Andrzej Klimowski

At the heart of the dream city of Engelstadt stand the tall storeys of an ancient apartment block, home to a nightmare labyrinth of corridors and secrets. Christmas is coming, but the mysterious disappearance of one of its tenants causes a cast of characters (or suspects?) to be assembled before us. An elderly aristocratic widow plays the piano; a young mother disciplines her hallucinating son; a photographer pursues creative experiments under the magnetic spell of the moon. And meanwhile, as a dark cloud threatens to envelop the city, and caped crusaders (or marauders) wander its park, there is a film screening to attend. The eccentric Professor will surely solve the enigma on Christmas Eve… Or will he? A pan-European Pandora’s Box of narrative Russian dolls and Chinese boxes, Edifice builds into an Expressionist graphic vision of our archetypal, metamorphic Shadows. Whether or not “an allegory of some sort” (as one of these characters claims), Andrzej Klimowski’s masterpiece of symbolic form is certainly one of the strangest Christmas stories you will ever read. “If you look carefully, you will see it.”

“He leads the field by a very long furlong, out on his own, making his own weather. He is Klimowski, unafraid.”—Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright In the mid-1970s, Andrzej Klimowski's fearlessly original artwork caught the eye of leading Polish theater and film companies, for whom he designed some of the period's most iconic posters. The London-born artist, who moved to Poland at a time when many East Europeans dreamed of going West, went on to create posters for works by filmmakers and playwrights from Scorsese to Altman, Beckett to Brecht. Drawing on folk art and Polish Surrealism, Klimowski uses techniques including photomontage and linocut to create posters that are filled with metaphor, drama, and originality.

During the 1970s, when many Eastern European citizens dreamed of going West, two young students travelled the other way. They studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and, much to everyone's surprise, stayed on to make a living as artists. Behind the Curtain is a graphic novel account of their journey. In this unique collaboration, two distinctive styles interweave to tell a charming and sophisticated story of life, art, politics. Behind the Curtain is a portrait of the cultural environment that flourished against the backdrop of the harsh realities of the communist state. Behind the Curtain captures the absurdities of a time when toilet paper was worth its weight in gold, as well as the picturing the vibrant community of artists who were producing visionary theatrical productions, films, ground-breaking posters and exhibitions. It was a time when a Polish Pope was elected, Solidarity Free Trade Unions were formed and, eventually, tanks appeared in the streets.

Walter Benjamin is often considered the key modern philosopher and critic of modern art.Tracing his influence on modern aesthetics and cultural history, Introducing Walter Benjamin highlights his commitment to political transformation of the arts as a means to bring about social change.Benjamin witnessed first-hand many of the cataclysmic events of modern European history. He took a critical stance on the dominant ideologies of Marxism, Zionism and Technocracy, and his attempt to flee Nazi Europe ultimately led to his suicide in 1940.With its brilliant combination of words and images, this is an ideal introduction to one of the most elusive philosophers.