Second edition of "Printers and Romances”
- 17 December 2022–28 February 2023
- included in the price of the ticket for the permanent exhibitions
The Printers and Romances exhibition accompanies the Year of Polish Romanticism, i.e. the bicentenary of the publication of Adam Mickiewicz’s volume of poetry with the famous Ballads and Romances at Józef Zawadzki’s printing house in Vilnius. Zawadzki’s company released works in the spirit of Enlightenment, with ambitions to explore and describe the world. In 1822, he also published a literary bomb – Mickiewicz' s debut. The historical artifacts presented at the exhibition are being confronted with works by contemporary artist Piotr Bosacki. The dilemma between feeling and believing and the eye and the glass featured in the Romanticism ballad proves to be surprisingly current.
In the exhibition we can see portraits of Mickiewicz himself, lost in reflection on the rock of Judah, with books, or as a young man with flowing hair and wearing a Byron-style collar. These images have sunk into the collective consciousness, shaping expectations of what a Romantic should look like. There is no image of Józef Zawadzki in the exhibition, which symbolically confirms that printers are honoured less than poets.
Archive exhibition
