Dorota Nieznalska

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 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.

[1] Members of the nationalist youth group Młodzież Wszechpolska threatened to "hang such artists" and "shave their heads, like the Home Army did with women who were in close relationships with [the] Germans"[12] 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.

An unsigned editorial in Poland's Anglophone monthly The Warsaw Voice, summing up the court case shortly after the initial verdict as a battle between the left and right - albeit "the first of its kind" for modern Poland - treated Nieznalska as "a tasteless provocateur, covering up her lack of genuine talent with shock tactics" and cited the opinion of Franciszek Starowieyski, "one of the best-known Polish sculptors, himself rather partial to unconventional works", who "said before the beginning of the lawsuit that the one to blame was not the novice artist but the curator of the Gdańsk gallery.

"[13] An opinion piece by Andrzej Osęka for the liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza compared the Nieznalska case to the 2005 Jyllands-Posten controversy in Denmark, noting that whereas the Danish newspaper suffered no legal consequences on account of its publication of a cartoon deliberately offensive to the Muslim faith in spite of loud outcries from Muslim communities around the world, Nieznalska's case had resulted in a campaign of legal intimidation because of poor legislation and the judges' deference to the politicians.

[14] 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.

[7] Two former Wyspa staff - curator Aneta Szylak and director Grzegorz Klaman, Nieznalska's former instructor - wrote that while "[s]ince the times of Plato, the academy [had been] a place for intellectual and artistic discourse", the principle "was broken when the gallery closed... Because she had the courage to show 'Pasja', Nieznalska had her scholarships and subsidies cut off; she has been stigmatized and censored... A spectacular political sham is [the League of Polish Families'] typical marketing strategy, and the judge acted just like they wanted him to.