Six months ago, Ignacy Czwartos won the opportunity of a lifetime. A politically conservative painter whose work contains religious, historical and military images, Czwartos was an outsider in the contemporary art scene in Poland. After liberal, centrist and moderately conservative political parties formed a new government in Poland, they quickly dropped Czwartos as the country’s Venice representative. Instead, the new culture minister announced that he would send Open Group, a Ukrainian collective, to the Biennale instead. The decision, made with little explanation, “was an act of political censorship,” Czwartos said, adding that the Polish government had acted like a totalitarian state.

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Persons: Ignacy Czwartos, Czwartos, ” Czwartos, “ Organizations: Law, Justice Party, Venice Biennale, Open Locations: Poland, Venice, Ukrainian