On Wednesday, March 4, Galeria Format opened an exhibition dedicated to Andrzej Bobkowski, an outstanding writer associated with the Paris-based “Kultura” and author of the renowned diary “Sketches with a Quill.” The opening was attended by Joanna Podolska, a columnist for “Gazeta Wyborcza” and co-author of the exhibition, together with Agnieszka Mitkowska. She spoke about the life and work of the great writer.
The journalist encountered “Sketches with a Quill” while studying. “I was fascinated by this book because I see the world in a very similar way,” she told the IstotneInformacje.pl portal Joanna Podolska. She devoted many years to exploring the writer’s work. Following in his footsteps, she traveled to Vilnius, Paris, New York and Guatemala.
The author of “Sketches with a Quill” was a wanderer. He emigrated from Poland in 1939. He settled in Paris, from where he left for Guatemala in 1948, where he died in 1961. “In his case, his work is as fascinating as his biography; his work is, in fact, inseparably connected with his biography,” Joanna Podolska states.
Bobkowski was a nonconformist writer. “He challenged authorities and opposed stereotypes,” notes the exhibition’s co-author. One of the stereotypes he fought was the image of the patriotic Pole who is ready to die for his homeland whenever necessary. For this reason, Bobkowski was accused of cosmopolitanism. “He said that he felt Polish, but Polishness had not gone to his head. Nevertheless, he never severed himself from his roots,” the journalist emphasizes.
The columnist called Bobkowski a kind of precursor to blogging. In her view, the writer’s diary reflects the same need to preserve emotions that characterizes most bloggers.
The exhibition’s authors gathered photographs and documents from every stage of the writer’s life. It also presents excerpts from Bobkowski’s texts and statements by well-known people about his works. “We present Andrzej Bobkowski as a man, writer, epistolographer and diarist. We hope that this exhibition will inspire more people to discover his work,” says Joanna Podolska.
Although Jerzy Giedroyc himself, editor-in-chief of the Paris-based “Kultura,” considered Bobkowski one of his most important collaborators, the work of the author of “Sketches with a Quill” remains relatively little known in Poland. During his lifetime, Andrzej Bobkowski published only one book. Communist censorship prevented his works from being published. “His texts began to be published again in the 1990s,” Podolska says.
Why did the journalist devote so much time to the work of the author of “Sketches with a Quill”? “I once worked on a book about another figure. I abandoned it because the protagonist, whom I liked, turned out to be completely different from what I had thought. I also find darker sides in Bobkowski, but he never made me lose interest in him,” Joanna Podolska reveals. “He is like an open book; he is a person who is constantly on the move. That is why his texts will always remain relevant,” she adds.
The exhibition can be visited until March 28.
(GA report)