Apparently, gays were always a pain in the ass of a polish-ed catholical society. Even today, but especially in 2007, the Polish public space and mass media portrayed them as bearers of subversive ideas. It made Karol Radziszewski thinking, “”What if we, as LGBTQ+ individuals, were a genuine threat to society?” “. As an openly gay artist, a simple question sparked inspiration in him. This led to the formation of a group called “Fag Fighters.” Their mission was twofold: to strike fear into their opponents, particularly those on the far-right, and to serve as a reflection and parody of the toxic masculinity and violence that permeate society.
To start with, Karol made his grandma sew pink balaclavas for the whole bang. She cutely didn’t understand what was going on, while he was documenting the whole process. From the very beginning, it helps to set the tone of the whole project that’s emphatically naive, and this almost cartoonish simplicity works as a great tool for a critical artistic statement like this.
As the main activity, fake fighters tracked down and punished zealous homophobes who resorted to violence during pride marches, as well as those who encouraged discrimination and direct human rights violations. The gay gang also left distinctive graffiti and symbols in public spaces, while meticulously capturing all the violations on photos and videos. Subsequently, the incidents were analyzed, and using facial recognition techniques, particularly dangerous activists were identified for the purpose of locating and punishing them in the future.
The ridiculous nature of all kinds of prohibitions and restrictions serve as a prolific background for contrafactual art practices. Continuing the experience of LGBTQ+ people in Poland, there was this special operation called “Hyacinth” in the years 1985-1987, and it felt much like an artistic project, so it deserves a special note here. So what happened was the minister of internal affairs came to an idea of how to protect sex minorities from criminals, as well as the rising AIDS problem. And to do so, they decided to collect all the data. Each big city’s police department has the order to prepare what was later called the “pink files”, making all the gay they could identify sign the so-called “card of a homosexual” and provide a list of people they’ve already had sex with.
Ironically, this operation unintentionally functioned as a rudimentary precursor to Grindr in the 1980s, connecting gay individuals with each other. A particularly poetic element of the story lies in the etymology of the name “Hyacinth.” It draws its inspiration from Hyacinthus, a Spartan prince known for his exceptional beauty, which both attracted the love and sparked the jealousy of Apollo. In a tragic twist, during a discus-throwing lesson, Apollo struck Hyacinthus, causing his death. In his grief, Apollo transformed Hyacinthus into a flower, from his blood and flesh.immortalizing his beauty in nature. It’s amazing how Polish police came up with this name.
Returning to our heroes, the “Fag Fighters,” a poignant conclusion is emerging. Conceptual shock therapy for society through contrafactual art practices might be the ideal tool for delving into sensitive issues and bridging the loneliness often experienced by those in marginalized positions.
