Waldemar Fydrych

Waldemar “Major” Fydrych, a legendary Polish artist, is the author of “Manifesto of Socialist Surrealism” and the founder of the Orange Alternative, one of the history's most important artistic anti-totalitarian movements, strongly influenced by surrealism and dadaism. Brad Finger's book “Surrealism: 50 works you should know” published in 2013 by Prestel Publishing placed Waldemar Fydrych's graffiti artwork in line with surrealist works of Picasso, Dali, Duchamp and Artaud.
Fydrych was born on April 8th 1953 in Toruń, Poland. He began his independent political and artistic activity in the 1970s. During Martial Law over one thousand graffiti of smiling „dwarfs” were painted by him on paint spots covering anti-regime slogans written by the anti-communist opposition on building walls, an action which he himself had called “Dialectic Art of Grand Social Forms.” He has been creating his idiosyncratic „dwarf” drawing and paintings ever since that time.

“Waldemar „Major” Fydrych possesses uncompromising courage, and this is what allows him to engage in what he considers as right at a given point of his life. His work is inherently free of any fear and any preemptive obligation that binds the majority of other artists. Anyone who know...

Double master degree in History and Art History from the University of Wrocław, Poland. In 2012, PhD in Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT
I started practicing visual art from anonymous graffiti which I painted, decades ahead of Banksy, in the toilet of my elementary school. Once I went to high school, it became more difficult to practice graffiti art in school toilets. I was too notorious and could easily be uncovered, so I moved my art to public toilets in the town. Later, during the communist regime in Poland, also anonymously, I painted graffiti of smiling gnomes/dwarfs on color spots omnipresent on building facades around the country, which were painted to cover anti-regime slogans. Altogether I made around thousand of them so, as result, they became famous.

In my paintings there is a lot of cheerfulness and humor. I endeavor to present through arts my view of the world in a rather upbeat manner. I believe that nowadays it’s more useful to act constructively and make something positive rather than keep commenting on negative aspects of our modernity.

In the process of painting, I don’t speculate whether or not I should put a beautiful spot here and an ugly one there, or ...

1988 Paintings
exhibition of oil paintings, Ostrów Tumski Cathedral, Wrocław, Poland

2002 Orange Alternative Dwarfs
exhibition of drawings, Galeria Art New Media, Warsaw

2002 Thousand Dwarfs
exposition of drawings, The Theatre of the Eighth Day, Poznań, Poland

2003 Souvenir from Wrocław
130 dwarf drawings in a joint exhibition, BWA Gallery, Wrocław, Poland

2005 Waldemar "Major" Fydrych and the Orange Alternative, European Parliament in Brussels (the first exposition about Poland after Poland's joining EU in 2004)

2005 Major Fydrych and the Orange Alternative
Center of Contemporary Art at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, shown also in Donetsk, Lviv, Dniepropietrovsk, Charkov), Ukraine

2006 Thousand Dwarfs for Warsaw
exposition of watercolors, Traffic Gallery, Warsaw, Poland

2009 Performing Revolution – Revolutionary Voices from Central and Eastern Europe in 1980s
(joint exhibition and an impromptu happening during the opening in collaboration with Reverend Billy), the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, New York, USA

2011 L’Alternative Orange - La Revolution des Nains
Centre 59 Rivoli, Paris, France

2011 La Alternativa Naranja - La Revolucion de los Gnomos
Department of Social and P...