Henryk Walezy got his bad name for the jewels, the perfume, the pearl earrings, things the Polish nobility found a touch too much, and probably would today as well. That is exactly why I like it when Radziszewski adds a queer perspective to Polish history. He takes figures we know only from monuments and turns them back into people you could get close to, maybe even like. And really, who, with Wawel for a home, would not throw a party there?
The painter
Karol Radziszewski (born 1980) is a defining figure of queer art in Poland, founder of the Queer Archives Institute and a Polityka Passport laureate. He reads Polish history through a queer lens, turning monumental figures back into people you can come close to, and his work is held by museums in Poland and abroad.