A poster for the exhibition at DOVA Temporary Gallery
The Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago is hosting an exhibition on the photographs and writings of Poland's most prominent reporter and prolific writer in the Temporary Gallery
Between 1956 and 2006 Ryszard Kapuściński, a journalist and poet, visited over 100 countries documenting wars, resistance movements and everyday life. His books were translated into 36 languages. The exhibition "Ryszard Kapuściński: The Poet of Reportage" follows the writer's life and work through a series of photographs and excerpts from his works presented against the historical background of events that he was a witness to.
The photographs displayed at the exhibition were taken by Kapuściński himself while the people in them were described by the writer in his books of reportage. The photographs are accompanied by quotations from Kapuściński's works. One excerpt comes from a special limited edition of the newsletter of Polish Press Agency (PAP) for which Kapuściński used to work. The newsletter numbered 5190 and dated for 27 June 1962 contains Kapuściński's reportage from Dar es-Salaam on the anti-colonial movement in Mozambique. Kapuściński's articles which would appear in the special editions of the PAP newsletters between 1962 and 1966 were published in 1969 in a collection of reportage "Gdyby cała Afryka" / "If All Africa".
There is also a section featuring Kapuściński's poems and his own essay on why he wrote poetry. The exhibition also presents photographs of Kapuściński taken e.g. in Toronto in 1996, in front of a house where Ernest Hemingway used to live from 1920 to 1921. The exhibition includes a section providing information on which of his books were translated, to what languages, and how they were received by political scientists and writers well-known in North America (such as one of the most remarkable Canadian writers Margaret Atwood).
The oldest preserved pictures are part of a series of photographs of the 25-year-old reporter taken in Hiroshima in 1957.
The exhibition runs between the 9th of January - 4th of February, 2012 at the DOVA Temporary Gallery in Chicago.
The exhibition is co-organised by the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Chicago and the following departments of the University of Chicago: The Center for East European and Russian / Eurasian Studies, Department of Visual Arts, DOVA (Department of Visual Arts) Temporary Gallery and The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.
"The Poet of Reportage" exhibition was arranged on commission of the Book Institute for the International Book Fair in Frankfurt in 2007. The originator and curator of the exhibition is Bożena Dudko, the writer’s secretary and archivist, who currently serves as the secretary to the Ryszard Kapuściński Prize awarded in recognition for a literary reportage.
The exhibition has already been shown in Toronto (March - April 2011), Bloomington, Indiana (October 2011), Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University (November 2011), and Warsaw on the occasion of the 6th edition of the European Development Days (December 2011). Earlier, the exhibition was also presented in Belarus: in Minsk and Pinsk, the reporter's hometown, as well as in Homel and Grodno.
DOVA Temporary Gallery
5228 S. Harper Ave
Chicago
Source: kapuscinski.info, kultura.wp.pl