Dorota Nieznalska

Dorota Alicja Nieznalska (born 19 September 1973) is a Polish visual artist and sculptor.

Nieznalska's controversial installation Pasja (2002), which included the placement of an image of the penis upon a metal Greek cross, resulted in a notable scandal, as the display was condemned as immoral and blasphemous by Polish conservative Catholics. The group exhibition at which the installation was presented was closed down by the authorities, while Nieznalska herself faced legal charges on account of an alleged violation of a provision of the Polish criminal code prohibiting blasphemy.

The sculptor was successful in fighting off the blasphemy conviction following the favorable ruling of an appeals court in 2009.

Early life

Dorota Alicja Nieznalska was born to a devout family in Gdańsk in 1973. Raised in the Gdańsk-Gdynia–Sopot Tricity area, Nieznalska was educated at an art high school in Gdynia Orłowo. Nieznalska enrolled at Gdańsk's Academy of Fine Arts as a student of sculpture in 1993, a year after making her first solo exhibition in her native city. Nieznalska graduated from the academy in 1999 and exhibited a number of student works (Insemination, 1997; The Pleasure Principle, 1998; Absolution, 1999) in the 1990s. She subsequently participating in three major exhibitions in Gdańsk, Warsaw, and Białystok in 2000 and 2001.

Pasja (2002) Blasphemy charges were levelled against Nieznalska after an exhibition featuring the 2002 work Pasja ("Passion"), an artistic installation concerned with the themes of masculinity and suffering. Behind the cross, the viewer's attention was drawn to a large video, its display projecting from an overhead angle the face and shoulders of a grimacing man in the act of weight-lifting. Complaints about Pasja led to Nieznalska's being summoned to report to the local police on 2 March 2002. The city's rightist municipal councilors quickly closed the exhibition while the young artist, insisting that her intention was to focus on "the cult of the male body", became the defendant of a trial concerning Nieznalska's alleged violation of the criminal code.

At the conclusion of the first legal process in 2003, the court found Nieznalska guilty of "offending religious feelings", a violation of the ban on blasphemy within Article 196 of the criminal code. The court ordered Nieznalska to perform six months of unpaid community service. The Adam Mickiewicz University art historian Pawel Leszkowicz compared Nieznalska to Alicja Zebrowska and Katarzyna Kozyra, two other female artists attacked for immoral works in the 1990s. The Gazeta Wyborcza hailed the decision as "a toast to freedom." Polish reports denied that Nieznalska would be subjected to a third trial, emphasizing the acquittal as binding.