Originally from Vilnius, Zbyszko Siemaszko was a prominent photographer of Warsaw. He was strongly connected to the capital of Poland, producing a body of documentary works which depicted the post-war transformations of the city as well as the everyday life of its inhabitants. The exhibition was prepared for the 10th anniversary celebrations of the History Meeting House (Dom Spotkań z Historią), an urban institution devoted to promulgating the history of 20th-century Warsaw. History Meeting House also promotes the artistic heritage of both Polish and international photographers and reporters.
The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the FORUM Polish Photographers’ Agency. It honours Zbyszko Siemaszko, whose work has an important place in the history of post-war Polish photography. The curators of the exhibition are Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner from the History Meeting House and Krzysztof Wójcik from the FORUM Agency. Apart from the photographs, special materials prepared by Varsavianist scholar, Jerzy S. Majewski, also accompany the exhibition.
Siemaszko photographed Warsaw at a time when its post-war reconstruction took on a head-spinning pace, and a new burst of energy was felt after the end of the Stalinist era. The Warsaw that he depicts is a dynamic place, and a city awakening to its new life. His subject choice and deliberate aesthetisation make up a specific vision of the capital in the 50s and 60s, one which is very attractive and appealing from today’s perspective. Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner, the co-curator of the exhibition from the History Meeting House, commented:
We were fascinated by the photos of architecture taken from up above, with a great depth of field, views which were often panoramic and which depict Warsaw of the 50s and 60s in an extraordinary way. Although everything seems to be as we know it – the buildings, the streets, the city’s squares, churches, train stations and shops… still, the artist creates his own telling vision from all these elements. The selection of photographs that we proposed to display shows just how much documentary photography is something creative, what great powers it has of creating illusions as well as messages of propaganda, albeit its indirect kind. Even if it only focuses on architecture and urban planning. After all, in the 50s and 60s, the city depicted by Siemaszko must have looked different in everyday life – devoid of both the splendour and the unique light which illuminates mundane Warsaw life in his photographs. Siemaszko depicted a capital which none of its inhabitants of the period could remember, even if they were very familiar with the specific locations he portrayed. It is an idealised image. A dream about a metropolis of the era, about a new city which grew on the rubble of the old one.
The photographs concentrate on modern architecture, the topic Siemaszko took up in a reportage series for the Stolica weekly. His images depict new districts, modernist buildings, newly opened cafes and shops as well as the growingly abundant neons, cars and buses, and apartment and shop interiors with elements of design of a kind which is now again gaining new popularity. Some of the portrayed locations are Plac Konstytucji square, the Muranów housing area, Centralny Dom Towarowy, Supersam, Dworzec Gdański railway station, building of the stations on the suburban no. 1 train line, including the Warsawa Powiśle stop, and the glass pavillions at the crossing of Marszałkowska Street and Jerozolimskie Avenue.