Borderlands Print

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 knows Major better, understands that in his case there is no room for constraints, as he is a free man, and for many indeed an epitome of freedom, also attentive to the freedom of others.” Professor Zdzisława Ludwiniak, Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw