The Fence of Hatred – an art project by Hubert Czerepok

 

It will comprise a steel fence which — instead of conventional rails or ornaments – will be composed of hate speech phrases copied from Polish buildings, engraved in metal. The artist will put them one on another and weave them together – until the readability and the message carried by the phrases wear off and they are annihilated. 

 

This is yet another Czerepok’s project in which he uses text. Since 2009, the artist has produces neons based on contents from mass media and pop culture, which he elevates to the status of symbols. The artist’s first work of this kind was the neon “You will never be Polish!” accompanied by the symbol of Polish Anchor and a Celtic cross, which the artist produced in response to the slogan from football stadiums “Roger, you will never be Polish”.

Hubert Czerepok is a visual artist and a lecturer at the Szczecin Academy of Art where he is the head of the Experimental Film Workshop. He graduated from the University of Arts in Poznań and completed post-graduate programmes at the Royal Academy for Fine Arts (Antwerp) and Jan van Eyck Academy (Maastricht). He has presented his works in salon exhibitions, inter alia in Labirynt Art Gallery in Lublin, Arsenał Art Gallery in Białystok, Art Stations Foundation in Poznań, La Criee Centre d’Art Contemporain in Rennes. The artist has presented his works as part of collective exhibitions as well, for instance during the 19th Biennale in Sydney, International Sculpture Quadriennale in Riga, as well as in Art Museum in Łódź, Contemporary Art Museum MOCAK in Cracow, and Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw.