Różewicz. Without Text
temporary exhibition
15 December 2017 –11 March 2018
opening: Friday, 15 December 2017, 5 PM
Pan Tadeusz Museum
Rynek 6, Wrocław
admission: free
The newest exhibition at the Pan Tadeusz Museum presents a close-to-life self-portrait of Tadeusz Różewicz, sketched in several films comprising the poet’s statements about himself, and about the meaning – and lack thereof – of writing.
Tadeusz Różewicz rarely gave interviews and was reluctant to appear on television. He used to say directly that he feels manipulated by the media. In his poem Fame he made fun of the efforts of journalists who call him ‘with one question’, and end up asking three. This is why we have few poet’s own commentaries about his work. He preferred to remain hidden behind poems, dramas, prose, in which the reader was supposed to find everything that the author intended to tell. The Pan Tadeusz Museum follows this spirit in an exhibition Różewicz. Without Text, which presents the author privately, „without text”. Not through his poems and dramas, but without their cover. The exhibition provides a self-commentary on Różewicz’s life and work and a presentation of his opinions about popular culture, contemporary media, sports, travel, readers, the meaning of writing… and lack thereof, old age, dying, or even the future of the world in the 21st century.
The exhibition includes three films combined of short, often aphoristic commentaries which reveal Różewicz’s lesser known face: of a humorous, ironic, sometimes snarky and well-oriented in popular culture. Additionally, a fourth film will present the comments from critics, literature historians and friends. Różewicz, who died three years ago, is and will be constantly recalled through his plays staged in theatres and through his poetry books. But he will be also gradually forgotten as someone who lived next to his readers, in the same city, on the next street, sharing problems with other people – says Mariusz Urbanek, curator of the exhibition.
The exhibition is also yet another stage of a permanent exhibition dedicated to the life and work of the poet, prepared by the Pan Tadeusz Museum. The exhibition will comprise manuscripts, archives and memorabilia purchased by the Commune of Wrocław and donated to Ossolineum. Part of the donation will be presented at the Różewicz. Without Text exhibition. In accord with the title, it won’t include manuscripts, notebooks and books, but objects of daily use – things which he kept on his desk, on the walls, in ‘treasure boxes’. Among them, we will find a portrait of the poet’s mother, paintings by Jerzy Nowosielski and Kazimierz Mikulski, a collection of minerals and small trinkets.
As a part of preparations for opening a permanent exhibition dedicated to Tadeusz Różewicz, Pan Tadeusz Museum has already held several events based on the educational and exhibitional value of materials from the poet’s archive: an academic session with Różewicz experts and Ossolineum staff, workshops and lectures for the audience, temporary exhibition Stankiewicz – Różewicz – Stankiewicz, dedicated to cooperation between Tadeusz Różewicz and Eugeniusz Get Stankiewicz (photographed by Janusz Stankiewicz), and the Festival of Literary Traditions, which presented the works on Adam Mickiewicz and Tadeusz Różewicz in new, yet unexplored contexts.
Opening of the Różewicz. Without text exhibition is planned for 15 December, 5 PM.
All films at the exhibition are screened in Polish only.
curator: Mariusz Urbanek
media patronage: TVP 3 Wrocław, Gazeta Wrocławska, Teatralia, Książka.net.pl
partner: Art Mediations Department of the Wrocław Academy of Arts, Institute of Polish Philology, University of Wrocław, E. Wierciński Contemporary Theatre in Wrocław
Project co-financed by the Commune of Wrocław / www.wroclaw.pl
