A persona non grata is someone unwelcome. Teodor Bok knew what it meant to be ``unwelcome`` in one’s own country. However – is that all there is to the masterful still life composed of figures and items entitled PERSONA NON GRATA? In a thin, subtle but firm line the artist drew: a single rifle round signed KULA [BULLET]; an animal-headed silhouette on a woman’s legs, holding a shield with her right hand and a spear pointed upwards in her left hand (was it, that Bok alluded to the Greek mythology, where Medusas, Gorgons and Erinyes had coiled snakes in place of hair?); coffin with a cross signed: PERSONA NON | GRATA| W DRODZE DO WIECZNOŚCI [PERSONA NON | GRATA|ON THEIR WAY TO ETERNITY]. Nearby is a two legged striding figure without arms or head; its torso is a curled up rat whose tail-braid with a bow is hanging down the figure’s back, while at its front a pointy arrow-penis protrudes. Next to it is yet another figure on woman’s legs, in high heels, with a shield in place of a torso, around which snakes are coiling. Her womb is pierced with a spear. Below, in the centre, we see a man’s head on a wooden lid signed BOLSZEWIK [BOLSHEVIK], at the bottom near the edge – a wooden box (a latrine?) bound horizontally with two iron braces. On the right a sign: KOBIETA LEKKICH | OBYCZAJÓW | UKRYTA | W DREWNIANEJ SKRZYNI [WOMAN OF EASY | VIRTUE | HIDDEN IN A WOODEN BOX]; in the centre – a well, and a winged figure climbing out of it, signed: ANIOŁ W STUDNI [ANGEL IN A WELL]. Near the bottom edge some smaller figures; on the left – a turtle (?), and on the right – a striped creature with huge mouth holding an egg inside it, signed: JAJOŻERCA [EGGEATER].
War (the allusions to which are very clear), weaponry, death. According to Bok, the persona non grata can as well be a Bolshevik as a woman of easy virtue, an eggeater and an angel. Everyone who does not fit, who does not accept the adopted standards and arrangements, can be one. This is yet another work dominated by irony and (very) harsh humour.
Renata Piątkowska
