Groundswell Talks: Peter Fuss
Peter Fuss reclaims billboards to examine and evaluate present, socially taboo subjects. He’s been a fugitive, a critic, and many other things. Chiefly a painter these days, his work comments on politics, the relationships between religion and authority, flashy religiosity, social problems, and art.
Peter was generous enough to lend us a few minutes for an interview, after putting in some hard work on his latest project - a re-imagination of the Catholic Stations of the Cross, which forces one to think twice about perceptions of criminality.
Groundswell Collective: For our readers who aren’t as familiar with your background, can you give us a brief rundown of your life up until today?
Peter Fuss: I did many different things, many of them not even worth mentioning. Now I mainly paint. I am most known for works in acrylic paint on paper which I then illegally place in urban landscape. To do that, I use billboards which are plentiful on the streets.
GC: When painting or designing an installation, do you start by thinking about the social issue first, or do you put design first?
PF: Both design and content are important in art works. To make a piece interesting, both of these must maintain equilibrium and fit well with each other. When one of them starts dominating, the piece becomes boring. I favor work of artists who are able to balance both form and content. To me, it is not only important how an artist speaks, but most of all what he/she is actually saying. I am not excited by abstract works or excessively vivid graffiti with no message. Therefore, the starting point for my work is definitely a message, idea.
GC: You work illegally and commercially. Where do you feel most at home?
PF: I set my work in the streets because this helps me show my work to people I would never be able to reach through an art gallery. Besides, street art gives me unlimited freedom. I work when I feel like and do what I want. I don’t have to agree anything with any art gallery manager. I don’t have to keep deadlines, get my ideas assessed or consult my projects. These are the main advantages of working in urban environment. Of course, I also exhibit in galleries if I am invited. The precondition though is that no one will interfere with my vision.
My exhibition of January 2007 was shut down by the police on the second day after the opening and they seized all paintings, which haven’t been returned to me to this day.
I don’t know if that is a problem in the U.S., but in recent years Poland saw many cases of interfering with works of art on display, we’ve had interventions from the police and local authorities or
pieces being withdrawn from display by scared curators. My exhibition of January 2007 was shut down by the police on the second day after the opening and they seized all paintings, which haven’t been returned to me to this day. I was prosecuted by the police for 6 months because of the contents of the billboard I illegally posted on a fence in front of the church and the public prosecutor spoke to the press of the sanctions I could face. Then they discontinued the case as they were unable to find me.
GC: Over the past few years, you’ve worked outside of Poland, both in the scope of your work, and literally, attending more events in other countries. For the Laugh of God debuted in London, for example. What brought about the shift for you, and has it changed the way you work?
PF: Freedom to travel and taking part in events in various countries is nothing extraordinary in today’s world. I’ve lived in different places and all experiences I had surely influenced me, to a varied degree of course. But it is not a question of place where I live or interacting with different people and cultures that is decisive of the subject matter of my work – it is rather the times we live in that determines my perception of this world. The fact that Americans elected Bush has a direct impact on the life of people outside the U.S. Polish soldiers die on a war started by Bush in Iraq. Thanks to the media and the Internet, photographs of Hillary Clinton crying during the primaries are seen immediately in Poland and in Texas. The fact that Hirst exhibited his diamond skull in White Cube in London was known on the same day in Los Angeles, Kiev and Sydney.
GC: Many of the installations of yours that I’ve seen are serial. Do you set out to create a series of installations, or do you let the setting determine how far you take a concept?
PF: I don’t create series just because I feel like it. The subject matter determines it. So sometimes it takes a series and sometimes one piece is sufficient.
GC: A good deal of your work deals with the Pope. Why the fixation?
PF: It is not the fixation, it is a reaction to the reality around me. I live in Poland, Pope John Paul II was a Pole and even when he was alive the scale of his worship was really grotesque, and after his death it only intensified. Right now there are about 500 monuments of the Pope in this country. You can see the Pope’s images on mugs, ballpoints, or lighters. The cult of the Pope is a very particular mixture of hillbilly, superficial faith with a large dose of kitsch and bad taste.
The Pope is worshipped and loved by masses. But to them, he is more of an idol, a superstar than a spiritual leader, as paradoxically they know very little of his teachings or Papal encyclicals.
The cult of the Pope is a very particular mixture of hillbilly, superficial faith with a large dose of kitsch and bad taste.
People prefer to have pictures showing the Pope than Jesus Christ. They are also much more sensitive over the Pope than Christ. In Poland, it would be more acceptable to caricature or make a joke on Christ rather than the Pope. The police intervened several times during my exhibition on the Pope after they were called by people that felt offended by it.
GC: What were some of your early influences?
PF: As a young boy I lived in a country that was not independent. You couldn’t travel abroad, I even remember the period when it was not possible to travel freely between cities – to do that, you needed a special permit, which was checked by the military and the police. The state-controlled television had only two channels, the press was censored and before playing a concert, every band had to have their lyrics approved by institutions which made sure that no dissent was voiced. It was not a free country. You could go to jail for criticizing those in power. You would see “graffiti” saying people wanted freedom, that those in power cheated, that TV lied. The form was unimportant – it was the message that mattered. Those people expressed their need of freedom, they fought the system by writing politically involved slogans. It was their way to manifest their views and express their dissent against the regime. And they really risked prison.
You would see “graffiti” saying people wanted freedom, that those in power cheated, that TV lied. The form was unimportant – it was the message that mattered.
Those were my first contacts with graffiti activism. It taught me to be uncompromising and believe in the sense of manifesting myself, my beliefs and ideas. It taught me that it’s important to be true to one’s beliefs and express one’s individuality and independence, even if that might cause serious repercussions to me. Therefore, when Harring painted in the subway and Basquiat fulfilled his creativity on Brooklyn walls, I had contact with completely different type of graffiti activism
GC: Can you tell us about your most recent project?
PF: My latest project is a series of 14 billboards showing the Stations of the Cross. In the Catholic tradition (more than 90% of Polish population declare being Catholics) there is this tradition of acting out the Stations of the Cross before Easter. I posted my billboards on the Good Friday at the city train stations so people going to work would see different Stations of the Cross posted on successive train stops. But it wasn’t my goal to make people more spiritual or to promote Christianity among people.
Christ was portrayed in the same way as criminals and suspects are shown in media coverage: surname abbreviated (”Jesus Ch.”) and face shown in a way so as to make it impossible to identify the person. On one hand this reflected how the media trivialize stories of individuals, but most of all I wanted to point to the fact which many people seem to forget – that Christ was a revolutionary who challenged the existing law and order.
Nowadays, people who break the rules and challenge the law and order imposed by the system are being sentenced and imprisoned, notwithstanding the fact that Christ, who also broke the rules, is worshipped.
