[ORANGE ALTERNATIVE] Pravda nas wyzwoli [Pravda will make us free]. Leaflet announcing a happening on November 6, 1987.
Wrocław: self-published, 1987. Card printed to recto, measuring 15 × 10.5 cm. Very good. Item #54129
Orange Alternative leaflet for a happening held in Wrocław on November 6, 1987, on the eve of the state-wide celebration of the October Revolution typically celebrated with parades. The leaflet invites the participants to come to the gathering the evening prior, wearing something red. "Put on red shoes, red hat, red scarf. If you don't even have a red wristband or other items of clothing, borrow a red bag from your neighbour. As a last resort lacking a red flag, paint your fingertips red." The police reportedly intercepted the unauthorised gathering, held a day before the actual holiday, with the chief of police screaming "get the reds!", playing unintentionally into the joke of the happening.
Pomarańczowa Alternatywa (Orange Alternative) was an originally Wroclaw-based anti-communist artist group. The movement was born out of the student protests at Wroclaw in the early 1980s, and its leader was Waldemar Fydrych (born 1953), known as "Major." The group is perhaps best known for painting little orange gnomes over Solidarity and other anti-State graffiti that had been painted over by the authorities. Never an explicitly political movement, the Orange Alternative instead fused elements of surrealism and dadaism with urban protest in the tradition of Dutch Provo and the kabouters. DIY xerox punk aesthetic, with a drawing showing a bearded male making love to a five-pronged star. See also: Happening Against Communism by the Orange Alternative, Krakow: International Cultural Centra, 2011. Monographien im polnischen Zweiten Umlauf, 0617.
Price: €150.00