving? The fate of the Monument to the Builders of Służewiec Workers – as the sculpture is called today – is lost in the depths of oblivion.

The exhibition “Come, poet, speak with us masons” is a record of the research exploring the fate of the socialist realist monument, and at the same time an attempt to find a place in culture for the contemporary builder. It goes back to a time when the towering walls had their specific creators – folk heroes, real ‘men of marble’, carved into it in the 1940s and 1950s by socialist realist propaganda. The memory of them has faded – but do we see those who now look down on our cities from the heights of scaffolding?

At a time of yet another building boom in Poland’s post-war history, it is worth asking: does art recognise the people whose physical exertion is its key element? Looking at a relic of communist culture’s preoccupation with human labour, one wonders whether, peeling away the thick layer of political agitation, we can discover even a trace of genuine interest and reverence beneath it. Juxtaposing it with the infrequent contemporary worker representation that was created for the “Fair Building” exhibition (representing Poland at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016), one might ask: what would have to happen for artists today to look more often towards construction sites and (as Jan Brzechwa wanted in the 1950 poem ‘Conversation with a Builder’ cited in the exhibition’s title) to “put a singing heart on a bricklayer’s trowel“.

• curator: Kuba Żary +** sculpture**: Stanisław Lisowski, production of the model: 3DFactor Maciej Pacyna
• photography: Jakub Certowicz, Hubert Kowalski, Mikołaj Węgier, Wojciech Zamecznik
• video: Dominika Janicka, in cooperation with: Martyna Janicka, Michał Gdak
• illustrations: Agnieszka Dybowska
• visuals: Marcin Rosiński
• production: Wiktoria Litwinowicz
• special acknowledgements to: Jakub Jastrzębski, Hubert Kowalski, Piotr Lis, Aleksandra Stępień-Dąbrowska
• organiser: Muzeum Architektury we Wrocławiu, Wrocławska Fundacja Filmowa (Festiwal Filmów o Architekturze i Mieście MIASTOmovie)
• strategic partner: OKRE Development

The exhibition “Come, poet, speak with us masons” is part of the artistic scene of the 12th MIASTOmovie Festival of Films about the City and Architecture. OKRE Development is the strategic partner of the event. The task was co-financed by the Municipality of Wrocław.