Hi,

This week, it's a bumper edition! There's a look back at the recent Marek & Andrzej exhibition openings, a final Andrzej competition update, and also some Agata Bogacka news.

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The Marek exhibition is now on!

The other week on Friday 15th September, I had the pleasure of attending the opening of the new Marek exhibition at CSW Toruń in Toruń.

Loads of people turned up. Even though the exhibition space is massive, it was often difficult to get a moment to see the artwork. My wife and I came back the next day to actually take our time and enjoy it.

There are over 250 artworks on display apparently, which makes it the largest Marek exhibition ever put on. That's pretty damn cool. It also features a wide gamut of his work from different periods and really gives you a sense of the range of stuff he did and was interested in over the decades. Also very cool.

Official photos from the opening

There were several professional photos posted on Facebook and on the Toruń official city website. If you click one of the images below, you'll be taken to the sources where each comes from and a much larger gallery of images.

You can also watch the official opening speeches in full, since they were also livestreamed and recorded.

Reviews of the exhibition...

I can't find much coverage unfortunately (more on this later...) other than local promotional outlets, like this one, so a lot of it seems to be promotion of the various officials involved, not just the art. Here's UMK's own press release. The promos I found included a short radio interview with the head of the Toruń collection (yes, also in Polish).

Of what I could find that was independent, I enjoyed art critic Agnieszka Gniotek's review on her Instagram. If you don't read Polish, here's my favourite snippet:

This Toruń exhibition is worth seeing. It emanates a colour and freshness that's untypical of respectable shows. Somehow, our art still drips with the colour of depression, but Żuławski's painting radically distances itself from this trend.

There's also a review on Instagram by Kaja Orysiak, an art conservator and family friend (though I like to think she's still impartial 😁). Here's a snippet from her, also translated by me:

I'm posting my favorites from the exhibition here and you can immediately see their diversity. Emotion-filled portraits, sensual nudes, delicious-looking fruits, sentimental landscapes, and charming animal sketches.

My personal take

I'm no gallery expert, but I found the exhibition extremely impressive. I had already seen most of the works included, obviously, but I loved seeing them again in this new spacious context. I generally love CSW Toruń as a building and as a venue for the arts.

I really liked the decision to make the walls either red or black to make the paintings pop out (a hallmark of curator Kasia Moskała) and I found it enlightening how similar works were grouped together. Some of Marek's depictions of Jesus were all gathered in one dark room, for example, which made the theme more striking. (Here's a Facebook post just about this section by the religious fan page lekcjareligii.pl).

There was also a collection of photographs that weren't all familiar to me. I especially liked this one:

Unfortunately, there were a couple of cons amongst all the aspects I loved. For example, I found it almost comical how they had put outside the entrance to the exhibition rooms a full-on Poland: First to Fight onslaught - his most famous poster plastered dozens of times on one wall. It's overwhelming, especially since the image and its phrase, for better or worse, has become part of contemporary political discourse. I was amused and unsurprised when I noticed one person see the wall and exclaim "O Boźe!" (Dear Lord!). The poster, nor any of his early poster work, is included in the exhibition itself, so it also seemed unrepresentative of what was in store for visitors.

I'm also disappointed so little thought was put into English-language promotion for the exhibition. For example, the venue only published its English-language press release about the exhibition on the day of the opening, which rendered it pointless in terms of attracting people from abroad or any random visiting tourists for the big day. Since Marek lived in the UK for nearly 50 years, this seems like an odd and confusing omission.

Generally, most of the promotion that did happen has been on Facebook too, which I simply do not enjoy using. And they were all organic posts, so they were unlikely to get many eyeballs thanks to the platform's merciless preference for paid ads. I don't think many journalists from outside of Toruń were invited either, since, as you can see earlier from what I collected, there are hardly any reviews online. This decision too has left me scratching my head.

BUT none of these qualms detract from the actual exhibition. They are all superfluous from what's inside.

It is a show genuinely worth seeing and highly enjoyable, and I'm proud that it's on 💗

If you're still on the fence, just go. The weather in Poland should still be decent for the next few weeks before the cold weather kicks in. I highly recommend visiting Toruń if you have the chance. It's one of the most picturesque and history-filled cities in Poland, so the exhibition is really just the cherry on top at the moment.

...and Andrzej has an exhibition too! 😎

Plus, as mentioned in the last TM newsletter, the Marek exhibition is paired with a small exhibition of photographs from the making of 3 of Andrzej's films. It's small but packed with intriguing imagery. I was a little confused that it had the trailer for Kuba Mikurda's documentary about On The Silver Globe on a loop on a TV in the corner, rather than trailers for the actual films the exhibition was about, but I'm sure Kuba will be happy.

The exhibition is being shown alongside screenings in the building's little cinema. This weekend they are screening The Devil, and next weekend it's The Third Part of The Night.

But you don't need to go to Toruń to enjoy these movies in high quality, my friend - just enter this month's ongoing competition! More about that at the end of the newsletter.

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Agata Bogacka new book & event

Looking at Instagram for Marek stuff, I also found that my cousin Agata Bogacka has a new book about her artworks coming out called Agata Bogacka: Paintings 2016-2022.

The book launch is this weekend and part of the big annual art fest Warsaw Gallery Weekend. The event features her in conversation with the famed art curator Anda Rottenberg. I assume it will be in English since all the promo for it is in English and WGW generally tries to court an international audience.

In case you're unaware of her work, Agata is a highly-lauded contemporary painter who has had several exhibitions outside of Poland, including London, Budapest and Berlin. Her Instagram account is the only place you can really keep up with official announcements like this event (or her recent Vogue cover).

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Last few days to win an Andrzej boxset!

You have until midnight on Saturday (or, let's be honest, whenever I look at the results on Sunday morning) to get people signed up to this mailing list.

In case you missed it, I'm giving away three copies of the new Andrzej Żuławski box set this month. To win one, you have to use your personalised link at the bottom of this email to entice people you know to sign up to receive the Translating Marek newsletter.

There can only be 3 winners, so the current leaderboard is looking pretty damn exciting to me (you can check the leaderboard for yourself at the bottom of your "Share now" page):

If you're one of the new readers tricked into signing up by a so-called friend, welcome and my sincere apologies. You can enter too though - just follow the instructions in your personalised link at the bottom of this newsletter.

I will be in touch with the final winners next week to find out where to send you your prizes.

Again, that "Share now" button is just below 👇

That's enough for this week, surely. Thanks for reading, my patient and courteous friend.

Adam

Adam Zulawski

TranslatingMarek.com / Other stuff